First, there are other books that cover certain topics much more in depth, such as characterization (see Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer), point of view (see Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint), description (Monica Wood's Description), story and structure (James Scott Bell's Plot & Structure and Donald Maass's books), revision ( Self-Editing for Fiction Writers), etc. There are limitations to the book, however. The main focus of the book is literary fiction and is admittedly biased against genre fiction with a convincing reason: "whereas writing literary fiction can teach you how to write good genre fiction, writing genre fiction does not teach you how to write good literary fiction." She further draws a comparison between realism and drawing of still life in painting, which analogy I found to be pretty compelling. The contemporary short stories at the end of each chapter were really good, especially starting from Chapter 4 with "Mule Killers" by Lydia Peelle.
Used by creative writing programs all over the U.S., this book pretty much covers everything about the craft.
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