Voice & Style (Elements of Fiction Writing) [Hardcover]

Johnny Payne (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898796938
• ISBN-13: 978-0898796933
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #626,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rating the Elements of Fiction Writing series, April 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Voice & Style (Elements of Fiction Writing) (Hardcover)

I've read all the books in the Elements of Fiction Writing series and this is how I'd rank them.

"Scene & Structure" "Characters & Viewpoint" "Beginnings, Middles & Ends"

The above three books are invaluable -- must reads. They are the best of the series, in my opinion, and are packed with good information on every page. Well-done.

"Conflict, Action & Suspense" "Description" "Plot" "Manuscript Submission" "Setting"

The above five books are good, solid reads. Again, they contain good information and cover the subject decently.

"Voice & Style" "Dialogue"

To me, the last two books need to be rewritten. They are by far the weakest of the series. Both suffer from an annoying style, particularly Dialogue, and both are very skimpy on real information. Neither one is very helpful.

This is the order in which I'd recommend reading them.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misses its audience, June 29, 2003

By 

TheCafeWriter (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Voice & Style (Elements of Fiction Writing) (Hardcover)

I tried to read this book with an open mind, and it's clearly a book only an English lit teacher could love.

Given the book's target audience - beginning writers - it falls far short of being helpful to them. What the book SHOULD do and doesn't is present the broad concepts and principles, and then if the author chooses to "instruct by example" as Payne does, then provide examples that support and illustrate those concepts and principles.

Instead each chapter jumps into a seemingly endless stream of analysis of fiction works, attempting to instruct by way of example with no real "how-to's." The overwhelming problems - besides a tendency toward pedantic wordiness - are that the snippets used are too short and the analyses too specific to be useful to the target audience of this book: beginning writers looking for the broader principles to apply to their own writing.

Each chapter is followed by exercises. However, the exercises are not presented with the goals for each ("WHY am I doing this") or any way of analyzing or learning from the results after doing them ("WHAT worked when I did this"). Beginning writers could finish this book feeling as I did - somewhat confused and very much like I wasted my time.

I would highly recommend "Finding Your Writer's Voice" by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall instead.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Johnny Payne's Text succeeds where others have failed, September 3, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voice & Style (Elements of Fiction Writing) (Hardcover)

Dr. Johnny Payne's text VOICE AND STYLE is an excellent tool for helping fiction writers develop their own individual creative voice. Payne accomplishes this by taking the larger term known as "Style" and breaking it down into identifiable and practicable elements. These elements include but are not limited to Habits of Speech, Authority and Voice, Atmosphere and Tone, and Voice in Dialogue. His approach is analytical and thought-provoking but never boring. Using this "nuts and bolts" approach, he walks the reader through each subject using personal anecdotes and examples of his own creative process. Payne also draws on the wisdom and varied styles of many modern and time-proven authors from Barthelme and Cisneros through James, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. Dr. Payne believes that the techniques of fiction writing can be taught and he includes creative excercises at the end of each chapter that are designed to allow the practicing writer to apply specific elements to her or his own personal writing style. In a sense, Dr. Payne's text teaches writers by allowing them to discover and improve on what they already know. In the end, the student feels led along the creative path rather than pushed down it. The result is a highly effective and entertaining text that most writing students will want to keep and refer back to often.