As I writer, I was psyched to read THE BREAKOUT NOVELIST by the great Donald Maass who is a giant in the publishing industry. This book has so much information in it, you may want to just nibble your way through, as there is too much information to consume large chunks in one sitting. Mr. Maass covers literally everything. He covers your basic building blocks first, such as character and premise, time and place. Then he moves on and elaborates on each element: "Protagonist vs. Heroes," "Scenes That Can't Be Cut" and "Tension All The Time," just to name a few of the sections contained in this book. Lastly, he covers the actual process of getting published from getting an agent to negotiating a contract. And of course, there are large sections of exercises to help you tweak your writing.

Now, I had The Fire in Fiction by the same author and I was disappointed to find that whole sections of this hardcover, spiral-bound book were verbatim from his other book. The thing I found most helpful were all the comprehensive exercises included throughout the text. Basically, he included the workbook from one of his other works as well.

Now, it's not bad news, really, this book is great, it will definitely hang out on my shelf (or, more realistically, on my desk) as a reference. The Fire in Fiction is great, but I kinda wish I didn't own two copies of it now! My advice is: if you're looking for a great writing book, here it is. If you already own The Fire in Fiction, I'd hesitate and maybe buy the workbook he has available instead. BUT if you don't own any Donald Maass books, this is the one to get!