I didn't finish this, but only because I'm going to come back to it. It looks like it has plenty of good, practical tips. But I need to focus on reading and writing stories and not reading about writing stories. ( )

This is my new favorite book on writing! ( )

This is my new favorite book on writing! ( )

I got alot out of this book. (at least I think I did) ( )

I found The Fire in Fiction to be helpful only in delineating things I've previously discovered and wished I'd known earlier. Perhaps it even has helped me hone in on the target in some areas I tend to slack off in and I would have loved to have read this five years ago before I did all the research that helped me see the targets the first time.

What it is most insightful of is that it encompasses the mind of a literary agent and what this one likes and expects from his authors. And perhaps some bit of unintentional verification of something I have long suspected. They really do like purple prose as long as it is purple prose that helps develop the unique character that is integral to the story. There's a lot of it in these example that he critiques.

That leads us to the problem that resides in the pages. This book is a serial compilation of critiques or reviews of what appear to be this authors favorite authors. And I would agree with others that it serves little purpose other than to pat the backs of these authors and fill the pages. Much of what is said here could be condensed and I would expect that to be the first thing that would be recognized by a literary agent when editing this whether it is self edited or otherwise. ( and it would be insane to self edit in this context).

Something that would have been helpful is examples of what went wrong amidst all the what went right.

And at least twice we were told certain things could not be covered here as they would take too much time and space which becomes ridiculous when one considers that 100 pages of this could have been eliminated by narrowing down all of the favorable reviews.

The reason I gave this four stars is that it doesn't deserve five and I am taking enough out of it to rate it higher than three.

I definitely recommend this to any author as a refresher on what works for some of this agents favorite writers. There is much to take away and I would also recommend it to the Forums and writers groups who always claim they are helping each other meet the requirements of an agent. This might help them focus a bit on the real as opposed to their preconceived notions.

It's also engaging and entertaining despite the bloat of examples.

J.L. Dobias ( )