Synopses & Reviews
On Writing Short Stories is a unique collection of original essays by seven professional writers. It is the only text of its kind to offer writing advice from such authors, editors, and instructors as Francine Prose, Joyce Carol Oates, Frank Conroy, Andre Dubus, Robert Coles, Tom Bailey, and C. Michael Curtis, with a foreword by Tobias Wolff. These experts give voice--voices--to a dialogue about the art and craft of writing short stories.
Respecting writers' autonomy, On Writing Short Stories does not offer a rigidly systematic apparatus for learning to write short stories. Instead it asks what makes a short story, analyzes various aspects of craft, discusses process and revision, and also pauses to wonder why people write short stories at all. It considers the importance of reading and of peer critique in workshops as integral components of the learning process and offers advice on how to get short stories published.
Ideal for courses and workshops in creative writing, On Writing Short Stories also includes an engaging selection of eighteen short stories, both classic and contemporary, for discussion and analysis. These stories stretch the limits of narrative fiction; reading them will help students create a scaffolding for the short story form. Writing exercises are incorporated to help students put the craft into practice for themselves. A list of addresses and editors of magazines, journals, and quarterlies that publish short fiction is also included for writers who are ready to begin submitting their work for consideration.
Synopsis
Seven masters of the short story-Francine Prose, Joyce Carol Oates, Frank Conroy, Andre Dubus, Robert Coles, and C. Michael Curtis -- give voice to the ongoing dialogue about the art and craft of writing short stories, discussing the techniques they use in writing fiction.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Tobias Wolff
Preface
Contributors
PART ONE: On Writing Short Stories
What Makes a Short Story?, Francine Prose
Reading as a Writer: The Artist as Craftsman, Joyce Carol Oates
Character, Plot, Setting and Time, Metaphor, and Voice, Tom Bailey
The Voice of Desire: Character
The Why? Behind the Power of Plot: Shaping the Short Story
The Lesser Angels of Fiction: Setting and Time
"The Connectedness of All Living Things": Metaphor
The Writer's Signature: Voice
The Writer's Workshop, Frank Conroy
The Habit of Writing, Andre Dubus
Why Write? Taking on the World, Robert Coles
Publishers and Publishing, C. Michael Curtis
PART II: SHORT STORIES
The String, Guy de Maupassant
The Lady with the Pet Dog, Anton Chekhov
Hills Like White Elephants, Ernest Hemingway
I Stand Here Ironing, Tillie Olson
A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner
The Chrysanthemums, John Steinbeck
Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor
Sonny's Blues, James Baldwin
The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick
A and P
Cathedral, Raymond Carver
Saint Marie, Louise Erdrich
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
Heat, Joyce Carol Oates
The Darkness of Love, Robert Boswell
A Father's Story, Andre Dubus
Lust, Susan Minot
Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff
Part III: Magazines, Journals, and Quarterlies Publishing Short Stories