text: This book has major shortcomings; Stein's obsession with character over plot, for one (Martin Amis said, "I used to sneer at plot until I wrote a novel that had one, titled NIGHT TRAIN. It was HARD and I used stay awake at night hoping I wasn't leaving any holes."), another being his obsession with "show don't tell" (Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA is probably the greatest novel of the 1980's and it's almost entirely "tell" and very little "show.") And the passages Stein includes from his own novels as examples of good writing were actually examples of terrible writing! (A taxi "disengorging" its passengers is categorically bad writing.) And Stein admits he rejected Frederick Forythe's THE DAY OF THE JACKAL. I wouldn't read a book by Dick Rowe about how to make it in the music business (Rowe famously rejected the Beatles from Decca Records). Stein excuses himself that he was going by only an outline, but then Rowe was going by just a demo tape. Better writing books are out there
  