storyinliteraryfiction.com

How do unsuccessful novel writers build houses?

by

You get a backhoe and dig a BIG hole. You back up a cement truck and pour three BIG mounds of cement. While cement hardens, you cut down two giant oaks, strip the leaves and throw the trunks with limbs in the big hole on top of the cement. You pour, 100 gallons of glue, a quarter ton of bolts and nails, five porcelain toilets, and three bathtubs. You add 800 light bulbs of various sizes throughout the growing muddle. You mix three hundred gallons of paint in different, preferable incompatible (noncliché) colors, and splash the paint at random over … Read More…

The Seven Fundamentals for Writing Fiction Stories

by

There are many ways to think about the great writing of great fictional stories. Both readers and writers can benefit by learning seven elements and appreciating the interaction of these elements in an individual story. For the reader, appreciation of authorial skills can be more easily enjoyed and admired, and for writers, learning to determine their strengths and weakness in the creation of the different elements can be valuable to balance story for an effective presentation. Prose Characterization Plot Narration (POV) Setting Imagery Meaning/purpose Prose relates to diction, syntax, and voice. Lyric prose with intense poetic elements can be used … Read More…

Why is narration perspective important? Isn’t understanding point of view sufficient?

by

Great memorable fiction stories that pass to future generations for learning and enjoyment are quite rare, and the authors who create such stories have unique and varied attributes as writers. What separates the great fiction writer/storytellers? One trait seems to drive great writers to create great stories of significance and sustainability. Look to Austen, Homer, Forster, Conrad, Flaubert, Chekhov, De Maupassant, Babel, Melville, Hawthorne, Munro. The great storytellers, with few exceptions, wrote selflessly to engage and entertain a reader and the quality of the story produced significant enlightenment about living and being human. Lesser writers seem intent on fame and … Read More…

Thoughts on Fiction and Story: Response to a Workshop Question

by

Question submitted to workshop. In a short story, is it NECESSARY to have the character on a mission trying to accomplish something? William Trevor and Alice Munro have so often been cited as masters of the short story form, and often I can’t figure out what their characters are “up to.” What are they trying “to do.” It just feels like they show characters living their lives. Let me know what you think? (Submission anonymous) Answer I admit I come with a very narrow aesthetic sense at this. It’s story that makes me warm and fuzzy, stories where something happens … Read More…

Story Beginnings (13): What Engages You?

by

Below are thirteen story beginnings of less than sixty words all from award-winning stories.  Which engages you the most and makes you want to read on?  Which engages you the least?  Analyze why, to find principles applicable to your own writing. All stories are available for free at www.storyinliteraryfiction.com. 1. After a six-hour drive north from Toronto, John Hampton arrived at the family home of his departed wife, Grace, and her daughter Candy, both dead six days.  The house was dark; his sister-in-law, Ruth, greeted him in a nightgown and robe, and knee-length woolen socks . . . she led … Read More…