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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Friday, April 8, 2022

Fame And Fiction: An Inquiry Into Certain Popularities by Arnold Bennett

 

Fame And Fiction: An Inquiry Into Certain Popularities (1901) by Arnold Bennett

Fame And Fiction: An Inquiry Into Certain Popularities (1901) 

 

by Arnold Bennett


The "average reader", and the recipe for popularity.--Miss Braddon.--Mr. J.M. Barrie.--Charlotte M. Yonge.--Miss Rhoda Broughton.--Madame Sarah Grand.--"The master Christian."--Miss E.T. Fowler.--"Red pottage."--A note on the revolution in journalism.--The fiction of popular magazines.--Mr. Silas Hocking.--The craze for historical fiction in America.--Mr. James Lane Allen.--"David Harum."--Mr. George Gissing.--Ivan Turgenev.--Mr. George Moore

About the Author 

Arnold Bennett

Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He was a prolific writer: between the start of his career in 1898 and his death he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 different newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information in the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. The sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day. Wikipedia 

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