Solutions for Writers: Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Non-Fiction by Sol Stein
Published 1999 · 409 pages · 88,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Essays & Criticism, Writing & Publishing
How hard is Solutions for Writers: Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Non-Fiction to read?
Solutions for Writers: Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Non-Fiction scores 25 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Stein writes in plain, professional prose aimed at working writers rather than general readers — he uses craft vocabulary (viewpoint, denouement, backstory) but defines each term as he introduces it. There is none of the specialized theoretical jargon found in academic writing guides; the vocabulary rarely exceeds what an attentive reader already picks up from workshop conversation.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Sentences run short to medium and declarative, built for scanning and rereading rather than sustained immersion — closer to an editor's marginal note expanded into a paragraph than to literary prose. Stein rarely nests more than one subordinate clause, which keeps each point isolatable from the next.
- Abstraction: 35 out of 100
- Every principle is anchored to a specific manuscript excerpt, revised line, or before-and-after comparison, which keeps the book more concrete than most writing guides. It rises above pure how-to only when Stein names an underlying concept — 'plot versus story,' or his own coined terms MEGO and triage — that organizes the concrete examples around it.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- The book runs as a dense sequence of named techniques, each with its own worked example, which packs more distinct, actionable claims per page than a discursive memoir-style writing book. Readers move fix to fix rather than following one sustained argument, so attention resets often.
How Solutions for Writers: Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Non-Fiction is regarded
Solutions for Writers: Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Non-Fiction holds a literary regard score of 33 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.