The Art Of series is a new series of brief books by contemporary writers on important craft issues. Each book investigates an element of the craft of fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry by discussing works by authors past and present. The books in the Art Of series are not strictly manuals, but serve readers and writers by illuminating aspects of the craft of writing that people think they already know but don't really know. Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter's The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dostoyevsky to contemporary writers Paula Fox, Edward P. Jones, and Lorrie Moore, Baxter explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details, how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Substantive Writing:
I selected this book on a recommendation from a magazine and it has become a well worn reference in my library of how-to books. I recommend reading it through fast as you can, to get a feel for the concept. Then read it again for the depth. Subtexting sounds very techincal and cold, but the concept is anything but. I was inspiried by the book and base my plot planning and character development on this concept for every project. Subtext is a writer's secret weapon. I recommend every writer take heed.more info
Subtext:
Subtext is that elusive detail that can make or break your story....It is that little extra....Charles Baxter has the subject covered in an easy to read fashion..Will help you put that "extra" in your work to catch a publisher's or production company's eye....
A Cut Above the Rest:
In The Art of Subtext, Minneapolis novelist Charles Baxter has gone well beyond other books on the writing of prose fiction. Baxter believes that fictional techniques work when they are rooted in basic cultural assumptions; therefore, his technical advice comes from a provocative meditation on who we are today. He asks why, for instance, writers no longer introduce characters with lengthy verbal portraits of their faces. To summarize Baxter crudely, it is because in a world of makeovers and simulations, we... more info
How To Think About the Unthinkable:
It is plenty easy to talk about beginnings, middles, and endings, about point of view, about writing with clarity or writing with verve or writing with meter in mind. And we can, again with ease, talk the talk we usually talk about round versus flat characters, and how this writer or that one achieves roundness, say, in a major character, by way of the contradictions the character holds in tension, or in a minor character by some telling and complicating detail that exists in tension with the role that... more info
Privacy policy: we don't collect information
about visitors except for the standard technical server logs. We don't send unsolicited emails. We don't
sell the information that we don't collect about you to anyone. When you follow
links to other sites, their privacy policies apply. Thanks for visiting!
