Reviews

Conflict, Action, and Suspense by William Noble

crystalita10's review against another edition

2.0

Solid beginning, but most of it was too easy for my level.

bittersweet_symphony's review against another edition

2.0

It is part of a great series (Elements of Fiction Writing): however, it fell short of my expectations. I read Characters and Viewpoints, by Orson Scott Card, and loved it. This was a let down. Although I learned new techniques and gained insights, it was redundant and chalk-full or writing examples, used to prove points, that were of sub-par quality themselves. I have not read any of Noble's fiction, but based on this book and the examples he included, I doubt I would be very impressed.

Again, some knowledge can be gleaned from this book, but it does not include enough material to warrant a nearly 200 page treatment. Don't let this book steer you away from the series.

beecycling's review against another edition

2.0

I got as far as chapter 10 of this, but didn't finish. I just lost confidence in the writer, because of a couple of annoying errors I found when he cited examples from books. Like he referred to Gatsby and "Dolly". Well unless that's a different Gatsby than the obvious one, that should be Daisy. Okay, so that could have been a typo, I let it pass. Until I came to where he started talking about Sherlock Holmes' "curious incident of the dog in the night" time and referring to that as being in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Well it's not, it's in Silver Blaze - one of the stories in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection.

At that point I just started to wonder about the various other examples cited and how many of them might be wrong and though I tried to read on, I found I just wasn't buying anything else he was saying, so sorry, dumped. Whether he hadn't actually read the books he was citing or misremembered and didn't double check, either way he just lost me, I couldn't take him seriously any more.

aira_reads's review against another edition

5.0

It's not a thick book but it's a dense one so it's easy for me to carry around and read.

jenniferworrell's review against another edition

3.0

This book is very accessible and brings up some good points. Good for keeping you on track. However, some of it seems obvious, like not making a novel action-packed from beginning to end. I was hoping for more details on the actual writing, like what makes the actual prose suspenseful? What's exciting to me as the writer may not translate that way to the reader, since I can't control what they're seeing.

oliviacornwell's review against another edition

3.0

A good discussion on integrating plenty of tension in your stories to keep readers hooked, and how it's important in all aspects of writing (characters, setting, endings, etc.).