4 ms·
how to be a better fiction writer. i wrote a novel and i'm revising it for the fourth time. i accidentally ripped off 'as i lay dying' by faulkner. i started wr
by greenie_beans 3y ago
how to be a better fiction writer. i wrote a novel and i'm revising it for the fourth time. i accidentally ripped off 'as i lay dying' by faulkner. i started writing my story about a funeral told in the first person present with multiple narrators and realized that faulkner had already done that. while writing it, i avoided reading him because i didn't want to rip him off more. but now i'm re-reading the book very closely and learning how he did it and taking some stylistic tricks. that book is genius, perhaps the best novel i've ever read in my life. it was a bad idea to avoid.
- _dark_matter_ 3y agoThat novel is genius. If anyone here hasn't read it, you owe it to yourself to do so.
- codazoda 3y agoI haven’t had success writing fiction just yet but I just read The Snowflake Method and I hope to give it a go. It’s a really interesting read. https://a.co/d/gJrLsyM https://a.co/d/gJrLsyM This also got me interested in Creative Nonfiction and I’m reading about that now, although the Snowflake Method book is something else — a fiction story that explains a nonfiction subject.
- greenie_beans 3y agoi recommend george saunder's substack: https://georgesaunders.substack.com/ https://georgesaunders.substack.com/ with the free tier, he answers questions from students and that's valuable alone. with the paid tier, you get to learn the mechanics of a short story from one of america's best living short story writers.