Excerpt from The Writing of the Short Story This helps us to enter into the life and spirit of the time and place, to conceive imaginatively the likings, the desires, the passions, the purposes, and the powers that shall be potent in the story. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from How to Write a Short Story: An Exposition of the Technique of Short Fiction The material in the following pages is a series of suggestive talks rather than a scholarly discourse. I leave to others the discussion of polish, atmosphere, and artistic handling; I take for my theme the writing of a short story that will sell. There are many writers throughout the country, with good educations, with clear brains, and with the ambition to see their work in print, who are failing merely because they are not familiar with the technique of the short story. It is to these that I would appeal. In the following pages, therefore, I have aimed above all else to be practical. I have written in the first person, without even the shield of the editorial "we." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The ability to construct a nuanced narrative or complex character in the constrained form of the short story has sometimes been seen as the ultimate test of an author's creativity. Yet during the time when the short story was at its most popular - the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - even the greatest writers followed strict generic conventions that were far from subtle. This expanded and updated translation of Florence Goyet's influential La Nouvelle, 1870-1925: Description d'un genre à son apogée (Paris, 1993) is the only study to focus exclusively on this classic period across different continents. Ranging through French, English, Italian, Russian and Japanese writing - particularly the stories of Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, Giovanni Verga, Anton Chekhov and Akutagawa Ry?nosuke - Goyet shows that these authors were able to create brilliant and successful short stories using the very simple 'tools of brevity' of that period. In this challenging and far-reaching study, Goyet looks at classic short stories in the context in which they were read at the time: cheap newspapers and higher-end periodicals. She demonstrates that, despite the apparent intention of these stories to question bourgeois ideals, they mostly affirmed the prejudices of their readers. In doing so, her book forces us to re-think our preconceptions about this 'forgotten' genre.
Excerpt from How to Write Short Stories These exceptions, he explained, have been advice to study grammar or style or something else equally obnoxious to my sense 'of application to dry things. I have been told that I have good ideas but rank clothing for those ideas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from The Art of the Short Story The principles of narrative structure which I have set down here are for the most part true of the novel as well as of the short story, though for conciseness and clearness I have discussed their application chiefly to the latter. They are, most of them, commonly enough held, though in my college work I have felt the need of a book which should collect and relate them in simple, orderly, and yet comprehensive fashion. The material is scattered, and the amateur writer cannot easily find it. For other than commonplace and accepted principles of structure I have relied chiefly on Stevenson, whose letters and essays are filled with comments of technical interest to writers. It is unfortunate that he never wrote his promised work, a small and arid book upon the art of fiction. Most of my indebtedness to Stevenson is specifically acknowledged in the following pages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Hints on Writing Short Stories In this I have not compiled a guide to rhe toric in the conventional style of the Corre spondence Schools. My aim has been to convey to you a number of ideas. When you hzye real the book, there should remain, forever fixed in your mind, this. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story The modern short story is essentially an American product; and our masters Of its art have established precedents for literary workers Of the Old World. In England, Stevenson, Kipling and Haggard are con sidered the originators Of the modern short story; and Zola, de Maupassant, Daudet and Paul Marguerite In, France, Tolstoi in Russia, and other famous foreign au thors have their claims for consideration; but all of them, admittedly or not, are but disciples Of the earlier American trinity. This book will confine itself to the english-american short story. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from Short Story-Writing: An Art or a Trade? For I have been teaching, for a number of years, the Technique of Short story-writing, and my guidance and judgment have meant life and death to countless stories born in the breasts and minds of trustful people. I have been the great discour ager and encourager Of genius and quasi-genius, and I know my hands are not without stain of liter ary blood. I am not reproaching myself. Among the many hundreds Of men and women who derive their daily bread and clothes and gasoline by directing the story-fancy Of the country's million or more literary aspirants, I class myself among the most conscientious and least harmful. The share of in jury I may have contributed has simply been the unavoidable accompaniment of being engaged in a profession grounded upon the popular belief that literature is a trade, like plumbing, or tailoring, or hod-carrying, and requires but an understanding of the stupendous emoluments involved and a will to learn. That it is in the interests of the profession to foster and perpetuate this popular belief needs no elaborate substantiation. But that the belief itself should be based on a measure of solid truth is a sardonic phenomenon calling for enlightening discussion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from A Handbook on Story Writing When in 1910 I undertook the teaching Of the short-story to a class of undergraduates at Hunter College, I found a dearth of books on the theory of story writing. There were Poe's examples and his body Of criticism, from which help might be de duced; there was the pioneer Philosophy Of Pro fessor Matthews, and there were two or three texts whose chief value lay in their exposition Of the genre. After no great length of time a growing suspicion asserted itself that although my students could write unusually well, frequently with suggestion of charm and power, yet they were not always writing stories. They fell short Of modern narrative requirement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Excerpt from The Contemporary Short Story: A Practical Manual A distinguished British critic, Professor Hugh Walker, remarks: There is no other form Of literature in which America is so eminent as in the writing of short stories. This dictum alone is sufficient justification for introducing a course in this subject into every college in the land. Not only is a better understanding and appreciation Of the finest short stories fostered by such a course, but not a few students find themselves able to write tales that are accepted by reputable American periodicals if not during their undergraduate years, at any rate Shortly afterward. Writing fiction for the magazines is both an art and a business. This volume accordingly aims to teach promis ing young authors, whether in or out Of college, how to write stories that shall be marketable as well as artistic. It attempts to state succinctly, and as clearly as may be, some fundamental principles of short-story writing. These principles are based upon somewhat extensive reading of short fiction in English, both classic and contemporary; Of a pretty large number of manuscripts submitted to important periodicals; and of most of the critical works on the short story. Many of the pages are written from the editorial standpoint. I have not attempted to set up an impracticable ideal on the one hand, nor to concede too much to the lower range of popular taste on the other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
