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Paul Darcy Boles (1916–1984)

Forfatter af Storycrafting

14+ Works 83 Members 2 Reviews

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Omfatter også følgende navne: Paul D. Boles, Boles Paul Darcy

Værker af Paul Darcy Boles

Storycrafting (1984) 46 eksemplarer
The Limner (1975) 9 eksemplarer
Parton's Island (1958) 5 eksemplarer
Glory Day (1979) 4 eksemplarer
Mississippi Run (1977) 4 eksemplarer
The Streak (1953) 3 eksemplarer
She Sells Sea Shells 2 eksemplarer
Tiggare i solen 1 eksemplar
Loving Letty (1976) 1 eksemplar
Glenport, Illinois 1 eksemplar
THE LIMNER 1 eksemplar

Associated Works

Mermaids! (1986) — Bidragyder — 81 eksemplarer
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 10 (1984) — Bidragyder — 49 eksemplarer
Saturday Evening Post Stories 1958 (1959) — Bidragyder — 5 eksemplarer

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Fødselsdato
1916-03-05
Dødsdag
1984
Køn
male
Nationalitet
USA
Fødested
Ashley, Indiana, USA
Dødssted
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Medlemmer

Anmeldelser

In an encomium for this last work before he died, the editor Carol Cartaino writes a vivid portrait of Boles and his excitement about this book, which he presents as "beating in me to be born".

For those of us trying to understand, use, and re-create the narratives in which we live, Boles is a master Guide. Boles also documents and lures us out of the doldrums of ignorance, and the enslavement to tyranny, which has lately captured so many. Boles reminds us to take courage and communicate!

America is the 'Home of the Brave'. To rebuild a hollowed-out narrative, we have a need for short stories--personal, wet and dry, shaped by thematic plots, and rich with the sounds of character--will remind America and this blistering world who we really are. Let us fill the hungry maw of "entertainment media" with worthwhile content.

Why remain captured in a cult of consumption? Open up our eyes, create a better narrative, make the tyrants tremble, and stop re-stabbing ourselves as double victims. Write stories! Boles guides us in this "deep and strange responsibility". Boles reveals that in conflict there is the wrestling, the battle, but also the revelation.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
keylawk | 1 anden anmeldelse | Feb 18, 2020 |
After toiling for years on novel-writing, I decided to take a break and write something I could finish before I'm old and gray -- a short story. From my novel writing, I knew all the basics of plotting, characterization, revision, but I also knew that I wanted a successful short story is not simply a very short novel -- it is something that has a kind of density and crystalline clarity that can't be sustained over the length of a novel. I wanted to know how to get that into my short story (which was looking more like a novella). I went browsing in the local Half Price Books and found a pristine, first edition copy of Storycrafting: A Master Storyteller Teaches the Art of Writing Fine Short Stories. The title looked promising, but the proof is in the pudding. I did a little tasting and decided it was worth at least $5.99, so I took it home. Now, having read half the book, I can see that this is the book I have been looking for for years, and will be referring to for years to come.

Here's the back cover copy:
-----
Storycrafting will inspire you to write and it will teach you to write better. It is Paul Darcy Boles' gift to you -- your personal guide to recognizing, writing, and refining the short stories you have winin you, waiting to be told.

Boles, author of more than 150 published short stories, has packed a lifetime of expertise and instruction into this book with the insight, assurance, and honesty of a master storyteller. You'll discover:
*how to delve deep inside yourself and pull out the best story you possibly can
*methods for handling the tough, crucial narrative choices for story beginnings and endings
*a variety of options for handling characterization, plot construction, setting, and point of view -- to help you make effective choices for each story
*how to tell the bones from the fat when revising your work
*how to use the knowledge and confidence gained with each finished story to improve the next one
-----

This book lives up to that description. Most of the books on writing these days cover the same ground in pretty much the same way -- basics for rank beginners who simply want to rush into publication -- and far too many of them are written by people who are little more than beginners themselves. Such books aim to give the equivalent of a basic creative writing class, and they are a dime a dozen. Much rarer is the book by an experienced and accomplished writer who wants to help the apprentice writer advance to become a master craftsman. This is such a book.

It is not formulaic, but is full of excellent suggestions. For instance, many inexpert writers know that they need to include detail, but may throw in details haphazardly, or drown the reader in extraneous description. Boles points out, "Your detail will improve simply by being vital to the story and not dragged by the heels." Similarly, he advises to save similes "for moments in your story when you want the reader to see very clearly what you also want to stand out." These two suggestions alone gave me lots of ideas on how to improve the first draft of my story, and there are many, many more that I'll be recurring to time and again.

As the editor's introduction points out, Boles makes the writing process understandable "[n]ot just [by] circling the surface muttering the same old maxims ... [b]ut taking us down *in* to that interior process of which we know so little." It is this quality, I think, his ability to help us see how a writer works, from the inside, that makes this book so valuable.

There is a bad tendency today to distinguish "genre" fiction (highly salable) from "literary" fiction (destined for obscure journals and highbrow magazines), as if stories can't and shouldn't possess both qualities. Although Boles teaches how to embue your short stories with "literary" qualities, he emphasizes throughout the book that his aim is to teach how to craft a "commercial" story. By commercial, he means one that is of a quality sufficient to attract the interest of editors of the best magazines, and for which they will pay a professional rate, not one that is merely competent. The quality he is aiming at is suggested by Stephen Vincent Benet's definition of a short story: "something that can be read in an hour and remembered for a lifetime." Boles himself must have been adept at producing such stories -- over the course of his too-brief life (he died at age 68), 150 of his short stories were published in high-profile magazines, in addition to his nine published novels. It's a shame he is not better known today, because he obviously was a master craftsman, and a talented teacher.

If you are a fiction writer who has already read and internalized all the basic nuts-and-bolts instruction on fiction writing and now want to advance to the master level, you need Paul Darcy Boles's Storycrafting. This is a truly wonderful book, which Writer's Digest Books never have allowed to go out of print. If you find a copy snap it up.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
lisanicholas | 1 anden anmeldelse | Jul 2, 2015 |

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Statistikker

Værker
14
Also by
3
Medlemmer
83
Popularitet
#218,811
Vurdering
½ 3.7
Anmeldelser
2
ISBN
11

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