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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Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Conscious Short-Story Technique, by David Raffelock (1924)

 

Conscious Short-Story Technique, by David Raffelock

  Conscious Short-Story Technique 

 

by  David  Raffelock

 

MOST persons, aiming to develop what they regard as their talent for writing, eagerly scan every book or course on the subject of fiction-writing that they can find; or, if blessed with a friend who is selling his output, they go to him for advice. It is only natural that one should wish to feel his way, in order to avoid wasting time and energy, by learning what others have done who have achieved success, so that he may perhaps do likewise. In creating fiction, as in life, the common impulse is to conform to customary modes. But if a writer possess originality must he still write according to generally followed methods ? Is confority an inexorable law in fiction-writing? It would seem so, for are not rapid action, suspense, plot and other devices regarded indispensable for the short-story, especially by most editors, instructors and successful fictionists? Yet another side presents itself; there are capable authors who will not conform to the established rules but whose stories are nevertheless highly rated by discriminating critics.

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