[.ca] The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the ... (ISBN 0375755586)

One of the Best Writing Books I've Read:
As a professional writer for over 25 years, I've read many writing books. The Modern Library Writer's Workshop by Stephen Koch is one of the best I've read. Although the subtitle of the book is A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, this is a book every writer who is serious about writing needs to read. Story is a critical element of nonfiction as well as fiction. Unlike many how-to-write authors, Koch avoids taking the superficial, fill-in-the blank approach. His chapters include Beginnings, The Writing Life, Shaping the Story, Making Characters Live, Inventing Your Style, the Story of the Self, Working and Reworking, and Finishing. The pages of this book are filled with ideas that helped me to look at my writing with new insight. If you can afford only one writing book, this is the one to buy.

Best Book on Writing I have ever read:
This is the best self-help writing guide I have ever read, and I have read many. Practical advice with the essential theme: Just do it! got me kick-started in various of my writing projects.

An Outstanding Creative Writing Course Between Covers:
I doubt that any university program offers a creative writing course as interesting, comprehensive, and heartfelt as what Professor Koch has given us between covers here. This is a truly outstanding book. If you're thinking about writing fiction, don't hesitate to buy it.

A book of great usefulness:
I am one of those people who has been writing things for years but never got serious enough to write an actual story. Well, recently I got serious enough. I checked out a stack of writing books from the library as well as pulled out what I already had at home. There was a lot of good advice in these books. But Koch's book described the inner problems I had that were preventing me from progressing, and did so consistenly. It's one of those books that you read and find yourself nodding in agreement as a grin spreads across your face. This book has done more for me in a shorter period of time than any other writing book I've read. My weaknesses were exposed as a common problem of would-be writers, not something wrong with me alone. Though there is no magic formula (and Koch offers none) to apply it's good to know that if you apply yourself diligently enough there is no reason why you can't write that great piece.

A Readable Collection, and More:
This volume is a readable collection of the wisdom and witticisms of many writers and writing teachers on the craft of fiction. The author, an accomplished teaching professional and writer, also provides his own thoughts, and organizes it all into easily digestible -- and inspirational -- form. It deserves a place on the shelf next to Gardner's volumes, and has such a place on mine.