Excerpt from The Technique of Fiction Writing Therefore the first part of this book takes up the problems of technique in the order in which they pre sent themselves to the writer. Beginning with mat ters of conception, the discussion passes to matters of construction and development, and finally to matters of execution, or rather the writing of a story consid ered as a bare chain of events. Then the matters of description, dialogue, the portrayal of character, and the precipitation of atmosphere are discussed, and lastly the short story and novel, as distinct forms, are taken up. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford shares his secrets for creating killer plots, fleshing out your first ideas, crafting compelling characters, and staying sane in the process. Read the guide that New York Times bestselling author Ransom Riggs called "The best how-to-write-a-novel book I've read."

Excerpt from How to Write a Short Story: An Exposition of the Technique of Short Fiction The material in the following pages is a series of suggestive talks rather than a scholarly discourse. I leave to others the discussion of polish, atmosphere, and artistic handling; I take for my theme the writing of a short story that will sell. There are many writers throughout the country, with good educations, with clear brains, and with the ambition to see their work in print, who are failing merely because they are not familiar with the technique of the short story. It is to these that I would appeal. In the following pages, therefore, I have aimed above all else to be practical. I have written in the first person, without even the shield of the editorial "we." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Fundamentals of Fiction Writing Living in so complex a civilization, we generally fail to realize how complex have become our mental habits. We have come more and more to think upon complexities until, for the most part, the more elementary facts, processes and approaches are slighted or omitted as beneath the high development of our minds. However learned our thinking may be, its foundation must be elementary thinking, and, if elementary thinking is neglected because it seems too elementary for attention, the result is likely to be unsoundness of the whole structure because it has been erected on unsound foundation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Creative Art of Fiction With fiction it is far otherwise. The writer of a novel may sin against every law of narrative art without fear that his error will be mentioned in the critical reviews. Not one of the criticisms, in this country, of a recent work of fiction, Helbeek of Bannisdale, defined the author' s purpose and general plan of development; yet the closing scene, the death of the heroine by drowning, cannot be justified without reference to the motif of the story. There is in print no satisfactory treatment of fiction as an art; scholarship and critical opinion on the subject are inchoate; even among institutions of learning wherein courses of instruction on this topic are given, there is little agreement. In some, no better device has been hit upon than the application of accepted theories of dramatic structure to the study of the novel; in others, the history of fiction forms the subject-matter of study, and, incidentally, some attention is given to characteristics and schools. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing: Advice, Opinions and a Statement of Their Own Working Methods by More Than One Hundred Authors When the answers began coming in, it became at once apparent that here was material far too valuable to be tucked away in the appendix of any book. The question naire had gone to only those writers who had contributed td'%y own magazine, Adventure, some of them beginners, some of them established writers appearing in all our mag azines and between book-covers. It was then sent to a general list of authors and their answers were added to those first received. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Art and the Business of Story Writing If this is true, it must be evident that whoever writes fiction aimlessly, never surveying the various advantages of the work nor choosing one advantage as the end to be sought, foredooms himself to much grief. He may win out, in the long run; but his victory will be dearly won. He will probably spend years writing for the public stories which please only himself, and he may wreck his natural style by trying to make it serve an end which it cannot attain. This becomes clear the moment we consider the legitimate purposes of writing fiction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.