Fundamentals of fiction writing

Living in so complex a civilization, we generally fail to realize how complex have become our mental habits. We have come more and more to think upon complexities until, for the...

_The Art Process_.--The art process of fiction involves three elements--the Material, the Artist and the Reader. So far as my experience and observation go, the Reader is not re...

By creating the illusion I mean making the reader forget the world he really lives in and carrying him into the world of the story, either identifying himself with one of the ch...

Readers of course vary in susceptibility to the illusion of fiction--vary in concentration, reading method, background of culture and of experience in life, familiarity with the...

To hold a reader in the illusion of a story it is of course necessary to hold his attention, not merely in a general way, but entirely and without break, interruption or hindran...

Anything that is not clear to a reader either causes him to skip it and therefore miss part of the story's substance and effect, or else makes him puzzle. In either case the ill...

A reader has just so much of attention, interest and appreciation to give to any story and, to hold him in the illusion, it is of the highest importance not to wear him out befo...

Among writers of some experience the rejection of a manuscript for the quite common reason that it is "not convincing" is often considered merely the editor's slipshod, evasive...

While most points that bear here fall more directly under other headings, some definitely belong in this chapter. And, though I know of no recipe for being interesting, there ar...

Divide all readers into majority and minority. It is legitimate and profitable to aim at either. Now make your big decision, and it is a very big one. At which of these will you...

Throughout all nature, throughout the universe so far as we know it, there is a basic tendency toward unity and growth. The tendency is of course present in the human mind. That...

For broadest popularity possibly the prime single requisite in fiction is action plot, but, if so, character drawing is at least a close second. Human nature's interest in human...

Year after year editors sit at their desks and almost at a single glance reject anywhere from sixty to ninety per cent. of the manuscripts that come in, and, on the whole, they...

When you read a story you live more or less in its story world. There are printed words on the page and they cause your imagination (I do not use the word in the sense of "fancy...

_Action Considered Unliterary_.--The cause, I think, is twofold. First, most of the crudest published fiction relies to a great extent on action. It is natural and illogical to...

If the theory suggested by the chapter head had not withstood the test of ten years and the judgment of a number of people whose judgment is worth having, I should not venture t...