Show, don't tell is the first thing a fiction writer learns. The dozen masters assembled here each take one of their own stories and show exactly how they crafted a particular aspect of it - the style, the theme, the characters, the plot, the setting, or the point of view. Included in this volume are a dozen award-winning masters of the short story: Greg Bear, Pat Cadigan, Karen Joy Fowler, Joe Haldeman, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Pat Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, Bruce Sterling, and Howard Waldrop. Each brings great insight into the art of writing fiction. Greg Bear asserts that characters shouldn't just be individuals - they should address larger questions of characterizing nations, species, or entire worlds - while Pat Murphy treats characters as imaginary friends who evolve during the writing process. Lucius Shepard discusses the ways in which tiny details evoke a setting and Howard Waldrop assesses the ways in which a literary chameleon can adapt his or her writing style from story to story. Rounding out the book is Bruce Sterling's wonderful "Workshop Lexicon", in which he sums up the most common flows in beginner's fiction. For example: "Signal from Fred", in which the author's subconscious, alarmed by the poor quality of the work, makes unwitting critical comments like "This sounds like a bad movie".
Award-winning sf writers and instructors from the Clarion Writers Workshop (Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, Pat Murphy, Karen Joy Fowler, and others) demonstrate?through their stories?how they create plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, and style. Each section contains an introductory essay by editor Wilson, two illustrative stories, and a short, insightful essay by each author. Highly recommended for all sf collections. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
The perspiration as well as the inspiration that goes into good fiction is put under the critical microscope in this collection that presents 12 exemplary SF stories with commentary by their creators. Wilson, himself a mystery novelist (Death by Degrees) groups the stories by twos, according to six aspects of fiction: plot, character, setting, theme, point of view and style. The authors are either influential in the field (Greg Bear, Bruce Sterling, Joe Haldeman) or are known as writers' writers (Kim Stanley Robinson, John Kessel, Howard Waldrop). The tales range from symbolic imagery or magic realism (Lucius Shepherd, Karen Joy Fowler, James Patrick Kelly) to mainstream SF (Pat Cadigan, Greg Bear). Most, like Nancy Kress's "The Price of Oranges" or Pat Murphy's "Rachel in Love," combine SF and mainstream literary conventions. Each pairing is introduced by an essay from Wilson, and the book concludes with a lexicon of SF workshop terms from Bruce Sterling. SF fans and writers alike will find much of value here. (Apr.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.
