SHALLA READS: Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and Other Greats

Craft Lesson!

Hi Writers, are you working on the writing craft?

Sure, I've written the novel, but writing is rewriting and I'm working on perfecting it before sending it out.

I feel I'm on the right track (won the flash fiction competition at MadHatters Review, Issue 6) but of course there's always room for improvement.

So, why not learn from the greats? Hemingway... Toni Morrison...

From the Back Cover

Do you want to take your fiction writing to the next level?

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS

...Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, and Iris Murdoch.

"Adam Sexton taught me how to read like a writer--and, in a way, how to write like a reader. For without first considering the experience of reading stories--seriously, thoroughly, the way Sexton does--you can't possibly write one worth reading."--Tara McCarthy, author, Love Will Tear Us Apart

Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and Other Greats (Paperback) by Adam Sexton

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What Shalla's Read So Far...

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Don't confuse dramatic with melodramatic;

drama can be not only quiet but infinitely subtle.

Ie.

The Character's NEEDS must be material and particular to be dramatic.

Antagonists – other characters/situations that stand between protagonist and satisfaction.

Conflict – a frustrated dramatic need

Resolution – how each character attains (or doesn’t) what she lacks

So, if you do it right and your character’s NEEDS are concrete and specific, then readers can easily tell when they get resolved

Note: NEEDS like achievement, survival, love, etc. lack drama.

Why?

Because they’re not material and particular.

To dramatize abstract NEEDS use sea ships and poisons and weddings, concrete things that will symbolize them.

(For further explanation go to Story Structure, page 3 where Sexton uses Odyssey, Hamlet and Jane Eyre as examples )

Now time to read James Joyce’s Araby

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Nobel Prize Laureates