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 14, 2023

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner (Audio Book)

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

A Rose for Emily

 

by William Faulkner

 Read by Debra Winger

 

(PDF)

 

A Rose for Emily is a short story by William Faulkner that exemplifies the Southern gothic genre. 



 About the Author

William Faulkner

William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize winning novelist of the American South who wrote challenging prose and created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is best known for such novels as 'The Sound and the Fury' and 'As I Lay Dying.' American writer William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in 1897. Much of his early work was poetry, but he became famous for his novels set in the American South, frequently in his fabricated Yoknapatawpha County, with works that included The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom! His controversial 1931 novel Sanctuary was turned into two films, 1933's The Story of Temple Drake as well as a later 1961 project. Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature and ultimately won two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards as well. He died on July 6, 1962.

William Faulkner Books at Amazon


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