What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, 3rd edition

Published by Pearson (August 19, 2009) © 2010

  • Anne Bernays
  • Pamela Pamela
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  • A print edition

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Title overview

Organized by the elements of fiction and comprised primarily of writing exercises, this text helps students hone and refine their craft with a practical, hands-on approach to writing fiction.

This text features several exercises on each particular aspect of fiction—characterization, point of view, plot, dialogue, etc. Every exercise is introduced by an opening paragraph that provides insight into and information on that element of fiction. The introduction is followed by instructions for completing the exercise, the “objective” of the exercise, and frequently by a student example. The text is rounded out by an anthology of contemporary and highly teachable short fiction.

Table of contents

<>Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE

Beginnings

1. First Sentences: Beginning in the Middle

2. Second Sentences as Different Paths

3. Ways to Begin a Story, from Robie Macauley

4. Begin a Story with a “Given” First Line, from William Kittredge

5. Free Associating from Random Sentences, from DeWitt Henry

6. Person, Place, and Song, from Ron Carlson

7. Stirring Up a Fiction Stew

8. The Newspaper Muse: Ann Landers and the National Enquirer

9. Taking Risks

PART TWO

Characterization

10. Oh! . . . That Sort of Person

11. What Do You Know About Your Characters?

12. Props

13. What Do Your Characters Want?

14. Making Heroes Flawed, from Douglas Bauer

15. Creating a Character’s Background, Place, Setting, and Milieu, from Robie Macauley

16. Put Your Characters to Work

17. The Morning After

18. He/She: Switching Gender

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