The ABC's of Writing FictionOpen this book to any page and you'll find something to charge your fiction .... Focused lessons on crafting dynamic beginnings and endings, building tension, writing effective dialogue - even naming characters and moving them from one room to another; insight on personal and professional aspects of the writing life - such as journal-keeping, dealing with rejection, building self-discipline; imaginative exercises to help you find your way into a character, get unstuck, look at your fiction in a new, more objective way; and supportive advice, tough-minded criticism, illuminating examples from classic and contemporary authors, and inspiration to keep you writing. Copeland has included many cross-references to help you see the complex ways all these elements interconnect and resonate. In addition, the alphabetical arrangement of the lessons encourages browsing and random discoveries. While searching out Background, for example, you may happen upon the neighboring entry Beanbag Chair, which offers a sharp and delightful analogy for perfecting the "body" of a story. |
Common terms and phrases
action Andre Dubus Anna Karenina Anton Chekhov arrangement basic Beanbag Beanbag Chair becomes beginning Bob Shacochis character character's Charles Dickens choices clues connection create deeper detail develop dialogue discover discovery draft dramatize E.B. White E.L. Doctorow example excerpt experience eyes feel fiction writer Foreshadowing frame gesture hand happen Henry James humor images imagination implications incident inner irony Isaac Bashevis Singer James Joyce kind Leopold Bloom listen lives look meaning metaphors Milan Kundera mind mother move narrative narrator narrator's novelist opening play plot point of view prose questions reader Revising rhythm scene sense sentence Serendipity short story situation sometimes story or novel structure suggest surprise syntax tell tension Terry Griggs thing thought tion tone trying voice what's William Strunk Jr woman words writing fiction