Fiction Writer’s Workshop, 2nd Edition
Fiction Writer’s Workshop, 2nd Edition
By Josip Novakovitch
ISBN
Coming in June 2008!
Advice from an accomplished writer!
The great paradox of the writing life is that to be a good writer, you must be both interested in the world around you and comfortable working in solitude for hours on end. Fiction Writer’s Workshop, 2nd edition is designed to help writers foster a strong sense of independence, of being and thinking on their own, of becoming both disciplined and self-evaluative (not self-critical) in order to accomplish for themselves what others seek out in classroom groups.
About the Author
Croatian-born Josip Novakovich moved to the United States at the age of twenty. He has published a novel (April Fool’s Day, HarperCollins), three story collections (Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust, Yolk and Salvation and Other Disasters), two collections of narrative essays (Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys and Apricots from Chernobyl), and was anthologized in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He received the Whiting Writer’s Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
Table of Contents
1. Sources of Fiction: Where and How to Find Material
2. Setting: Evoking a Vivid Sense of Place and Time
3. Character: Inventing Fictional People
4. Plot: Strategies of Organization and Structure
5. Point of View: Selecting the Best Viewpoint
6. Dialogue and Scene: Handling Dramatic Action
7. Beginnings and Endings: Options and Techniques for Opening and Closing
8. Description and Word Choice: Choosing Effective Details, Matters of Style
9. Voice: Finding the Narrative Voice, Creating the Voices of Characters
10. Revision: Transforming the First Draft into Finished, Polished Fiction