Book Review or How to Write about a Book, Movie or Essay

Always introduce the work even if you've introduced it in the title.

Look up how to designate a title of a short story, book or article in your own essay.

When writing about the action of a narrative, whether it's film, fiction or nonfiction, stay in present tense. This is the only acceptable shift in tense. Let's say you write about the author's life and then summarize the action of the story like this: Rumors circulated that Kate Chopin had an affair, very much like the one Calixa has in "The Storm." The idea here is that what is happening in a narrative is always happening and therefore never in the past. Or maybe it's just a fluke of logic.