Making Shapely Fiction

Making Shapely Fiction PDF Author: Jerome Stern
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393077691
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A deft analysis and appreciation of fiction—what makes it work and what can make it fail. Here is a book about the craft of writing fiction that is thoroughly useful from the first to the last page—whether the reader is a beginner, a seasoned writer, or a teacher of writing. You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combine, the story begins." Dialogue and action, beginnings and endings, the true meaning of "write what you know," and a memorable listing of don'ts for fiction writers are all covered. A special section features an Alphabet for Writers: entries range from Accuracy to Zigzag, with enlightening comments about such matters as Cliffhangers, Point of View, Irony, and Transitions.

Making Shapely Fiction

Making Shapely Fiction PDF Author: Jerome Stern
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393077691
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
A deft analysis and appreciation of fiction—what makes it work and what can make it fail. Here is a book about the craft of writing fiction that is thoroughly useful from the first to the last page—whether the reader is a beginner, a seasoned writer, or a teacher of writing. You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combine, the story begins." Dialogue and action, beginnings and endings, the true meaning of "write what you know," and a memorable listing of don'ts for fiction writers are all covered. A special section features an Alphabet for Writers: entries range from Accuracy to Zigzag, with enlightening comments about such matters as Cliffhangers, Point of View, Irony, and Transitions.

Making Shapely Fiction

Making Shapely Fiction PDF Author: Jerome Stern
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393321241
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
In this book about the craft of writing fiction, Jerome Stern maintains that learning to write spontaneously is the first step to writing well. He includes tips for writing dialogue and action, beginnings and endings, offers a special section featuring an Alphabet for Writers, and more.

Micro Fiction

Micro Fiction PDF Author: Jerome H. Stern
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393039689
Category : Flash fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
Ten years ago, Jerome Stern, director of the writing program at Florida State, initiated the World's Best Short Short Story Contest. Stories were to be about 250 words long; first prize was a check and a crate of oranges. Two to three thousand stories began to show up annually in Tallahassee, and National Public Radio regularly broadcast the winner. But, more important, the Micro form turned out to be contagious; stories of this "lack of length" now dot the literary magazines. The time seemed right, then, for this anthology, presenting a decade of contest winners and selected finalists. In addition, Stern commissioned Micros, persuading a roster of writers to accept the challenge of completing a story in one page. Jesse Lee Kercheval has a new spin on the sinking of the Titanic; Virgil Suarez sets his sights on the notorious Singapore caning; George Garrett conjures up a wondrous screen treatment pitch; and Antonya Nelson invites us into an eerie landscape. Verve and nerve and astonishing variety are here, with some wild denouements. How short can a Micro be, you wonder. Look up Amy Hempel's contribution, and you'll see.

The Art and Craft of Fiction

The Art and Craft of Fiction PDF Author: Michael Kardos
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
ISBN: 1319032931
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Brief, practical, and affordable, The Art and Craft of Fiction gives aspiring writers all they need, in a friendly voice that students love. Michael Kardos focuses on technique and presents fiction writing as a teachable (and learnable) art. With an organization built on methods and process rather than traditional literary elements, Kardos helps students begin their stories, write strong scenes, use images and research detail, revise for aesthetics and mechanics, and finish and polish their own stories. Instructors trust The Art and Craft of Fiction to help structure their course, and reinforce and complement their teaching points with examples and exercises. A brief fiction anthology at the back of the book includes 15 selections that instructors praise for their usefulness in the creative writing classroom.

Out There

Out There PDF Author: Kate Folk
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593231465
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A thrilling new voice in fiction injects the absurd into the everyday to present a startling vision of modern life, “[as] if Kafka and Camus and Bradbury were penning episodes of Black Mirror” (Chang-Rae Lee, author of My Year Abroad). “Stories so sharp and ingenious you may cut yourself on them while reading.”—Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth’s remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by “blots,” preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection. Prescient and wildly imaginative, Out There depicts an uncanny landscape that holds a mirror to our subconscious fears and desires. Each story beats with its own fierce heart, and together they herald an exciting new arrival in the tradition of speculative literary fiction.

Little, Big

Little, Big PDF Author: John Crowley
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062124048
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
John Crowley's masterful Little, Big is the epic story of Smoky Barnable, an anonymous young man who travels by foot from the City to a place called Edgewood—not found on any map—to marry Daily Alice Drinkawater, as was prophesied. It is the story of four generations of a singular family, living in a house that is many houses on the magical border of an otherworld. It is a story of fantastic love and heartrending loss; of impossible things and unshakable destinies; and of the great Tale that envelops us all. It is a wonder.

On Moral Fiction

On Moral Fiction PDF Author: John Gardner
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480409219
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving . . . that true art is moral and not trivial” (Los Angeles Times). Novelist John Gardner’s thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: “True art is by its nature moral.” It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book’s first publication, the passion behind Gardner’s assertion has both provoked and inspired readers. In examining the work of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem. He develops his argument by showing how artists and critics can reintroduce morality and substance to their work to improve society and cultivate our morality. On Moral Fiction is an essential read in which Gardner presents his thoughtfully developed criteria for the elements he believes are essential to art and its creation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Gardner, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Gardner family and the University of Rochester Archives.

What Goes Around

What Goes Around PDF Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250038456
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Two girls. Two secrets. Two gritty, critically acclaimed novels in one. For Parker, perfection is all that matters. No one will know how wrong she is inside if everything she does ends up right. But when the pressure proves too much, she makes a devastating mistake she'll do anything to keep hidden—even if it means becoming a perfect mess. For Regina, popularity comes with a price. When she's kicked out of her clique, she finds out what it's like to be those she's bullied and destroyed. Everyone says she has it coming . . . but is there something they don't know? There is more to these two girls than meets the eye. With unflinching honesty and a razor sharp voice, Courtney Summers brings the tensions of high school terrifyingly alive in What Goes Around.

Nickel Mountain

Nickel Mountain PDF Author: John Gardner
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811216784
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
At the heart of John Gardner's Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story set in a small Catskill community in the 1950s: when, at forty-two, the obese, gentle, and anxious Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells -- who is pregnant with the child of a local boy -- it is much more than age that defines the gulf between them. The plot turns on tragic events -- they might be accidents or they might be acts of will -- involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself), and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt and innocence, and even murder, are ulitmately eclipsed by Henry Soame's quiet discovery of grace. Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague fo the author, has wirtten an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised and often misunderstood John Gardner.

Pawn in Frankincense

Pawn in Frankincense PDF Author: Dorothy Dunnett
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030776236X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
In this fourth book in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, Francis Crawford of Lymond desperately searches the Ottoman empire for his kidnapped child. Somewhere within the bejeweled labyrinth of the Ottoman empire, a child is hidden. Now his father, Francis Crawford of Lymond, soldier of fortune and the exiled heir of Scottish nobility, is searching for him while ostensibly engaged on a mission to the Turkish Sultan. At stake is the political order of three continents, for Lymond's child is a pawn in a cutthroat game whose gambits include treason, enslavement, and murder. In that game's final move, which is played inside the harem of the Topkapi palace, Lymond will come face to face with his most implacable enemy and the dreadful ambiguities of his own nature. With a Foreword by the author.