Customer Reviews

Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers

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Reviewed by C.J.Singh

DEEPENING FICTION assumes the reader has already studied an introductory text on the fiction-writing craft such as Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft or Tom Bailey's A Short Story Writer's Companion and On Writing Short Stories

Although DEEPENING FICTION is designed primarily as a textbook for advanced courses, I found it entirely accessible for self-teaching. It could very well serve as the focus book of a study group as it poses intelligently worded discussion questions on each of the twenty-two stories in its anthology section. Among these stories, sixteen are by contemporary writers.

In the preface, the authors observe: "More experienced writers are ready to understand just how much writing is revision, how much we develop the shape and meaning of the story over multiple drafts. Our goal is to help writers connect craft to the particular work they are wrestling with. ... The long middle stretch of the writing apprenticeship--between initial learning of the basic concepts and the production of meaningful, memorable works free of inconsistencies and clichés--can be a hard one. ... It's one thing to learn the difference between scene and summary and quite another to figure out what parts of a particular story to render as scene, what as summary, and how these choices influence the story's meaning."

Scene, summary, flashbacks, backstory, and transitions are the topics constituting chapter 5, which presents illuminating story analyses of Lan Samantha Chang's "The Eve of the Spirit Festival" and Yasunari Kawabata's "The Rooster and the Dancing Girl."

Chapter 1 reviews issues in complicating characters, with illustrations from Tobias Wolff's "Powder" and ZZ Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere."

Chapters 2 and 3 take on complicating point of view beyond first, second, third, with story analyses of Margot Livesey's "The Niece," Jorge Luis Borges's "Inferno, I, 32," and Anton Chekov's "Gooseberries." As an example of stories that require first-person narrators, Alice Munro's "The Turkey Season" is analyzed. "Orientation," by Daniel Orozco, a frequently anthologized story to exemplify second-person point of view (as done in Burroway's textbook) is persuasively analyzed instead as a monologue. Second-person narration is illustrated by Adam Johnson's "Trauma Plate." The authors note that this is the only short story "we know of, in fact, uses first, second, and third person." Johnson contributes several substantial paragraphs explaining his point-of-view choices in revising successive drafts of the story.

Chapter 4 discusses alternative plot structures by analyzing John L. Heureux's "Father," Melissa Pritchard's "Photograph of Luisa," and Julio Cortazar's "Graffiti."

Other chapters include discussions of style and dialogue by analyses of Charles Baxter's "The Cures for Love" and Grace Paley's "A Conversation With My Father."

This book teaches the fiction-craft skills of an MFA-level course, delivering the promise of its subtitle: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers.

-- C J Singh

As anyone who purchases books on writing craft knows, reviews are not always reliable or accurate, and very few titles deliver practical advice one can apply to a manuscript in development. The authors I edit often ask me for a list of books worth purchasing. Deepening Fiction is one I suggest for writers who have already advanced their craft beyond basics. While it is pitched at the student in a learning environment, it is both accessible and useful for writers in less rarefied writing circumstances, including published authors who want to re-examine certain areas of their craft.

There are more helpful, practical guides for new writers: if you can only buy one book on how to write fiction, buy the Stephen Koch classic Writer's Workshop. However, if you are not a novice, have some money to spend, and already own the must-have titles, Deepening Fiction is worth considering.

This volume, has strengths and weaknesses. Among its stronger material, and the reason I am reviewing it, are the useful chapters on Point of View. A fairly basic discussion of the common Third Person narratives is provided, with a useful passage on creating subtle shifts. However, the author offers an in-depth examination of the First and Second Person, which is among the best and most thorough I have read. Very few works on craft discuss, for example, the use of Second Person as Disguised First Person. A useful set of POV exercises are also included and I appreciated the succinct content the author provides in charts. If you only purchase this work for the content on POV, it is worth buying.

However, there are other useful chapters, also. The material on Plot & Structure, and Narrative Drive is solid, if not especially unique. (The exercises in revision are helpful). An excellent passage on Timeline is another of this guide's virtues. Writers frequently find themselves bogged down in the unhappy mire of timeline issues and too often come up with only the most pedestrian, linear solutions to their woes. Deepening Fiction offers useful insights and could help you explore more creative options.

Both Character and Style receive a somewhat perfunctory, if adequate, treatment - the type of thing one would expect to find in a classroom. Perhaps the authors, Stone and Nyron, were mindful of the relative abundance of works that explore these areas of fiction craft. So, if you are seeking a title with special strength in the examination of Character, take a pass on this one.

I was especially interested to see how the authors deal with the topic of Revision; few titles address this critical area of manuscript development with any degree of depth or pragmatism. In Deepening Fiction a chapter on the subject is focused on story analysis, attempting to assist the writer in how to receive criticism, objectively examine story elements and re-enter the story in the context of revision. Throughout the other chapters additional revision-focused passages are provided in relation to each topic - setting, character etc. If you are working in literary fiction, and dealing in particular with the short story, this approach to revision may be valuable and relevant. If not, or if you are working in the commercial genres, you may find the authors' approach a tad unclear and the methodologies less suitable for you.

An anthology of stories is included in this volume, taking up quite a chunk of the page count - with the student in mind. The selection is a good one for students. Working authors may also find some of these, and the related exercises, interesting if nothing else. Many of you will probably bypass this content entirely, as classroom in its orientation.

Deepening Fiction is a useful addition to a collection of works on writing craft. There are no silver bullets between its covers, but the authors do a commendable job of writing a guide that will not only serve its target audience - students of writing - but has something to offer fiction authors out in the real world.

Hi,

I have read at least twenty books on the craft of writing. (Someday, I will be a world-famous novelist.)

Anyway, this book is truly wonderful, I would not say that if I did not mean it. For one, it features something I have wanted to see for years and years: the first draft of a work, then revisions, more revisions, and its final form.

Invaluable, in that it shows the work methods, the honing, the forming, and of course the published version.

And a good section on POV, laying out the general rules of each, their advantages and difficulties, etc.

A lot of interesting short stories, along with analyses of each.

This book is one of three that I really feel are worth the time to read and re-read.

(The other two? Elements of Style, of course. And Stephen King's, 'On Writing'.

If your goal is to be a published writer of fiction, buy this book. So many books on how to write fiction are a waste of time and a horrible reason to turn a tree into paper, this one is worth it.

Dan Elliott Jr.

Along with Janet Burroway's "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft", one of the most widely used textbooks in university creative writing programs, Sarah Stone's "Deepening Fiction" is a great addition to the library of anyone who wants to improve their skill set in creative writing. While neither book is cheap, Stone's text has numerous examples of well written stories, along with writing exercises and examples of results from the use of a variety of writing techniques. With literally thousands of how-to books on the market, along with Burroway's, Stone's is a safe bet to help you improve your writing and not remain a dusty purchase on your bookshelf like all the rest.