The Craft of Fiction

The Craft of Fiction Synopsis

Who else wants to write a best seller? What lies at the beating heart of this book is the belief that good writing can be taught and this is what this book sets out to do. This book: Teaches the skills of storytelling. Explains how to find stories. Narrative structures. Plots. Building tension. Characterisation. Descriptions of place and time. Dialogue. Editing. The author provides examples from classic and modern fiction & films, with points for consideration and exercise. The book covers: Finding Stories: In this chapter, the author uses the example of Clochmerle to explain the Hitchcock term of a McGuffin and shows why the toilet fits this role perfectly, Journeys: Almost always the main character will embark on a journey and here there are examples including the classic Dr Zhivago from Boris Pasternak. Adventures: Here the chapter covers the work of Simmel and uses the 2010 Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence and Pascal Mercier's Night Train to Lisbon to explain what this means to you as the budding writer. The Misfit or the new kid on the block: (no not the American boy band New Kids on the Block or NKOTB) here you are entreated to a short-story by Robert-Louis Stevenson. It is brilliant and short! Where do you find Stories?: Here we see an amazing link between Anna Karenina from Tolstoy and the classic movie Brief Encounter (which was based on Noel Coward's Still Life). Moral Dilemmas: William Styron's Sophie's Choice is the example used here. It is a heart-breaking example and you get to see how Styron created this dilemma. The author then puts you in a dilemma, with the trolley problem, which will you choose? Whatever you decide, someone dies! The Rashomon Tale: This is where the slippery nature of truth can be undermined. The author explains this format and the links to Wilkie Collins. The Epistle Story: this was very popular and the story form has now transferred to film. The Diary: examples include Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole. The Bildungsroman: this is explained by referencing to Goethe's Wilheim Meister's Apprenticeship and D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. The Picaresque: here the author explains the connection to cynicism and how to use it in your story. The Historical Epic: One of the benefits for authors of living through historical incidents like the 2020 Pandemic is that it creates sales for historical stories. People want to look back in a nostalgic way to a simpler life.