The Craft of Fiction

The art of finding stories – of coming up with ideas on which to base novels – is a good place to start a book on fiction writing, and that is exactly where Jonathan Falla starts. But he goes much deeper than the simple business of having ideas, he shows how to determine whether those ideas have the germs of sufficient conflict and dilemma to sustain a full-length novel.

He goes on to apply the same depth of analysis as he examines all the skills you will need to develop and expand your starting idea. A great deal of his advice has to do with characterisation because it is the characters who are going to carry your story forward as they resolves the conflicts you throw at them. But he also gets into the important detail of narrative structure, prose style, voice, viewpoint, and much more.

All these concepts are illustrated with examples from successful fiction in a practical but thought provoking guide.