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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Sunday, January 10, 2016

Famous Modern Ghost Stories

FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES

SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, Ph.D.

LECTURER IN ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF THE SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION, FUGITIVE VERSES, FROM A SOUTHERN PORCH, ETC.
COMPILER OF HUMOROUS GHOST STORIES

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press

1921

Printed in the United States of America

To

ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, Litt. D.
Professor of English, Columbia University

who guided my earlier studies in the supernatural

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Imperishable Ghost
The Willows
By Algernon Blackwood
The Shadows on the Wall
By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Messenger
By Robert W. Chambers
Lazarus
By Leonid Andreyev
The Beast with Five Fingers
By W. F. Harvey
The Mass of Shadows
By Anatole France
What Was It?
By Fitz-James O'Brien
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
By Ambrose Bierce
The Shell of Sense
By Olivia Howard Dunbar
The Woman at Seven Brothers
By Wilbur Daniel Steele
At the Gate
By Myla Jo Closser
Ligeia
By Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Orchard
By Richard Le Gallienne
The Bowmen
By Arthur Machen
A Ghost
By Guy de Maupassant



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