TL;DR
7/10. The broadest Writer’s Digest compilation, surveying the whole of fiction craft, character, plot, structure, viewpoint, dialogue, revision, from many expert contributors. Genuinely useful as a beginner’s map of the territory, but covering everything means each element gets only a survey. A sampler and starting point, not a deep course in any one skill.
Crafting Novels & Short Stories is the broadest of Writer’s Digest’s compilation volumes, an anthology that gathers material from many authors and craft books to cover, in a single fat volume, essentially the whole of fiction writing: character, plot, structure, viewpoint, dialogue, revision, and more. It is the all-in-one option among the compilations, and reviewing it means weighing the appeal of comprehensiveness against the inevitable shallowness that comes with trying to cover everything at once.
For a beginning writer who wants one book that touches every major element of craft, the breadth is genuinely attractive, a single purchase that surveys the entire field.
The everything-in-one-place appeal
The book’s strength is exactly its scope. It gathers strong material on the full range of fiction fundamentals from many experienced contributors, so a new writer gets exposure to character building, plotting, structure, point of view, scene construction, dialogue, and revision all between two covers, each from a writer with real expertise in that area. As an orientation to the whole landscape of craft, a map of what a fiction writer needs to learn, it does a real service, and the contributor model means each topic comes from someone who knows it rather than from one generalist stretching across all of it.
Keep reading
Building a craft library: which books to start with — where an all-in-one survey like this fits among the focused books worth owning.
The cost of covering everything
The unavoidable trade-off is depth. A single volume covering all of fiction craft can give each element only a survey, so a writer serious about any one area, dialogue, structure, character, will quickly outgrow the relevant chapters and need a dedicated book. The compilation format compounds this: assembled from separate sources, it has the same unevenness and lack of progressive coherence as its sibling volumes, a collection of good pieces rather than a unified course. It is a sampler, excellent for discovering what you need to study next, limited as a place to study it deeply.
Keep reading
Story structure: the architecture every novel needs — one element this survey introduces, treated in the depth a single subject deserves.
The novel-and-short-story question
One more honest note: the title promises both novels and short stories, but the two forms have genuinely different demands, the short story’s compression and single effect versus the novel’s sustained architecture, and a single survey volume can only gesture at the distinction rather than treat each form’s specific craft in depth. A writer focused specifically on the short story will find the coverage thin on what makes that form unique, and is better served by a book devoted to it.
Verdict
It is a useful, comprehensive orientation to fiction craft, genuinely valuable for a beginner who wants one book mapping the whole territory from expert contributors. It loses ground for the inevitable shallowness of covering everything, the anthology format’s unevenness, and a title that promises more form-specific depth than a survey can deliver. Buy it as a first overview and a guide to what to study next; do not expect it to teach any single element deeply. A solid sampler of the craft, best as a starting point rather than a destination.
Explore the hub
The Writing Hub — the full range of fiction craft, gathered in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Crafting Novels & Short Stories?
The broadest Writer’s Digest compilation, an anthology gathering material from many authors to cover the whole of fiction writing, character, plot, structure, viewpoint, dialogue, revision, in a single volume.
What is its main strength?
Scope. It surveys every major element of fiction craft from expert contributors, giving a new writer exposure to the entire landscape in one book, with each topic coming from someone who knows it rather than one generalist.
What is the trade-off?
Depth. Covering everything means each element gets only a survey, so a writer serious about any one area will outgrow the relevant chapters and need a dedicated book. The compilation format adds the usual unevenness and lack of coherence.
Does it cover short stories well?
Only at a survey level. Novels and short stories have genuinely different demands, and a single broad volume can gesture at the distinction but not treat the short story’s specific craft in depth. A form-focused book serves the short-story writer better.
Who should read it?
Beginning writers who want one book mapping the whole territory of fiction craft, as a first overview and a guide to what to study next, rather than a place to study any single element deeply.
