[Previous entry: "Fiction Writing - The Secret Life of Bees"] [Next entry: "Review of Kent Haruf's Plainsong"]

01/28/2005: "Fiction Writing - Ronald Tobias"

From time to time as I proceed along my fiction writing career, I look back on an old friend, Ronald B. Tobias and his wonderful book on the elements of fiction writing, Theme and Strategy, How to Build a Strong Narrative Structure to Help Your Fiction Stand Tall, Run Fast, Hit Hard, and Soar to Success. Although I doubt that my work has ever achieved these lofty goals, I think that his approach is handy in preparing a work to be more accomplished. He likes to set up a story with attention to patterns and looks at the effects of these strategies on the audience, the structure, the plot, the action, the character, the theme, the place, the style and how to integrate all these things. I found myself planning my work more than ever before and finding that I had to rewrite less and less. Try his book for yourself.