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Writing Fiction
Large novel size paperback as seen in vg condition. We ship worldwide from San Francisco bay area.
- GenresWritingNonfiction
174 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
4 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
R.V. Cassill
57 books7 followersRonald Verlin Cassill, Professor of English at Brown University, was a novelist and anthologist.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 19, 2011
Well, Mr. Cassill sugested I read the short stories included in this book before reading the book itself, so like a good little student, read them I did: it's somewhat ironic that the oldest story ("The Lady with the Pet Dog" by Chekov) seems the least dated (who reads William Berge, Jean Stafford, George P. Elliot or Evan S. Connell anymore, or even Richard Yates before the movie "Revolutionary Road" came out?) but they're all decent stories. Along with the Chekov I especially liked Jean Stafford's "In the Zoo," and George P. Elliot's "Sandra" needs mentioning because it just seemed particularly weird when compared with the other stories.
It's a good thing I read these stories first too because much to Cassill's credit (and what sets this book apart from other writing "manuals" I've read) he spends a great deal of time focusing on the stories, both to show what works in them and also to illustrate various topics (plot, theme, tone, character, etc.) Rather than talk about these topics generally (and thus abstractly) or point to passages of a story the reader might not have read in full, it's immensely helpful for both reader and writer to have the same "common ground" reference, and helps make this book sort of a real-life writing class in condensed, book form.
Thankfully, the advice in here isn't the least bit out of date (save for at the very, very end, when the author offers tips on using the typewriter and a list of publishers that for the most part don't exist anymore). A great deal of the first section deals with how all writing is auto-biography, and how through understanding and processing our own experiences we can write better fiction, as well as make sense of the world: writing as therapy, you might call it, if it weren't for the fact Cassill expects writing to be honed to the best stuff, and not merely a self-indulgent display. This is also the section that deals with the "mechanics" of fiction, such as dialogue (a writer can "tell us that his chief female character is witty, lively, and cheerful. And we are likely to believe him, up to a point. But if the girl then speaks like a stupid, conventional frump, no amount of persuasion by the author will convince the canny reader that she is anything else") and "finger exercises" to get started writing.
The second section deals with more big-picture concepts, such as unity ("plot unifies by disciplining the action... character unifies by requiring a concentration on the signifigance an act or condition has to a particular person at a particular time in his life"), and connection ("The action declares its own goal... we grasp better through inference than through observation of concrete acts.").
There is also a good break-down of the writing or revision process, as it may relate to the abstract reader or the particular writers in this book: "Plots are found as meaning unfolds to the writer. A good writer is sort of a midwife to his plots, not a dictator. He helps them emerge- take shape- from character and situaton in the way his logic and intellect tell him action would emerge in life as he has known it."
Again: "Characters make their own demands. So do other elements. But against all these pressures (never ignoring them) the mind of the author goes on urging the demands for continuity and unity of the plot."
This is a great way of putting it: writing a story is a sort of a tug-of-war between various elements that must be kept in check and made meaningful some way, usually by plot. Cassill states, "it may be that the act of writing a story is, for the author, a subtle kind of parallel to the actions of his plot. That is, his plot is a disguised account of what happened to him as he wrote. The objective action he describes is a counterpart of the subjective struggle required to shape ideas and get them down on paper." That sounds abstract as I write it here, but Cassill makes this auto-biographical or self-portrait nature of writing seem inevitable.
Identification with characters is also explored, as well as the fact that fiction is fiction, an artifice to shape reality, and not reality itself. So is tone in general ("fiction lacks the powerful mechanical supplements of tone that movies and the stage can draw on to set the imagination of the audience at work to help communicate the story. But fiction has the quiet, inexhaustible resources of language itself") and tones in particular: rhetoric, middle, and understatement. "When rhetoric is abused, the result is what we call 'purple' or 'false poetic' language- merely colorful language that hides the subject instead of revealing it by signifigant theatrical lighting."
Cassill has some powerful things to say about theme: "what is left, like a resonance, in the reader's mind after he has recovered from the emotions he felt while reading and even after he has forgotten the shape of the plot and the illusion of life contributed by characters... when a writer succeeds in re-creating for a reader his first wondering perception of a theme, then communication of fiction cannot be matched by any other art."
There is also a great chapter on the Novel, mostly its various complications (keeping track of everything, the time it takes to write it and how one's mood is affected by season to season while writing it, how "the novelist's task is not so much to master technique or material as to master himself").
Sometimes it may seem the writer is portrayed as some sort of mystic knight or paladin, spending years in dark and quiet desperation and in monkish devotion to the Divine Word. But this is misleading and I want to make it clear: Cassill (who after this was published spent many years teaching at Brown) offers nothing but frank, practical advice. Nothing he says smacks of the mystical, save for perhaps his farewell words: "You have a craft that is far more than a hobby. You have a means of self-education that is far more than a do-it-yourself program for self-improvement... you have within your power the means to enrich and humanize all the vicissitudes that life can bring you. Cherish it and extend it."
It's a good thing I read these stories first too because much to Cassill's credit (and what sets this book apart from other writing "manuals" I've read) he spends a great deal of time focusing on the stories, both to show what works in them and also to illustrate various topics (plot, theme, tone, character, etc.) Rather than talk about these topics generally (and thus abstractly) or point to passages of a story the reader might not have read in full, it's immensely helpful for both reader and writer to have the same "common ground" reference, and helps make this book sort of a real-life writing class in condensed, book form.
Thankfully, the advice in here isn't the least bit out of date (save for at the very, very end, when the author offers tips on using the typewriter and a list of publishers that for the most part don't exist anymore). A great deal of the first section deals with how all writing is auto-biography, and how through understanding and processing our own experiences we can write better fiction, as well as make sense of the world: writing as therapy, you might call it, if it weren't for the fact Cassill expects writing to be honed to the best stuff, and not merely a self-indulgent display. This is also the section that deals with the "mechanics" of fiction, such as dialogue (a writer can "tell us that his chief female character is witty, lively, and cheerful. And we are likely to believe him, up to a point. But if the girl then speaks like a stupid, conventional frump, no amount of persuasion by the author will convince the canny reader that she is anything else") and "finger exercises" to get started writing.
The second section deals with more big-picture concepts, such as unity ("plot unifies by disciplining the action... character unifies by requiring a concentration on the signifigance an act or condition has to a particular person at a particular time in his life"), and connection ("The action declares its own goal... we grasp better through inference than through observation of concrete acts.").
There is also a good break-down of the writing or revision process, as it may relate to the abstract reader or the particular writers in this book: "Plots are found as meaning unfolds to the writer. A good writer is sort of a midwife to his plots, not a dictator. He helps them emerge- take shape- from character and situaton in the way his logic and intellect tell him action would emerge in life as he has known it."
Again: "Characters make their own demands. So do other elements. But against all these pressures (never ignoring them) the mind of the author goes on urging the demands for continuity and unity of the plot."
This is a great way of putting it: writing a story is a sort of a tug-of-war between various elements that must be kept in check and made meaningful some way, usually by plot. Cassill states, "it may be that the act of writing a story is, for the author, a subtle kind of parallel to the actions of his plot. That is, his plot is a disguised account of what happened to him as he wrote. The objective action he describes is a counterpart of the subjective struggle required to shape ideas and get them down on paper." That sounds abstract as I write it here, but Cassill makes this auto-biographical or self-portrait nature of writing seem inevitable.
Identification with characters is also explored, as well as the fact that fiction is fiction, an artifice to shape reality, and not reality itself. So is tone in general ("fiction lacks the powerful mechanical supplements of tone that movies and the stage can draw on to set the imagination of the audience at work to help communicate the story. But fiction has the quiet, inexhaustible resources of language itself") and tones in particular: rhetoric, middle, and understatement. "When rhetoric is abused, the result is what we call 'purple' or 'false poetic' language- merely colorful language that hides the subject instead of revealing it by signifigant theatrical lighting."
Cassill has some powerful things to say about theme: "what is left, like a resonance, in the reader's mind after he has recovered from the emotions he felt while reading and even after he has forgotten the shape of the plot and the illusion of life contributed by characters... when a writer succeeds in re-creating for a reader his first wondering perception of a theme, then communication of fiction cannot be matched by any other art."
There is also a great chapter on the Novel, mostly its various complications (keeping track of everything, the time it takes to write it and how one's mood is affected by season to season while writing it, how "the novelist's task is not so much to master technique or material as to master himself").
Sometimes it may seem the writer is portrayed as some sort of mystic knight or paladin, spending years in dark and quiet desperation and in monkish devotion to the Divine Word. But this is misleading and I want to make it clear: Cassill (who after this was published spent many years teaching at Brown) offers nothing but frank, practical advice. Nothing he says smacks of the mystical, save for perhaps his farewell words: "You have a craft that is far more than a hobby. You have a means of self-education that is far more than a do-it-yourself program for self-improvement... you have within your power the means to enrich and humanize all the vicissitudes that life can bring you. Cherish it and extend it."
November 25, 2023
This excellent little book has something that I missed in the rest of texts I've read recently about scripwriting and storytelling: it is specific about the topics it covers, giving you concrete examples to study, right there in the middle of the book. The short tales included to illustrate techniques and styles help immensely drive the message home, so when the author talks about plot, or voice, or emotion, down to specific paragraphs or choice of words, it makes the whole thing much more compelling. It's also a short book that doesn't waste time in philosophy and gets straight to the point. One fine addition to my storytelling library.
September 13, 2009
i learned some things here but favor "stein on writing" over this one.
July 13, 2009
It's not as comprehensive a teaching text as Burroway but it has some excellent information.
April 7, 2017
A good book on writing, specially for beginners. It has some useful and thoughtful tips and advices, and good critical analysis which will give the reader good tools to read literature as a writer and critic. However, it lacks the emphasis on writing as a free and creative act, and it focuses more on it as a practical act. It is my personal views that writing, specially fiction, can be carried by talent, innate sensibility and insight and emotion than by anything practical. But again, this book will give you some tools to put things into prospective and help you organize and use that talent wisely and in a more effective approach.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews