Scan barcode
henrismum's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
3.0
Non-fiction
Audiobook (All of my entries on The Story Graph are audiobooks.)
Why I added this book to my TBR pile: To benefit my ongoing learning.
Will I read more by this author / about this subject?Probably Not Maybe Definitely
It's ongoing and there are lots of authors in the book to follow.
The narrators were: Joan Walker and Malk Williams (yes, Malk). They were both good.
Source: San Francisco Library
Audiobook (All of my entries on The Story Graph are audiobooks.)
Why I added this book to my TBR pile: To benefit my ongoing learning.
Will I read more by this author / about this subject?
It's ongoing and there are lots of authors in the book to follow.
The narrators were: Joan Walker and Malk Williams (yes, Malk). They were both good.
Source: San Francisco Library
Last Book of the Year 2023
losthitsu's review
4.0
Interesting even if one has no crime-writing ambitions. My only complaint is with the audio, where there is no tangible separation between the individual essays and Edwards' commentary (both narrated by the same male voice) and I found myself struggling to tell where the essays end. An extra narrator would have been ideal, but even a simple signal or beep or anything would have made this so much easier to understand.
mockingjayreads's review
2.0
Whatever nuggets or pearls of wisdom that are in here are heavily weighed down by navel gazing and pretentious sales pitches, I ended up hate reading this at some parts. There's not a lot of good stuff here and it's about 400 pages too long
swalls95's review
3.0
A “behind the scenes” look at writing crime fiction from members of The Detection Club; a group of prolific and some, quite famous, crime writers.
Some useful hints and tips for any crime writers and I find it intriguing how crime writers construct their novels and how much thought goes into creating one.
3*
Some useful hints and tips for any crime writers and I find it intriguing how crime writers construct their novels and how much thought goes into creating one.
3*
lilifane's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
Not really what I had expected, and kind of boring for the most part.
It's basically a book full of short essays about writing crime fiction (or thrillers, or action... or adventure... or writing in general) by a lot of crime and thriller authors. Although it covered many aspects of the writing process, most of it was superficial (due to the shortness of the texts) and very repetitive. So there were texts about constructing plot, crating characters, choosing a setting, topic, etc... but the advice can be summarized to: Research, observe, talk with experts/locals/humans and write it down. Wow. The authors referred a lot to their own books, but didn't usually go into details. I think I would have enjoyed more of the essays if I had read books from these authors. But... I haven't heard from most of them before.
There were a few essays I really really liked. Especially towards the end with topics like imposter syndrome, writer's block or publishing. It's really cool that these were also included in this collection. Although, the section about using social media as an author made me chuckle a lot.
It's basically a book full of short essays about writing crime fiction (or thrillers, or action... or adventure... or writing in general) by a lot of crime and thriller authors. Although it covered many aspects of the writing process, most of it was superficial (due to the shortness of the texts) and very repetitive. So there were texts about constructing plot, crating characters, choosing a setting, topic, etc... but the advice can be summarized to: Research, observe, talk with experts/locals/humans and write it down. Wow. The authors referred a lot to their own books, but didn't usually go into details. I think I would have enjoyed more of the essays if I had read books from these authors. But... I haven't heard from most of them before.
There were a few essays I really really liked. Especially towards the end with topics like imposter syndrome, writer's block or publishing. It's really cool that these were also included in this collection. Although, the section about using social media as an author made me chuckle a lot.
bob_muller's review
3.0
There are some interesting (but very short) perspectives in this collection, but overall it's hardly a masterclass. It's kind of like a panel session with 100 panelists vying for their little bit of time on the mike and no audience questions allowed. One might find a small treasure buried in it (I did in William Ryan's piece on writing scenes), but you have to dig.
More...