Read Like A Writer

There are two ways to learn how to write fiction: by reading it and by writing it. Yes, you can learn lots about writing stories in workshops, in writing classes and writing groups, at writers' conferences. You can learn technique and process by reading the dozens of books like this one on fiction writing and by reading articles in writers' magazines. But the best teachers of fiction are the great works of fiction themselves. You can learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Anton Chekhov's 'Heartache' than you can in a semester of Creative Writing 101. If you read like a writer, that is, which means you have to read everything twice, at least. When you read a story or novel the first time, just let it happen. Enjoy the journey. When you've finished, you know where the story took you, and now you can go back and reread, and this time notice how the writer reached that destination. Notice the choices he made at each chapter, each sentence, each word. (Every word is a choice.) You see now how the transitions work, how a character gets across a room. All this time you're learning. You loved the central character in the story, and now you can see how the writer presented the character and rendered her worthy of your love and attention. The first reading is creative—you collaborate with the writer in making the story. The second reading is critical.


John Dufresne, from his book, The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Contemporary Short Story, a Practical Manual by Harry Torsey Baker, ( 1916)

The Contemporary Short Story, a Practical Manual by Harry Torsey Baker, ( 1916). A distinguished British critic, Professor Hugh Walker, remarks: "There is no other form of literature in which America is so eminent as in the writing of short stories." This dictum alone is sufficient justification for introducing a course in this subject into every college in the land. Not only is a better understanding and appreciation of the finest short stories fostered by such a course, but not a few students find themselves able to write tales that are accepted by reputable American periodicals — if not during their undergraduate years, at any rate shortly afterward. Writing fiction for the magazines is both an art and a business. This volume accordingly aims to teach promising young authors, whether in or out of college, how to write stories that shall be marketable as well as artistic. It attempts to state succinctly, and as clearly as may be, some fundamental principles of short-story writing. These principles are based upon somewhat extensive reading of short fiction in English, both classic and contemporary; of a pretty large number of manuscripts submitted to important periodicals; and of most of the critical works on the short story. Many of the pages are written from the editorial standpoint. I have not attempted to set up an impracticable ideal on the one hand, nor to concede too much to the lower range of popular taste on the other.


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