This Book is a practical guide to the craft of fiction.
Now in my thirtieth year of writing, I have never in all that time been an instructor or professor, not in the sense of teaching regular courses and assigning grades. What I have been is a mentor to many writers in non-academic settings. I have taught evening non-credit courses in fiction (a couple of them in Canadian federal penitentiaries). I have been a writer-in-residence at libraries and colleges. I have led many one- or two-day workshops. Most recently, I have edited fiction at several Banff Centre writing studios. Since 2001, I have directed Banff’s Wired Writing Studio, an experiment in providing mentorship and community on-line.
One of the striking things about working with writers is how much of the craft they do by instinct. This is a good thing in the initial act of fictional creation, but leads to trouble in the editing phase. Often, good as the writers are, they don’t understand what they have done, or what its effect is, moment by moment, on readers. This too would be fine if the fiction they had created was perfect. If not, they do not always know how to make it better. Unable to improve the story or novel, they often abandon it as a failure and move on, hoping to write a better work next time.
This is a wasteful practice, wasteful of time and talent. The fiction they have thrown away may not be a failure at all but a success in waiting. What it waits for is improvement, and given a better understanding of how fiction works, those writers could work their so-called failures into more pleasing and effective forms.
Often the mentoring process is about showing writers where improving change can occur. I point out where the writing isn’t working, isn’t having the desired effect, or is having an unexpected bad effect on readers. The writer and I, or the writer alone, then conceive a solution. When writers learn from experience or mentoring how to find and fix the problems in their work, they become self-sufficient, complete.
This book is not about methods of inspiration for writers or the philosophy of writing-and not because they aren’t important. Many excellent books already exist for purposes of opening the wellsprings of a writer’s creativity. If that’s what you’re looking for, it exists elsewhere. What this book does instead is provide practical help for diagnosing problems of fictional mechanism and craft: it’s a combination of instruction and troubleshooting.
At the end of each chapter are exercises called “Your Process.” The chapters and exercises are steps in a self-guided process to help you complete one or more short stories. The chapters move you through a process of thinking about fiction and doing fiction, from the search for a fiction-worthy idea, through to editing and the consideration of publication. The book is designed to be helpful to the beginner, but not so basic as to be patronizing to that beginner or unhelpful to a more experienced writer.
The book also includes five short stories. Authors Rachel Wyatt, Edna Alford, Greg Hollingshead, and Diane Schoemperlen are among the best fiction writers in Canada, with demonstrated excellence in short fiction. Among them, they have two Canadian Governor General’s Awards, a Marion Engel Award, and many other honours. The fifth story is my own. The stories are used in various ways to illustrate points of craft. They also provide the inspiration of good writing.
Not all the ideas in these pages will be original. Perhaps none of it is. Storytelling might be humankind’s most ancient art, which suggests that the training of storytellers came soon after. What I can vouch for is that each piece of advice has been invented or chosen, then used as an answer to a writer’s real dilemma—and has been found helpful. In other words, my advice is tested.
FRED STENSON