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Title: Creating Short Fiction : The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction by Damon Knight ISBN: 0-312-15094-6 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: DAMON KNIGHT IS A MASTER TEACHER READ AND LEARN
Comment: Damon Knight passed away recently --he was not only a great writer (penning such classics as the original Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man') but a first rate teacher. I have many writing books including Jack Bickhams 'Writing the Short Story'
and the classic 'Short Story Writing' by Thronley but THIS book by Knight beats them all. He not only covers everything from getting ideas to mixed viewpoints and compression in story action but goes into such detail you will feel you're are sitting in a serious university class on writing fiction.
As a matter of fact this book is NOT some fluff piece on 'getting in touch with the inner writer' and all that nonesense --no this author treats the reader as a serious aspiring writer. He also includes excercises which adds to what he is teaching you.
I only wish I could have met this author to shake his hand. A job very well done you will NOT be disappointed! It's about 208 pages (with index) of packed information on how to write and especially on how to get control over your story, keep that control till the end until you have a quality manuscript.
Harlan Ellison recommended this book--Harlan Ellison the guy who had enough chutzpah to jokingnly insult Asimov in person 'you're not so great!' if you know Ellison you know he would never recommend anything unless he liked it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Where to Begin and Good to Come Back To
Comment: CREATING SHORT FICTION is an excellent introductory text for writers who want to try their hands at making short stories and starting a novel. However, published writers will learn much from it as well. It has, for example, one of the best analyses of point of view that I have seen in text or scholarly article. Reading Damon Knight's chapter on viewpoint will expand the understanding of many published authors who speak at writers conferences and professors who write introductory texts on literature. This text is about how to write fiction, not a book about how it was like to be a writer of fiction. Its occasional reference to science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction is a useful corrective to the snob view that such "sub-genre" fiction is unworthy of being mentioned in a "literary" creative writing course. One hundred years from now, some of the short stories and novels that will be literature will come from such sub-genres. My college sophomore fiction-writing students begin with CREATING SHORT FICTION. In the second semester, they use Janet Burroway's WRITING FICTION: A GUIDE TO THE NARRATIVE CRAFT, also an excellent more-advanced text, now in its 6th. edition.
Rating: 4
Summary: Useful information but too narrow in focus
Comment: I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed reading it. I believe my writing has improved (or, at least, will improve) from having read this, and I can think of no better compliment for a book about writing.
However, it could have been better and may not be for everyone. Mr. Knight is a successful science fiction writer and this experience is evident in much of the book. He seems much more comfortable with genre writing than with the 'literary' short story. For instance, he describes seven different types of plots, most of which seem to work only in mystery stories. Unplotted stories, which seem to be at the heart of modern literary short fiction receives half a page of discussion. Even so, the discussion of viewpoint was excellent and the entire book gave me much to think about.
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Title: Beginnings, Middles & Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing) by Nancy Kress ISBN: 0898799058 Publisher: Writers Digest Books Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular by L. Rust Hills ISBN: 0618082344 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 06 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Characters and Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing) by Orson Scott Card ISBN: 0898799279 Publisher: Writers Digest Books Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: Movies in the Mind, How to Build a Short Story by Colleen Mariah Rae ISBN: 0964419653 Publisher: Sherman Asher Pub Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne, Dave King ISBN: 0062720465 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 16 February, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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