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, April 9, 2022

Plots and Personalities : A New Method of Testing and Training the Creative Imagination By Edwin Emery Slosson 1865-1929, By June Etta Downey 1875-1932

 

Plots and Personalities : A New Method of Testing and Training the Creative Imagination By Edwin Emery Slosson 1865-1929, By June Etta Downey 1875-1932

Plots and Personalities : A New Method of Testing and Training the Creative Imagination 

 

By Edwin Emery Slosson 1865-1929 & June Etta Downey 1875-1932

 

CONTENTS

I. How THE Book Came to Be Written and What It Is About 8

II. How TO Use the Personals in Testing the Imagination 7

III. The Interpretation of a Personal 26

IV. Thinking the Literate Imagination 43

V. Names and Clothes as Literate Accessories . . 59

VI. Tricks of the Literate Imagination .... 74

VII. What Kind of Mind the Novelist Needs ... 86

VIII. Where the Writer Gets His Plots and Personalities 103

IX. The Problem of the Plot 127

X. Character-Creation 141

XI. Plot-Making as a Safety-Valve 164

XII. The Case-System of Literary Training .... 179

XIII. Putting a Foot-Rule on the Imagination ... 208

XIV. Miscellaneous Personals 226

XV. Personals in Continuities 232

 


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