Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure
Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure
by Jesse Lee Kercheval
University of Wisconsin Press, 2003 Paper: 978-0-299-18724-8
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
No one looks at structure like Jesse Lee Kercheval. She builds a work of fiction just as an architect would design a house—with an eye for details and how all parts of a story or novel interconnect. Even with the most dynamic language, images, and characters, no piece of fiction will work without a strong infrastructure. Kercheval shows how to build that structure using such tools as point of view, characterization, pacing, and flashbacks. Building Fiction will help you envision the landscape of your fiction and build great stories there.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jesse Lee Kercheval is the Sally Meade Hands Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she directs the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and codirects the Program in Creative Writing. Her memoir, Space, won the Alex Award from the American Library Association. She is also the author of a novel, The Museum of Happiness; two collections of poems, Dog Angel and World as Dictionary; and a story collection, The Dogeater, which won the Associated Writing Programs Award in Short Fiction.
REVIEWS
"If you are writing fiction or teaching students to write fiction, this book is the best guide you can have."—Kelly Cherry, author of My Life and Dr. Joyce Brothers: A Novel in Stories
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Introduction
THE ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE
ONE
Sources for Fiction
TWO
Openings in Fiction
THREE
Third-Person Point of View
FOUR
First- and Second-Person Points of View
FIVE
Constructing Characters
SIX
Conflict in Fiction
SEVEN
Continuing Conflict
EIGHT
Endings in Fiction
NINE
Revision
FORMS AND STRUCTURES
TEN
Novel vs. Short Story
ELEVEN
Short Shorts, Novellas, Novels-in-Stories
TWELVE
Experimental Fiction
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.