With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell offers a roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing in this much-needed book.
Focusing on the big picture as well as the crucial details, Bell examines twelve stories by both established writers (including Peter Taylor, Mary Gaitskill, and Carolyn Chute) and his own former students. A story's use of time, plot, character, and other elements of fiction are analyzed, and readers are challenged to see each story's flaws and strengths. Careful endnotes bring attention to the ways in which various writers use language. Bell urges writers to develop the habit of thinking about form and finding the form that best suits their subject matter and style. His direct and practical advice allows writers to find their own voice and imagination.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
An excellent study, first of its kind. -- Josh Allen, Queens College
An original approach; useful; excellent and lucid introduction. -- Wendy Coural, Cabrillo College
Bell does the best job I have come across so far of explaining what the traditional linear structure of a story is and why a story should have it. -- Jeff Minerd, co-editor, Writer's Carousel
Here are terrific examples of line-by-line reading of terrific stories. Bell offers the student reader terrific examples of line by line readings of terrific stories. I'm impressed -- Elizabeth Evans, University of Arizona
It's the first book I've seen that gets to the heart of the matter and won't let go....Useful to classroom writers and writing students of every stripe. -- Alan Davis, editor, American Fiction
Madison Bell has chosen fine stories by writers whose work is not shopworn by having gone from one anthology to another for years....His extremely detailed and often brilliant commentary can often take more pages than the story itself....This is the best book of its kind that I have seen since Lionel Trilling's The Experience of Literature. -- Clarence Brown, Trenton Times
Madison Smartt Bell's Narrative Design is one of those books you might need to take with you to your writerly desert isle. It offers all of the essential instructions for writing fiction, as well as providing wonderful examples of the end product, and then supplying brilliant analysis of them. His is a thorough, fascinating, forgiving, good-hearted, unique, and - most impressively - useful book. -- Antonya Nelson, author of Living to Tell Them and Nobody's Girl
Offers concrete advice for organizing fiction. -- Laurie Champion, Sul Ross State University
This is the book I've wanted someone to offer for twenty years. Structure is by far the most effective tool to teach beginning fiction writers. -- Sam Blate, Montgomery College
This is the most insightful, outright useful, most inventive guide to writing that I've seen. -- Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist
An original approach; useful; excellent and lucid introduction. -- Wendy Coural, Cabrillo College
Bell does the best job I have come across so far of explaining what the traditional linear structure of a story is and why a story should have it. -- Jeff Minerd, co-editor, Writer's Carousel
Here are terrific examples of line-by-line reading of terrific stories. Bell offers the student reader terrific examples of line by line readings of terrific stories. I'm impressed -- Elizabeth Evans, University of Arizona
It's the first book I've seen that gets to the heart of the matter and won't let go....Useful to classroom writers and writing students of every stripe. -- Alan Davis, editor, American Fiction
Madison Bell has chosen fine stories by writers whose work is not shopworn by having gone from one anthology to another for years....His extremely detailed and often brilliant commentary can often take more pages than the story itself....This is the best book of its kind that I have seen since Lionel Trilling's The Experience of Literature. -- Clarence Brown, Trenton Times
Madison Smartt Bell's Narrative Design is one of those books you might need to take with you to your writerly desert isle. It offers all of the essential instructions for writing fiction, as well as providing wonderful examples of the end product, and then supplying brilliant analysis of them. His is a thorough, fascinating, forgiving, good-hearted, unique, and - most impressively - useful book. -- Antonya Nelson, author of Living to Tell Them and Nobody's Girl
Offers concrete advice for organizing fiction. -- Laurie Champion, Sul Ross State University
This is the book I've wanted someone to offer for twenty years. Structure is by far the most effective tool to teach beginning fiction writers. -- Sam Blate, Montgomery College
This is the most insightful, outright useful, most inventive guide to writing that I've seen. -- Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist
About the Author
Madison Smartt Bell is the author of twelve novels, his most recent being The Stone That the Builder Refused. He teaches at Goucher College and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT!!!!!,
By
This review is from: Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (Paperback)
I saw that pitiful lil stankin azz review and HAD to say something because this book deserves way more than two stars. For anyone SERIOUS about writing and actually *wants* to be in a class, this is the only book that I can think of that will actually deconstruct a story line by line and break down its significance into sections that make you discover how they work and WHY they work so well. The notes are so detailed that you will be shown things that you would have never figured out on your own, and it will teach you to read ALL work like that. You learn on a sentence level, a structural level and a thematic level and how to combine those crucial elements together, yet make it look effortless (if you're lucky).
I was sold with the very first story by Mary Gaitskill, who I positively adore. Then a Peter Taylor story? AND Ernest Gaines? Forget it! Bell combines greats with unknowns and offers up a true MFA level lesson on craft, with some amazing stories. I haven't seen a book like it and am SO glad that it exists. This is a must-have, which I say about a lot of the books I review, but if you think about all the writing books out there, there are only a few you really need and this is one of them. I don't write reviews for books I am indifferent about - I don't even READ them. So if you know what's good for you and your writing, you will get this jont! LOL
2 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
didn't dazzle,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form (Paperback)
I had to buy this book for a writing class, and did not find it very helpful.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
TO TEACH CREATIVE WRITING, or to be taught it, is a paradox. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
narrative vector, child downstairs, present time line, main climax, public mirror, craft consciousness, past definite, tree ear, dramatized scene, narrative design, linear design, full scene, falling action Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Helen Ruth, Little Red, Virgil Boyd, Morrison Long, Jane Blakemore, Monsieur Bayonne, Cousin Mamie, Uncle Loren, Brandy Brown, Wife of Nashville, Civil War, John Lee, Mary Kay, New York City, Peter Taylor, The Philosophy of Composition, Betty Crocker, Hear That Long Train Moan, Reuben Bean, Annabel Lee, Miss Liberty, Signs of Life, Tristram Shandy, Vaux Hall, Baton Rouge New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
TO TEACH CREATIVE WRITING, or to be taught it, is a paradox. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
narrative vector, child downstairs, present time line, main climax, public mirror, craft consciousness, past definite, tree ear, dramatized scene, narrative design, linear design, full scene, falling action Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Helen Ruth, Little Red, Virgil Boyd, Morrison Long, Jane Blakemore, Monsieur Bayonne, Cousin Mamie, Uncle Loren, Brandy Brown, Wife of Nashville, Civil War, John Lee, Mary Kay, New York City, Peter Taylor, The Philosophy of Composition, Betty Crocker, Hear That Long Train Moan, Reuben Bean, Annabel Lee, Miss Liberty, Signs of Life, Tristram Shandy, Vaux Hall, Baton Rouge New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 39
books:
See all 39 books this book cites
3
books
cite this book:
- The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute on page 95, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Rainbow Stories (Contemporary American Fiction) by William Vollmann on page 95, and Back Matter
- Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Signs of Life by Madsen Michael on page 97, and page 104
- My Romance: A Novel by Gordon Lish on page 17, and page 86
See all 39 books this book cites
- Lavoisier In The Year One: The Birth Of A New Science In An Age Of Revolution (Great Discoveries) by Madison Smartt Bell in Front Matter
- Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction by Brenda Miller on page 26
- Doctor Sleep (An Evergreen book) by Madison Smartt Bell in Front Matter
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