How to Write a Novel: A Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction

There are two kinds of success in fiction--commercial and literary; and sometimes a writer is able to combine the two. Thomas Hardy is an example of the writer who produces lite...

You have now obtained your story--in its bare outlines, at least. The next question is, How are you to make a start? Well, that is an important question, and it cannot be evaded.

The public has shown a deep interest in all details respecting the way in which writers produce their books; the food they eat, the clothes they wear, their weaknesses and their...

One morning you opened your paper and found that Mr Simon St Clair had gone into Wales in search of local colour. What does local colour mean? The appearance of the country, the...

This is the way in which the question is most often stated, but the real question is more intelligently expressed by asking: Has the novel, as a form of literature, become obsol...

David Pryde has summed up the whole matter in a few well-chosen sentences: "Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the right starting-place, and go straight...

In the plot previously outlined, which figure is supreme? It depends. In some senses the supremacy is not a matter of choice, but is decided by the nature of the story. If the m...

I am setting myself a task which some people would call very ambitious; others would call it by a name not quite so polite; and a considerable number would say it was positively...

One can readily sympathise with the melancholy of a man who, after reading De Quincey, Macaulay, Addison, Lamb, Pater, and Stevenson, found that literary style was still a myste...

The beginner in fiction often asks: Is it not best to prepare for novel-writing by writing short stories? The question is much to the point, and merits a careful answer.

I said a moment ago that no teaching could impart a story. If you cannot invent one for yourself, by observation of life and sympathetic insight into human nature, you may depen...

I propose to show in this chapter that a literary artist can never afford to despise details. He may have genius enough to write a first-rate novel, and sell it rapidly in spite...