Advanced Fiction: A Writer's Guide and Anthology

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Confident with the basics of your craft Looking to take your writing to the next level Advanced Fiction gives you the tools to hone your skills by thinking more deeply and systematically about deploying them on the page. Friendly and down-to-earth, Amy Weldon guides you through the realities of craft and process, combining a broad anthology of landmark stories with instruction on the more advanced aspects of fiction writing. Featuring interactive prompts, exercises and suggestions for further reading, this book guides you from larger philosophical issues to subtler technical ones, from topics as diverse as the intricate principles of storytelling to navigating artistic and political landscapes conscientiously and building a writing career. Beginning with a brief recap of the basics, the text goes on to examine: - The psychology of writing and revising - Practical methods for drafting and notebook-keeping - Taking personal and technical risks with ideas, images, and forms - Making responsible decisions about representing identities, bodies, and histories on the page - Complex craft concepts such as world-building, structure, time, and moving from short forms to novels Placing students own work in conversation with established stories, the accompanying anthology selections range widely in culture, technique and time period, including authors of dystopia, historical fiction, satire, and fiction in translation as well as literary realists tackling themes like economic inequality, climate change, and identity. Thoughtful and essential, this book provides excellent guidance for students and budding authors on the complexities of fiction writing from the beginning of a writing project short story or novel to the end.

Reviews

"The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History is not only an incredibly readable and illuminating guide to the art of writing alternate history, it's also a superb introduction to alternate history as a genre. This book will be of great interest to anyone involved in writing or teaching alternate history and related kinds of literature." --Dr Sean Seeger, Senior Lecturer in Literature, University of Essex, UK

Author Bio

Amy E. Weldon is Professor of English at Luther College, USA. She is the author of The Hands-On Life: How to Wake Yourself Up and Save the World (2018), The Writers Eye: Observation and Inspiration for Creative Writers (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Eldorado, Iowa: A Novel (2019). Her website is amyeweldon.com.