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

Header

Liquid Story Binder XE by Black Obelisk Software

Disable Copy Paste

Amazon Quick Linker

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night

by

F Scott Fitzgerald


Published 1933


Already with thee! tender is the night...
...But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

—Ode to a Nightingale



Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The work was first serialized in Scribner's Magazine between January and April 1934 in four issues. The title is taken from the poem "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats.

The PDF might take a minute to load. Or, click to download PDF.

If your Web browser is not configured to display PDF files. No worries, just click here to download the PDF file.

 

About the Author 

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), better known as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an American author of novels and short stories, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised in an Irish middle class family. He is best known for his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.

The author was named after his famous second cousin, Francis Scott Key, who penned The Star Spangled Banner.

Fitzgerald's prolific short stories tend to center around the promise of youth, followed by the effects of age and despair. Fitzgerald was considered one of the best authors of the twentieth century, a leading voice for the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s and the Jazz Age.

F. Scott Fitzgerald spent a great deal of his youth in Buffalo, New York, then moved to New Jersey to attend Princeton University. Fitzgerald dropped out and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 on the brink of World War I, but did not see combat. He became an officer, married, and after being decommissioned, went to New York City to pursue his literary career. This Side of Paradise was his first successful novel, allowing him to travel extensively in Paris and the French Riviera in the 1920s, creating the backdrop for his most widely-acclaimed work, The Great Gatsby which was published in 1925. He befriended great authors such as Ernest Hemingway during this period. Fitzgerald contributed stories to The Saturday Evening Post for most of his career. The first story in which his name appeared on the cover was Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1920).

Fitzgerald was in poor health after spending most of his adulthood abusing alcohol and suffered three heart attacks. He died at the age of 44 in 1941.

Buy F Scott Fitzgerald Books at Amazon

No comments: