The result is a unique exploration of the act and art of writing that enriches our experience of reading both the classics and the best modern fiction. Once you get that, you can t use the wrong words ) and Vladimir Nabokov on the nature of fiction ( All great novels are great fairy tales ).Ĭohen has researched the published works and private utterances of our greatest authors to discover the elements that made their prose memorable.
Here are Gabriel Garcia Marquez s thoughts on how to start a novel ( In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book ) Virginia Woolf offering her definition of style ( It is all rhythm. What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use first-person narration in"The Great Gatsby"? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise"On the Road"?Veteran editor and teacher RichardCohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime s reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. The best authors put painstaking sometimes obsessive effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view. from the Prefaceīehind every acclaimed work of literature is a trove of heartfelt decisions.
I have tried, as far as possible using the words of the authors themselves, to explain their craft, aiming to take readers on a journey into the concerns, techniques, tricks, flaws, and, occasionally, obsessions of our most luminous writers. For anyone who has ever identified with a hero or heroine, been seduced by a strong opening sentence, or been powerfully moved by a story s end, "How to Write Like Tolstoy"is a thought-provoking journeyinside the minds of the world s most accomplished storytellers, from Shakespeare to Stephen King.
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