Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form

Madison Smartt Bell

ISBN 10: 0393320219 / ISBN 13: 9780393320213

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2000

About this Item

First published as a Norton trade paperback 2000, 1st printing. 390pp. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in AS NEW condition. "With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell offers in this book a roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing. Focusing on the big picture as well as the crucial details, Bell examines twelve stories by both established writers (including Peter Taylor, Mary Gaitskill, and Carolyn Chute) and his own former students. He shows how to analyze the use of time, plot, character, and other elements of fiction and guides the reader to see each story's flaws and strengths. Careful endnotes bring attention to various writers' different ways of shaping language." [publisher copy] "The most insightful, outright useful, most inventive guide to writing I've seen."--Howard Norman. "NARRATIVE DESIGN is one of the most original texts I've seen. Among the welter of half-fledged and copycat how-tos out there, here's an invitation into the mind of a terrifically intelligent writer/teacher who doesn't shrink from candid and idiosyncratic comment."--Rosellen Brown. "Madison Smartt Bell's NARRATIVE DESIGN is one of those books you might need to take with you to your writerly desert isle. It offers all of the essential instructions for writing fiction, as well as providing wonderful examples of the end product, and then supplying brilliant analysis of them. His is a thorough, fascinating, forgiving, good-hearted, unique, and--most impressively--useful book."--Antonya Nelson. Pristine paperback w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding w/no creases in spine. Quite presentable.

Seller Inventory # RUB3186

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393320219
• ISBN 13: 9780393320213
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell offers a roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing in this much-needed book.

Focusing on the big picture as well as the crucial details, Bell examines twelve stories by both established writers (including Peter Taylor, Mary Gaitskill, and Carolyn Chute) and his own former students. A story's use of time, plot, character, and other elements of fiction are analyzed, and readers are challenged to see each story's flaws and strengths. Careful endnotes bring attention to the ways in which various writers use language. Bell urges writers to develop the habit of thinking about form and finding the form that best suits their subject matter and style. His direct and practical advice allows writers to find their own voice and imagination.

About the Author

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of seventeen novels, his most recent being Behind the Moon. He teaches at Goucher College and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.