A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft

by Andrea Barrett (Editor), Peter Turchi (Editor), Sarah Stone (Contributor)

A Kite in the Wind is an anthology of essays by 20 veteran writers and master teachers. While the contributors offer specific, practical advice on such fundamental aspects of craft as characterization, character names, the first person point of view, and unreliable narrators, they also give extended, thoughtful consideration to more sophisticated topics, including “imminence,” or the power of a sense of beginning; creating and maintaining tension; “lushness”; and the deliberate manipulation of information to create particular effects.

The essays in A Kite in the Wind begin as personal investigations — attempts to understand why a decision in a particular story or novel seemed unsuccessful; to define a quality or problem that seemed either unrecognized or unsatisfactorily defined; to understand what, despite years of experience as a fiction writer, resisted comprehension; and to pursue haunting, even unanswerable questions.

Unlike a how-to book, the anthology is less an instruction manual than it is an intimate visit with twenty very different writers as they explore topics that excite, intrigue, and even puzzle them. Each discussion uses specific examples and illustrations, including both canonical stories and novels and writing less frequently discussed, from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, by both American and international authors.

The contributors share their hard-earned insights for beginning and advanced writers with humility, wit, and compassion. The first section of the book focuses on narration, with particular attention paid to various kinds of narrators; the second, on strategic creation and presentation of character; the third, on some of the roles of the visual, beginning with establishing setting; and the fourth, on structural and organizational issues, from movement through time to the manipulation of information to create mystery and suspense.

Genres: Writing, Crafts

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Andrea Barrett is the author of The Air We Breathe, Servants of the Map (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), The Voyage of the Narwhal, Ship Fever (winner of the National Book Award), and other books. She teaches at Williams College and lives in northwestern Massachusetts.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Caro Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I return to this collection of essays when I'm stuck in a story. The contributors have all been teachers at Warren Wilson's low-res MFA, a very craft focused program. Suffice it to say, some of the essays are stuffy and formal, some are inspired and beautiful to read, but everyone really knows what they are talking about. The stand out, for me, is in the Revealing Character portion of the book. Stacey D'Erasmo wrote "The Space Between," about intimacy in stories and the way it pushes people apart just as much as it connects, and how we as writers must battle societal assumptions about love, sex, intimacy, to get at something much more honest. Her writing is frank and insightful.

[Sara Habein · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its core, A Kite in the Wind is a realistic exploration of what makes novels work. It does not try to prescribe one course of action, and for the most part, it does not come with elitism. Yes, writing well will always be a challenge, but during the process, we can remind ourselves of the satisfaction we get from reading a really great book. We can wallow in a character's life and allow ourselves the to find the truth in fiction.

(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)

[Glass Half Full · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anthology of advice from writers who are at various stages in their careers. More than just advice on technique and style, these writers allow for varied perspectives to be gleaned from stories of their different experiences on writing, their successes, their failures, their roadblocks, making this book feel less like a textbook on how to write and more like a dynamic classroom setting in a book.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of craft essays. I particularly liked the ones by Michael Martone (about William Gass' "In the Heart of the Heart of the Country" and Kevin McIlvoy's about fairy tales.

[Holly Woodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better anthologies out there.