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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Saturday, March 26, 2022

The World's Best Poetry, Volume 1: Home and Friendship (eBook)

 

The World's Best Poetry, Volume 1: Home and Friendship (eBook)

The World's Best Poetry, Volume 1: Home and Friendship (eBook)

 

by Various

 

Part 1 - Part 2 - eBook

 

THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY

    I Home: Friendship
    II Love
   III Sorrow and Consolation
    IV The Higher Life
     V Nature
    VI Fancy: Sentiment
   VII Descriptive: Narrative
  VIII National Spirit
    IX Tragedy: Humor
     X Poetical Quotations



The World's Best Poetry of Home, of Friendship, Vol. 1: Introduction the Purpose of Poetry; Introductory Essay Young People and the Poets, Volumes 1 and 2; Love, Introductory Essay the Future of Poetry
 
We must note two things about this step forward which man has taken toward civilization in the first place he had to have some leisure to do these things, and in the second place the objects he has made reveal his ingenuity and forethought. They are records of his life. And it will happen that, as his leisure increases, his implements will become more and more elaborate and ornate. Every workman will have his own way of fashioning them, using his own device and designs, so that they will become something more than rude relics of one historic age or another: they will tell us something of the artificer himself; they will embody some intentional expression of human life, and come to leave an art value. In so far as they can do this, they contain the essential quality of the fine arts. And the more freely the workman can deal with his craft, the more perfectly he can make it characteristic of himself, the greater will its artistic quality become.

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The World's Best Poetry, Volume 1: Home and Friendship (eBook)

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