A review by hissingpotatoes
The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch

Did not finish book.

0.5

It's never promising when the blurb sounds super pretentious. Unfortunately for this book that vibe continued to the max inside as well. I can't overstate how much almost every sentence oozes it. The author talks about himself in the highest terms and name/location drops all over the place. He claims "to assemble and integrate...something like a consensus among writers about the basics of their craft," which is hilarious because if you ask five writers for advice you'll get ten different responses. In the introduction he makes a point to say he has "merrily disregarded every distinction between highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow taste" as if he's some benevolent writing god and then proceeds to name specific authors he clearly thinks fall into one of those brows (but he doesn't distinguish, so it's not elitist!). The first sentence of chapter one is "The only way to begin is to begin, and begin right now," and the word "begin" is repeated even after that in a long-winded paragraph that says very little and sets the stage for how the rest of the book's advice will be presented. Not for me.