A little tedious and constantly comparing herself to Victor Hugo. I guess I should have expected it from Ayn Rand.

The only message I took with me from this book: Make your abstractions concrete. Every scene, every character, setting, paragraph, sentence, verb, and noun must give life to the abstractions you're trying to communicate.

Got it. I think most of this comes in during revision, though, because I can't imagine how someone can balance all of the aspects of a novel while making their abstractions concrete on the first go. I think I'll try finding the story's pulse first and, once I've found it, find the abstractions that need a thick layer of concrete.

Not my favorite book on writing fiction, but pretty good. It's always fun to read How To books from experts to see their processes.