Reviewed by Carla Trueheart for Readers' Favorite

Whether you’re a beginner writer or a master, there is something for you inside Mike Klaassen’s Fiction-Writing Modes: Eleven Essential Tools for Bringing Your Story to Life. The book is expertly formatted and includes just about everything a novice or professional writer might need broken down into eleven modes. Each chapter opens with a list of forthcoming topics, such as Advancing Plot Through Dialogue: facial expressions, gestures, and movement. Other topics addressed include Sensation and Emotion (strong verb use, adverbs and adjectives, character reactions, setting, emotional journey and more), how to use introspection and recollection, how to advance the plot through action, and how to use attributions in dialogue. While the beginner writer will note unfamiliar terms such as exposition, stimulus-response order, scene and sequel, adverbs of attribution, and obtrusive narration, the seasoned writer will hone their skills through reminders of strong verb usage, connotation and denotation, and use of transitions. Because so much is covered in Fiction-Writing Modes: Eleven Essential Tools for Bringing Your Story to Life, the book will be a splendid addition to any writer’s library.

In addition to providing the eleven writing modes, author Mike Klaassen uses writing examples to illustrate each topic covered in the book. No writing tool is mentioned without a follow-up example so writers get a sense of the ultimate goal. Also, the book covers punctuation, which is something many writing books do not include. Punctuation and grammar are important parts of the writing process, especially during editing and revision. The book concludes with a Glossary of Fiction-Writing Terms, which sums up the terms used in the book. I highly recommend Fiction-Writing Modes: Eleven Essential Tools for Bringing Your Story to Life to anyone interested in becoming a writer or polishing their writing skills.