The writer's field guide to the craft of fiction /
THE WRITER'S FIELD GUIDE TO THE CRAFT OF FICTION offers a refreshing approach to the craft of fiction writing. It takes a single page from forty contemporary novels and short stories, identifies techniques used by the writers and presents approachable exercises and prompts that allow anyone to...
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| Language: | English |
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Austin :
A Strange Object,
[2018]
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction: a grand theory of not knowing what you're doing
- How to use this book (or, how to be taught to write fiction)
- Part 1. Tools of the trade. How to start and keep writing : Drop an elephant into the room: "The heart" by Amelia Gray ; Give your characters what they wish for: "Lazarus dying" by Owen Egerton ; Let a character respond to an expected scene: Jam on the vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett ; Turn a premise into drama: Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett
- How to make setting dramatic : Take a tour: "Pomp and circumstances" by Nina McConigley ; Break setting into neighborhoods: "It will be awesome before spring" by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho ; Give setting a human geography: Gone girl by Gillian Flynn ; Manipulate characters with setting: "Waiting for takeoff: by Lydia Davis
- How to create compelling characters : Create characters with a single, definitive trait: The regional office is under attack! by Manuel Gonzalez ; Make your characters into something new: Half-resurrection blues by Daniel José Older ; Define your character's emotional response to conflict: "My views on the darkness" by Ben Marcus ; Generate tension by giving characters unequal access to an object of desire: "Proving up" by Karen Russell
- How to write scenes : Give your characters space to themselves: Honky tonk samurai by Joe R. Lansdale ; Use repetition to increase tension to an unsustainable level: "Encounters with unexpected animals" by Bret Anthony Johnston ; Write action sequences with minimal choreography: The flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner ; Make interiority the focus in action scenes: Open city by Teju Cole
- How to make dialogue snap : Create a power imbalance: NW by Zadie Smith ; Turn dialogue into narration: Pull me under by Kelly Luce ; Critique how a character talks: Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois ; Resist conclusion: The peripheral by William Gibson
- How to move through time and space : Slide between the particular and general: "Nobody you know" by Elizabeth Tallent ; Create space for all of your narrative tools: "The night of the satellite" by T.C. Boyle ; Move from action to interiority: A brief history of seven killings by Marlon James ; Create Simultaneity: Salvage the bones by Jesmyn Ward
- Part 2. Lenses for the artist's vision. How to create structure : Interview your character: "Boys town" by Jim Shepard ; Juxtapose emotional states: Who do you love by Jennifer Weiner ; Repeat yourself: "The lost & found department of Greater Boston" by Elizabeth McCracken ; Use storytelling to expand your story's world: The moor's account by Laila Lalami
- How to drive plot forward : Add plot elements that change the course of the story: Station eleven by Emily St. John Mandel ; Predict the future: The queen of the night by Alexander Chee ; Turn a character's desire into knuckle-biting suspense: Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz ; Use the possibility of escape to raise the stakes: An untamed state by Roxane Gay
- Develop your prose style : Riff off a single detail: "The semplica-girl diaries" by George Saunders ; Use language and style to surprise the reader: "Summer boys" by Ethan Rutherford ; Leap between linguistic frames: Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt ; Refresh an old story with new prose: The radiant road by Katherine Catmull
- Part 3. Putting it together on page one. Migratory animals by Mary Helen Specht : Introduce setting with a few strong details--or one detail viewed many ways ; Get the reader's attention with a statement that needs explaining--then explain it in an intriguing way ; Use figurative language, but be quick about it ; Show readers the kind of story they're reading
- Long division by Kiese Laymon : Give the voice something to comment on that isn't itself ; Introduce something interesting that will happen, but don't tell us yet how it happened ; Introduce and then break a rule
- The friendship of criminals by Robert Glinski : Start with a shared experience and make it unfamiliar ; Make a one type character seem like another type character ; Add an element of danger
- Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng : Begin with incompatible ideas ; Introduce character personalities in a single line ; Use short sentences
- Conclusion: now what?
- Appendix: fiction by narrative trope.