Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction - Hardcover

Pyne, Stephen J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674033302 ISBN 13: 9780674033306

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2009

Synopsis

It has become commonplace these days to speak of “unpacking” texts. Voice and Vision is a book about packing that prose in the first place. While history is scholarship, it is also art―that is, literature. And while it has no need to emulate fiction, slump into memoir, or become self-referential text, its composition does need to be conscious and informed.

Voice and Vision is for those who wish to understand the ways in which literary considerations can enhance nonfiction writing. At issue is not whether writing is scholarly or popular, narrative or analytical, but whether it is good. Fiction has guidebooks galore; journalism has shelves stocked with manuals; certain hybrids such as creative nonfiction and the new journalism have evolved standards, esthetics, and justifications for how to transfer the dominant modes of fiction to topics in nonfiction. But history and other serious or scholarly nonfiction have nothing comparable.

Now this curious omission is addressed by Stephen Pyne as he analyzes and teaches the craft that undergirds whole realms of nonfiction and book-based academic disciplines. With eminent good sense concerning the unique problems posed by research-based writing and with a wealth of examples from accomplished writers, Pyne, an experienced and skilled writer himself, explores the many ways to understand what makes good nonfiction, and explains how to achieve it. His counsel and guidance will be invaluable to experts as well as novices in the art of writing serious and scholarly nonfiction.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen J. Pyne is a Regents Professor at Arizona State University. He is the author of many books, including Smokechasing and Tending Fire.

Reviews

In Fair Game: What Biographers Don’t Tell You (1994), Denis Brian examined the modern art of biography. In a similar vein, Pyne, the author of a number of works of nonfiction, discusses techniques of writing “history and other serious nonfiction.” The book covers such essential topics as how to use dialogue in a work of nonfiction; how to find the right voice in which to tell the story; how to marshal facts and present them in an engaging manner; and how to create an exciting, compelling story without veering too far from the facts. The book’s message is clear: if it didn’t happen, don’t write it. If somebody didn’t say it, don’t put it between quotation marks. Gets your facts straight, and present them in an orderly fashion. The book is everything the author says a work of nonfiction ought to be: well written, clearly thought out, and full of specific examples (of what to do and what not to do). An essential tool for anyone who is attempting to write nonfiction, or even just thinking about it. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674033302
• ISBN 13: 9780674033306
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336