Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques

by James Hynes

Whether you're huddled around the campfire, composing an email to a friend, or sitting down to write a novel, storytelling is fundamental to human nature. But as any writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It's tough to know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript.

Writing great fiction isn't a gift reserved for the talented few. There is a craft to storytelling that can be learned, and studying writing techniques can be incredibly rewarding - both personally and professionally. Even if you don’t have ambitions of penning the next Moby-Dick, you'll find value in exploring all the elements of fiction.

From evoking a scene to charting a plot to revising your drafts, Writing Great Storytelling Tips and Techniques offers a master class in storytelling. Taught by award-winning novelist James Hynes, a former visiting professor at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, these 24 insightful lectures show you the ins and outs of the fiction writer's craft. Get tips for developing believable and memorable characters, explore how to craft plausible dialogue that serves the purposes of your narrative, compare the advantages of different points of view, and more. A wealth of exercises will inspire you to practice the many techniques you learn. Professor Hynes is an able guide, showing you what has worked for him and other novelists, and pointing out pitfalls to avoid. Writing Great Fiction is truly an exceptional course for anyone interested in storytelling.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Reference, Literature, Self Help, Books About Books

24 pages, Audible Audio

First published November 14, 2014

About the author

James Hynes’ essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Boston Review, and Salon.

A native of Michigan, he attended the University of Michigan and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught fiction writing at the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, Miami University, Grinnell College, and the University of Texas. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Reviews

[UniquelyMoi ~ BlithelyBookish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This audio lecture was more than I had expected it to be, but not what I needed it to be. There's a lot of great detail given to writing techniques such as point of view, plotting, and things like that, but I was looking for something more basic. Something less geared toward the mechanics of writing, and more focused on theories and ideas such as finding your muse, using your own experiences to flesh out a story...simple examples that would have hopefully had me me saying "Aha! Great idea! I can do that!" but there was nothing like that. James Hynes, the author/lecturer, used examples from what he called "great classics", citing authors I had never heard of before which added to my lack of interest in much of what he was trying to tell us.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that it's not a bad lecture, just not what I needed.

[Courtney Umlauf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a nice succinct overview of a lot of information that I think will interest not only people who want to write fiction, but anyone who enjoys thinking about books. He gave plenty of examples from both classic and contemporary fiction that I found interesting. It might be less engaging if you haven't read the books he references, but even if you haven't you can still get something from this.

Listening or reading about writing is important to me because I find it so easy to be a lazy reader. It's not that I've never learned about Freytags pyramid or stream of consciousness as a narrative mode, it's just that it's easy for me to think about literature only in terms of my initial enjoyment of it and never think any more critically about why I enjoyed it. Courses like this are a good reminder.

Hynes was easy to listen to, very clear and direct while also acknowledging that so much about the writing process is subjective. He gives tips, tricks and anecdotes about how to get your creative process going, but never presses one method as right or wrong. Everyone's method will be different, the important thing is to figure out what works for you. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to be do some writing or that loves books.

[مشاري الإبراهيم · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't learn a lot from it.

[Kells Next Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was very helpful and Informative.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and somewhat informative lecture series on writing. There was a lot in here in though that we all learned in high school English class like the general structure of a novel.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading books about writing is like reading books about go, or painting, or drawing, or anything else I'd like to get better at. At a certain point you have absorbed all the book-knowledge you can get and you won't actually get better except by actually doing it.

I didn't really expect this Great Courses series to teach me something I hadn't already heard about characterization, dialog, plotting, story, etc. But I do like this genre of "self help" books, even if reading/listening to them is a form of procrastination (something the lecturer, Professor James Hynes, points out is a typical failing of writers, who will go to great lengths to avoid actually sitting down to write).

There's nothing wrong with this course. For a beginning writer, it's got solid advice, it's just the same advice you'll get from any other book about writing, or one-day writing workshop. As is usual with this kind of thing, the author largely draws on his own favorite go-to writers (in Hynes's case, this is most often Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Anne Lamott, E.M. Forster, and John Gardner, though he name-checks many others from Stephen King to Cormac McCarthy to Austen and Dickens to Anton Chekov), as well as his own writing in modest doses. Refreshingly, he has some appreciation of genre fiction, though the course is mostly tilted towards literary writing.

[Cindy Marsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent distillation of all we should have read and should ongoingly remember about the craft of writing. I have recommended it to many of my editing clients and want to listen again soon. I particularly like how he revisits E.M. Forster's classic and repeatedly brings in samples from Woolf, Chekov, Marilynne Robinson, and other beloved writers. There are writing exercises suggested at the end of each short chapter, and a pdf course booklet to go with it. This would make a wonderful group study for those who want to develop their craft.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this lecture series by author James Hynes to be thoroughly enjoyable and quite informative. Even while listening to discussions on writing techniques I already know, I was engrossed in the lessons. I especially enjoyed the many examples from classic and contemporary literature he used to illustrate his points. And the writing exercises at the end of each lesson were practical; a few of them even helped me through an issue I was having with my own story. For me, this was the right time to be reminded of writing fundamentals and to hear a pep talk from someone who’s been in the trenches.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Reading (2020) - 4 Stars

James Hynes provides an excellent and thorough guide to writing fiction, covering all the basics one would have heard numerous times before, but also delving into areas that are not as commonly explored. This is full of great pointers for writing, and it also makes you feel very inspired to open your own work back up and get stuck into it. Well worth listening to for anyone that wants to develop their craft further or is lacking motivation.

Second Reading (2024) - 4 Stars

There is a sad irony that after I first listened to this series of lectures, and thus underwent a renewed passion to write and try get that first goddam novel to completion, I have now returned for another listen, four years later, still with zero books under my belt. I don’t even care about being published anymore. Not only did that train long ago leave my station, but indeed it turns out the train never came down my line in the first place. Actually, scratch that. The metaphor or whatever the hell it is can be taken even further …

I turns out actually that I don’t even have a train station, let alone a working railway, and all this time I have just been sitting, like a forlorn widower in the drought of dementia, underneath the cobwebbed awning of a long-forgotten bus stop.

I was never cut out to be a writer. I hadn’t the talent, nor the discipline, nor the slightest encouragement or interest even from my own otherwise loving and supportive family. I’ll never forget the day I gave Dad a wad of papers containing a short story I wrote once in my late teens. I was so excited as printed it at the library that day. He glanced at it, barely got beyond the first page before putting it down and saying, “I just don’t think anyone would want to read this kind of stuff”. When I was about twelve, I did write a entire novel - highly derivative and terribly silly - called ‘Sin’. I printed a copy of it for my grandparents in England, only to find on visiting years later that they’d mistaken it for a vinyl record to join their dusty collection not played since perhaps the 80's. In my childhood, I wrote a sequel - ‘Birdzilla’ - to an earlier “novel” called ‘Birdarana’ - but Mum told me she would not read any more of it after deciding its boyish zest for violence was too much ( ... I guess she might have been justified there).

At least I have gained the wisdom and foresight in more recent years to scrap my attempts myself, before daring to show anyone in real life. Of course, Wattpad doesn’t really count. My attitude was always “go for it” there, since that cesspit often felt like walking into a support classroom for mentally disabled children and getting high on yourself for being able to draw a Stüssy 'S' like no one's business.

Nevertheless, I do have some things that are vital to any self-respecting writer: I am loathsomely self-absorbed, detestably narcissistic, allergic to criticism unless it comes directly from me, a bit of a closet alcoholic, and a perpetually frustrated individual with grandiose illusions that he has something to say that hasn’t been said a billion times before, and more eloquently.

Hence, I chose to give this one another listen, as my writing has completed dried up since my son vomited all over my laptop and destroyed the only place where my little vanity projects were stored. And you know what? Like magic, on listening to this - especially when Professor BreathesThroughHisNose Hynes was talking about novels like Ulysses and Mrs Dalloway that take place in one single day - I was suddenly hit on the head with an idea for a shortish, rather minimalist novel, which I have been excitedly mulling over since that morning. A sort of "Lolita meets The Old Man and the Sea" type story.

Maybe this time. Maybe …

All I want is to finish at least some kind of proper book so that, even though no one will ever read it, I can give myself the pleasure of saying my efforts finally materialised into a self-published, physically tangible book to go on my private shelf. So that I can say to myself, with a self-satisfied smile every once in a while: “Hey, I fucking wrote that”. Maybe I can even print some extra copies to go furtively planting them, like a desperate, misguided night fairy, in the local street libraries. Conduct a longitudinal study about how long it take books to deteriorate in those less than ideally protected environments when essentially left there to rot.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Hynes' lectures, to me as a writer, reader, and teacher of writing, present excellent and thorough information, in all three areas. My favorite lecture explains The Wizard of Oz in terms of Freytag's pyramid. Another favorite explains about ten points of view, not just the typical five. I'll be listening and learning from this lecture series again. Hynes is disarmingly honest and unpretentious, besides being inspiring.

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every minute of these lectures even though I am not sure I will ever write fiction. The discussion of so many great books along the way was thoroughly enjoyable and I loved Dr. Hynes voice and perspective. Everything you could ask for from an audio lecture series. One of my favorite Teaching Company series so far.

[Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hynes speaks candidly and personably about the intricacies of crafting literary or non-literary fiction. He was engrossing. I was fascinated by the way he drew examples from a wide swath of authors and texts. He kept coming back to Middlemarch and tried and true texts like Huck Finn, Moby Dick and (I think) David Copperfield, but he was all over the place. I never thought I'd hear a lecture on storytelling compare Ulysses to Lord of the Rings favorably, but here it was.

I'm not totally sure who his audience was supposed to be. An audience versed enough in American literature to recognize some of the points he made about Huck Finn's narrative voice surely doesn't need to be told where the comma goes in a direct quotation, does it? Well, maybe. But the last few lectures about the publishing world and the age old question "Why write in the first place?" deserves a place on the shelf of texts dealing with such questions. George Orwell. Mark Edmundson. Henry James. David Lodge. Hynes is useful for a student and teacher of literature. He's even more useful for the writer who writes because she can't not.

[Deepak Singh Bisth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished watching this video course.

It has a total of 24 lectures each a 30 min lecture presented by James Hynes author and writing teacher.

For a beginner there is a lot of material in it, from plot to dialogue, characters to point of views, from scenes and narrative to final drafts.

The presenter provides different examples of methods used in famous novels.

I am sure a person would keep going back to them again and again to master the techniques imparted in this course.

The presenter gives a lot of example from 2 specific books.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

So people who have already read these books might have an idea of what is highly valued by the presenter himself.

I am sure a lot of people might find this series useful in their journey.

Happy reading.

[Rafael Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another interesting Great Course, this time focusing on fiction writing, with a very pragmatic approach. Professor Hynes provides a lot of info on novel structures, techniques and tools to write books, and illustrates each one with well known books. He doesn't delve into grammar, how to write cool sentences or things like that, but focus on structure and overarching concerns when writing a novel.

The last 2 chapters are pretty down to earth "how to become a writer", and he doesn't try to con people into believing they will become the next Stephen King, which is great. I was looking for this kind of "creative writing guide" for quite some time. I'll end up re-reading King's "On Writing" to contrast with it.

[Ciprian Dobre-Trifan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best fiction writing material I have found so far. Congrats to James Hynes and his authentic and original perspectives!

[Wadi Hisham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and interesting take on creative writing. I recommend it to anyone just starting out as a creative writer, or even to those of us who have been struggling with the art for a while now.

[carlageek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty disappointing lecture series. It doesn’t cover any ground that isn’t explored more thoroughly, more inspiringly, and more actionably in Stein on Writing. Compared to Stein, Hynes is wishy-washy, a little afraid to articulate principles strongly and to translate principles into methods; he seems to lack the courage of his convictions about what makes good writing. The result is a course that tells you “you can do things this way, but you can also do them that way,” and doesn’t give a beginner (or an advanced beginner like myself) much clear guidance on what to do to make her writing better.

The one thing Hynes does better than Stein is choose excellent and diverse examples. The only time Hynes leans on his own fiction is in what turns out to be the best lecture in the series; Hynes generously shares a few paragraphs of one of his own mediocre first drafts and shows how rewrites honed it into tighter, more intentional writing. This before-and-after expose is inspiring for the perfectionist writer who finds writing first drafts painful because they are so unsatisfyingly bad to read. Not that I would know anything about that. (Stein talks a great deal about revision, and tells you over and over again that great writing emerges in the editing, not in the drafting, but Hynes show-and-tell really drives the point home.)

Anyway, a two-and-a-half star effort, from which I carried away little in the way of new insight to paste on the inside cover of my notebook. I might say that the lecture series could be useful for beginners who don’t already know the stuff that Hynes is covering, but even to them I’d say go read Stein on Writing first, and then read it two more times.

[Nicholas Crutchley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook and learned a lot. It has more flesh than Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft , and is somehow more accessible than Sol Stein's Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies . The techniques of plot development felt stronger than those of character development.

For those thinking of or writing their first novel, I recommend, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

After that, I would proceed with Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques.

Finally, after your first re-write or moving into your editing phase, I would purchase:
Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

[Brendan Monroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great course for anyone who doesn't know the first thing about writing fiction and wants to learn the basics. For those who have taken writing courses or have read other books on the topic of how to become a fiction writer, I don't think there's anything really new to be gleaned here. This is truly for beginners.

I did like this lecture series, Professor Hynes has put together a very nice course, but I couldn't help but feel at times as if it was designed so that each of these 24 lectures could stand on their own. Professor Hynes references many of the exact same books in each lecture, and each time he does he for some reason feels compelled to once again summarize the plot or character's background - he does this multiple times during the course, so if you are listening to all 24 lectures it's easy to point to edits that could have been made and time that could have been spent focusing on other topics.

A good course, but best for those with no previous knowledge of the topic.

[Amanda Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't imagine a better book for someone who wants to wants to start writing. Hynes gives expert advice in a way that is inspiring and insightful instead of intimidating. He draws on his own experience and gives examples from great works of literature. And he does it all in a comforting dad voice that makes you feel like he believes in you!

[Tracy Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learning how to write isn't something you can do by reading books about writing or listening to lectures on the subject unless you are, at the same time, actually writing and doing it seriously.  Why? Because theory is all well and good, but until you can actually see how these things operate in your own work, it's really difficult to assimilate those lessons.

I'm glad I came to this course after having begun to ghost write. The lessons I've learned by actually creating someone else's vision of a story mesh beautifully with what Professor Hynes is telling us in his lectures. He talks about structure and technique, of course, but he also covers topics like research, and the why of writing. I often found myself nodding vigorously as he discussed things like revising as you go vs. having to do it all once you've created a draft. (I've done it both ways, and I'll revise as I write, thanks very much, because by the time I hit the end of the story, I'm so sick of it that I never want to look at it again. For at least six months anyway.) His lecture on the balance between research and imagination struck familiar chords with me since it's often a difficult balance to maintain.  Now, when I'm doing fiction research, I want to put a sticky note on my computer screen that says, "Don't' be a show-off!"

This is a course where the companion PDF is hugely useful because you will probably want to follow along and annotate, add bookmarks, and use the (substantial) bibliography to follow up on ideas in the lectures. But it isn't just for writers, or at least I don't think it ought to be, necessarily. Readers could benefit from listening, and learning what it is they're seeing on the page, learning what kind of planning goes into the books they enjoy, or perhaps why they didn't enjoy a particular book as much as they thought they would.  Yeah, I know that's a lot of work, and no, it doesn't have a plot or a romance, or even a happy ending where the antagonist is foiled and the protagonist lives happily ever after, but if you love fiction, why not learn more about it?  Writing has made me a better reader. 

Possibly a weirder one, it's hard to say.

So for working writers, this course is valuable. For aspiring ones, it may be a little scary. For readers, it might be eye-opening. Something for everyone here, at least in my opinion. And how can that be bad?

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've done a few Great Courses audiobooks at this point and I keep finding them really good when the topics are ones that I know little about. That was the case for this one as well and so I found I really learned a lot. The lecturer was once again really good and had a nice energy that kept me engaged through most of the lectures. As with any course, there'll be topics that are more interesting than others and although there were a couple here that felt less deserving of a whole lecture, the prominent use of examples made listening to them more interesting regardless.

This course is definitely geared more towards people who actually want to write a fiction novel. There are interesting and mostly fun sounding exercises given at the end of each lecture which sound like they'd be useful for aspiring writers while also reinforcing the topic of the lecture. As is always the case with these courses, they don't delve too deep into the topics. So for people who are already well versed in literary writing, this will probably be more of a refresher course and I suspect they would probably enjoy a more in-depth guide instead. As for people, like me, who've never even written a short story outside of assigned schoolwork, there is a lot of useful information in this course and therefore a good starting point if you're considering getting into writing fiction.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little conflicted on my feelings toward this lecture series. I think there's a lot of solid advice and explanation for new writers, and that's awesome. But I feel like if you've done much research on learning how to write fiction, most of this stuff is nothing new. That's not that much of a mark against it since presumably this series is catered toward teaching new writers and they should certainly hear that stuff. The lecturer also does a good job of quoting several different works of fiction to illustrate his points better. But since I've already heard so much of these tips, I mostly didn't find the lectures all that interesting. There were some later on in the lectures that seemed a bit more insightful, so this experience wasn't universal to my listen, I just wish there'd been a bit more advanced material included. If you're a new writer though, you could do worse for an introduction to a lot of the basic things that you should probably have some understanding of.

[Kevin Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The speaker has a smooth, pleasant voice, which definitely makes the material easier to assimilate.

Concerning the material itself, this is very much geared toward beginners, covering pretty much the whole gamut of top level writing techniques.

For the writer who already has some experience, there are still a few nuggets to glean, though it's far less value. However, for me it was worth listening to just for another writer's perspectives and opinions about writing, rules, and publishing in general.

My one critique is the speaker is woefully under informed when it comes to the state and viability of independent publishing.

[Joseph Newell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see some reviewers lamenting the meandering nature of James' advice. Frankly, I found it incredibly refreshing and reassuring. Everyone will have a style that works for them and here James outlines many methodologies that may or may not prove useful to someone. At the end of the day, Writing Great Fiction provides a sort of toolbox alongside generic warning labels.

The most useful parts for me were the exercises that followed each lecture. I didn't use them explicitly, though I experimented in my head as I listened and I have scheduled a time to go through this again and perform them more formally.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was afraid this would be another one of those classes that's all about "being inspired" and "finding your voice" and a bunch of other nonsense that I have no use for.

Thankfully the lecturer has a lot of the detailed, practical writing advice. He covers starting a story, plotting, scene construction, dialogue, writing satisfying endings, and a lot more. He even ends the series with some advice based on personal experience about dealing with the publishing world. It was an honest and sobering ending that risked turning off a lot of readers but I appreciated the lecturer's candor.

Definitely worth the listen.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I'm not planning to write a novel, I learned a lot about how I can better read and appreciate fiction. Really well laid out and explained with lots of helpful, interesting examples from a wide range of novels. I've already noticed a difference in the kind of things I pay attention to as I read or watch fictional stories.

[Janne Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must say this course is not for the ones who have just started to learn the art of writing. But when you're already familiar with basics, then it covers a good amount of all the other things. It does give some insight that I have not read/heard from some other authors and Hynes definitely knows what he's talking about.

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful tips in an engaging lecture series. I especially appreciate that he draws on a variety of books as examples - lots of classics and literary fiction, which I expected, but also Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, some Stephen King books, and more.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I liked it." - 3.5 stars rating, with not quite enough to round up to a 4.

The author did a great job of coming at this topic from a very relaxed and informal approach. He throws out recommendations and then quickly back pedals with essentially: ... "or not, whatever, it's ultimate user preference and your choice on what you do." This is probably ideal over a more shouting type tone that states you must adhere to a rigid structured type approach when it comes to writing fiction.

This would be good supplemental material for an aspiring writer. Just be sure you walk into this with not necessarily low expectations, but just knowing it is a well rounded overall coverage on the topic of writing fiction in general, also being fair is also delivered in a very entertaining way.