Reading A Writer’s
Mind: Exploring Short Fiction – First Thought to Finished Story
Launch Offer: 99c /
86p
S.A. Linda Acaster is
a writer whose name long-standing readers of this blog will recognise for the
diverse range of her fiction. But she has another life…
L.A. Ho-ho… I have several actually, but this one began many
years ago when I was better known for my short fiction. A creative writing
tutor at a local Adult Education establishment asked if I’d mind stepping in while
she visited her sister in Australia
Those five weeks turned into three years, and along the way I
found I laid bare the mechanics of my own creative process. A stint with a distance
learning college tutoring creative writing courses honed my explanatory skills
on the page, and a host of how-to articles on the techniques of writing fiction
followed in the writing press both in the UK USA
I’ve never been a writer who wrote in one style, in one
genre, using one method of delivery, and this became key to the format of the
book. Taking ten stories, I lead the reader from the initial idea trigger, through
the story itself, to an in-depth commentary covering the options considered and
the decisions made during the writing. The stories were chosen to highlight
particular techniques within a specific genre, for instance:
* Lyrical narrative v terse dialogue; using tone as a
descriptive tool (Mainstream)
* A calendar structure using the Tell technique (Women’s
Fiction)
* Working with parallel storylines via past and present
tense (SF)
There are suggestions for experimenting with each set of
techniques discussed, and the book wraps up with a section on common editing
concerns. Like this blogpost, I use an accessible, chatty style and pull no
punches about rewrites and the problems I faced. I aim for my experience to
feed into your fiction.
Other books focusing on aspects of writing fiction are in
the pipeline, each under the banner Reading
A Writer’s Mind.
For the rest of September Reading A Writer’s Mind: Exploring Short Fiction – First Thought to
Finished Story is on a launch offer:
Smashwords
for I-Pad, Nook, Sony, Kindle, etc, use the 66% discount code BN46H at checkout.
For more information on all Linda Acaster’s work:
website: http://www.lindaacaster.com
http://twitter.com/#!/lindaacaster
For my review of this excellent volume see http://stuartaken.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-of-reading-writers-mind.html It's just a short scroll down this page!
For my review of this excellent volume see http://stuartaken.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-of-reading-writers-mind.html It's just a short scroll down this page!
7 comments:
Many thanks for hosting me today, Stuart, and for giving the book such a detailed review; it's much appreciated.
I'm welcoming comments and queries and will be calling back throughout the weekend to chat. I hope some readers do, too.
As the post states, I'm starting to compile information for the second in the "Reading A Writer's Mind" series, so if there's anything specific you'd like to see in a writer's resource add it in here.
Regards - Linda
I bought a copy as soon as it became available. I know Linda's skills as a writing coach and have benefitted from them myself. A couple of years ago, I recommended her to a friend who had always wanted to write up a particular episode from her life as a novel but had struggled with getting the story on the page. With Linda's coaching, the book became a reality, was taken on by a mainstream publisher and my mate is now penning her second. I am so pleased to see Linda's advice now becoming available in print (well, e-print). It deserves mega sales!
Penny
www.pennygrubb.com
Linda, you're welcome. As for the future, how about a guide devoted to all aspects of dialogue?
Penny, many thanks for your comment and encouragement.
Penny: Thanks for that recommendation. And how could I forget our, now, mutual friend? She was a "brick" (as we say in the UK)and every time I called for re-writes she did them. The mark of someone truly willing to learn.
Stuart: dialogue, eh? I'll bear it in mind. I'm currently thinking about the ins & outs of building characters, so dialogue would work for a section.
I enjoyed this book very much. As a creative writer who has shelves stacked with 'how to write' books, most of which I have dipped into, sighed and put back on the shelf, Linda's book is quite different. This is not a "how-to" at all, but a "this is what I thought about, what I wanted to convey and why". Each section is illustrated by a story and then dissected, so the reader gets a bonus of not only what Linda was thinking for each story, but the stories themselves. Our writing styles are poles apart, but I've learned so much about characterisation from this book that it has already coloured the way I craft my stories. Thank you, Linda. I wish the book the huge success it deserves and recommend it to anyone interested in improving their creative writing.
Another well-deserved, positive recommendation. Thank you.
@Anon: thanks for your support. I'm pleased the book hit its mark with you. Your mention of how-to books "...most of which I have dipped into, sighed and put back on the shelf..." is *exactly* why I wrote Reading A Writer's Mind. When I was beginning the move from hobby to career that was what I found. Most books lined up the tools but gave very little inkling of how to use them.
Characterisation, eh? Characterisation needs for short stories differ a lot from characterisation needs for a novel. Or they should do. I've put it on my list.
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