Writing Great Stories
Meet the Golden Quill of
Story Telling
By
CB Hampton
Writers who are serious about their craft, whether
they be published or not, are bound to have a myriad of how-to books hovering
in and around, book cases, desks, floors, computer towers, bathrooms, bedroom
night stands and cocktail tables. Names of fiction and craft writers such as
Stephen King, Donald Maas, Michaeld Seidman, Debra Dixon, Pam McClanahan,
Robert McKee, Ernest Hemingway, Christopher Voglen, Andre Jute, Dorothea
Brande, Dwight Swain, Leslie Wainger grace the writer's well-stocked library. (And
let's not forget the references: Stunk and White, Chicago Manuel of Style,
Rogets' humungous Thesaurus and dictionaries of all sizes and shapes.)
CB Hampton wrote yet another craft book. That sounds like a ho-hum,
critical gesture, but it’s not. His book is unique.
How so? Why is this book so different? It explains the same
elements. Uses examples from well-known authors, as well as his own stories.
Has extensive research to back up his ideas and shows from where the research
came. But the book not only covers everything a self-respecting author might
need, it's expansive. And, it's fun to read. Texts can be fun? This one is. Kind
of like a thriller that you don't want to put down.
Here is what you'll get:
PART ONE:
Chapter One: The Quest for the Story. What ideas may work. What
may not work. And why.
Chapter Two: Testing Your Story: Tests Chapter One's theory by
using examples of four highly successful authors: Hemingway, Brown, Cook and
Ludlum.
Chapter Three: Narrative Unity: How to chuck chapters and scenes
that don't belong.
Chapter Four: Building a Sample Story: Tests Chapters One, Two
and Three by writing a sample story. No kidding.
Chapter Five: Creating Suspense: "...develops a simple,
practical 'writer's definition of suspense and outlines exactly how to create
suspense in your stories no matter what the genre." It shows thirteen
"highly specific" methods increasing intensity.
Chapter Six: Strong Motivation: What motivation means and how to
create it to make sure "the hero and antagonist are strongly motivated
enough not to quit in the middle of the story."
Chapter Seven: Structuring Your Story: Offers an in-depth
explanation of story structure and a simple way to make sure the story is
properly structured. Demonstration on how this works follows.
Chapter Eight: Another Look at Structure: Offers a variety of techniques
to "map your story from beginning to end." The chapter includes some
already created story maps from Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey."
Chapter Nine through Sixteen: Prepackaged Story Maps
Chapter Seventeen: Scenes and Transitions: Offers four types of
scenes and how they are used.
PART TWO: In Search of Craft
Chapter Eighteen: Characterization: The difference between
characters and characterization and how to use them onstage and off.
Chapter Nineteen: Dialogue: How to use dialogue "to portray
characters express setting, provide exposition and backstory....'
Chapter Twenty: Point of View: Three main points of view are
discussed as well as author intrusion (Huh? What is that?)and examples.
Chapter Twenty One: Description in Motion: How much description
and when and how to use it without stopping the story.
Chapter Twenty Two: In Search of Style: How style is influenced
by a writer's goals, personality and craft choices. Difference between voice
and style.
Chapter Twenty Three: Brainstorming Alone: Use of writing a
journal is explored
Chapter Twenty Four: Quick and Dirty Discover Draft: Creating a
"discovery" draft and outline that is easy to change and manipulate.
Chapter Twenty Five: Practical Prose Craft: Understanding
paragraphing and sentence construction.
Chapter Twenty Six: Practical Edit Craft: The importance of
editing your own craft. How to do it and why it's needed.
PART THREE: BONUS CHAPTERS
Chapter Twenty Seven: In Search of a Hero
Chapter Twenty Eight: Generational Research
Chapter Twenty Nine: Basic Research for Writers
Chapter Thirty: The Future of Publishing
As a unique and
more-than-complete craft book this book rates five stars.
Patricia A. Guthrie, author
www.patriciaanneguthrie.com
www.paguthrie.blogspot.com
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