Longman / Prentice Hall

English

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What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, 2/E
Anne Bernays, College of the Holy Cross
Pamela Painter, Emerson College

ISBN-10: 0321107179
ISBN-13: 9780321107176

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2004
Format: Paper; 528 pp
Published: 11/24/2003

Suggested retail price: $51.20
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Organized by the elements of fiction and comprised primarily of writing exercises, this text helps students hone and refine their craft with a practical, hands-on approach to writing fiction.

This text features several exercises on each particular aspect of fiction—characterization, point of view, plot, dialogue, etc. Every exercise is introduced by an opening paragraph that provides insight into and information on that element of fiction. The introduction is followed by instructions for completing the exercise, the “objective” of the exercise, and frequently by a student example. The text is concluded by an anthology of contemporary and highly teachable short fiction.

  • Includes more than one hundred classroom-tested writing exercises to help students hone their writing craft.
  • Each exercise is introduced by a brief but informative essay on an aspect of writing fiction.
  • Organized by separate elements of fiction—characterization, dialogue, point of view, etc.—this text offers instructors flexibility and provides students with specific and focused writing practice.
  • Includes an anthology of more than 20 short stories (including short-short stories) with wide-ranging style and subject.
  • Features practical advice on how-to-write and how to revise fiction.

  • Greater attention to revision. This edition includes a more in-depth discussion and more exercises on revision.
  • New exercises. This edition will feature many new class-tested exercises that aim to improve students' writing techniques as well as spark their imaginations.
  • New sections on the interior landscape of characters and the short story. Addressing new trends in the creative writing genre, the book includes entire sections devoted to these topics.
  • Over 25% of the stories in the book's mini-anthology are new. Many stories have been replaced with new, highly teachable, contemporary selections to keep the text fresh and updated.



 1. Beginnings.


 2. Notebooks, Journals, and Memory.


 3. Characterization.


 4. Perspective, Distance, and Point of View.


 5. Dialogue.


 6. Interior Landscapes.


 7. Plot.


 8. The Elements of Style.


 9. A Writer's Tools.


10. Invention and Transformation.


11. Revision: Rewriting Is Writing.


12. Games.


13. Learning from the Greats.


14. Sudden, Flash, and Microfiction: The Short Story.

20/20, by Linda Brewer.

Excuses I Have Already Used by Antonia Clark.

Mackerel Night by Laurence Davies.

The Custodian by Brian Hinshaw.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid.

Confirmation Names by Mariette Lippo.

It Would've Been Hot by Melissa McCracken.

My Mother's Gifts by Judith Claire Mitchell.

The New Year by Pamela Painter.

Wants by Grace Paley.

No One's a Mystery by Elizabeth Tallent.

Vision out of the Corner of One Eye by Luisa Valenzeula.



15. A Collection of Short Fiction.

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood.

Christmas Eve at Johnson's Drugs N Goods by Toni Cade Bambara.

Gryphon by Charles Baxter.

Some of Our Work with Monsters by Ron Carlson.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver.

Sister by Deborah Joy Corey.

White Angel by Michael Cunningham.

How to Talk to a Hunter by Pam Houston.

Live Life King Sized by Hester Kaplan.

The Niece by Margot Livesey.

Shiloh by Bobbie Ann Mason.

Sheep by Thomas McNeely.

Five Points by Alice Munro.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor.

Wolinsky's Resort by Edward Schwarzschild.

The Appaloosa House by Sharon Sheehe Stark.

Under the Roof by Kate Wheeler.

For Creative Writing - Fiction


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