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 15, 2022

Introduction To Poetry by Raymond M. Alden

Introduction To Poetry by Raymond M. Alden

Introduction To Poetry 

by 

Raymond M. Alden


Excerpt from An Introduction to Poetry: For Students of English Literature Chapter Four, on the fundamental problems of English rhythm, deals with the point of greatest difficulty in the whole range of the subject, and is to be regarded, not as making claim to originality, but as the most individual portion of this book. SO recently as the time of publication of the earlier volume, English Verse, it seemed impracticable to dogmatize on the elements of our metres, with any hope of doing more than adding another note to the discordant jangle of voices on that dangerous subject. But there is evidence that conditions have be! Come more hopeful; recent writers have seemed to tend more and more toward agreement on certain substantial principles and while one must still wait, no doubt, for a generally accredited science of English prosody, it is perhaps safeito offer for the use of students a rather more pretentious body of doctrine than would have been reasonable hereto.
    


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