How to Write a Novel: A Practical Guide to the Art of Fiction

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT IN VIEW
PAGE
An Inevitable Comparison	3
A Model Lesson in Novel-Writing	5
The Teachable and the Unteachable	9

CHAPTER II
A GOOD STORY TO TELL
Where do Novelists get their Stories from?	12
Is there a Deeper Question?	14
What about the Newspapers?	17

CHAPTER III
HOW TO BEGIN
Formation of the Plot	25
The Agonies and Joys of "Plot-Construction"	28
Care in the Use of Actual Events	31
The Natural History of a Plot	35
Sir Walter Besant on the Evolution of a Plot	40
Plot-Formation in Earnest	43
Characters first: Plot afterwards	45
The Natural Background	47

CHAPTER IV
CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISATION
The Chief Character	50
How to Portray Character	52
Methods of Characterisation	55
The Trick of "Idiosyncrasies"	58

CHAPTER V
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE
Narrative Art	63
Movement	66
Aids to Description: The Point of View	67
Selecting the Main Features	70
Description by Suggestion	73
Facts to Remember	75

CHAPTER VI
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE—CONTINUED
Colour: Local and Otherwise	79
What about Dialect?	84
On Dialogue	86
Points in Conversation	91
"Atmosphere"	94

CHAPTER VII
PITFALLS
Items of General Knowledge	96
Specific Subjects	98
Topography and Geography	100
Scientific Facts	101
Grammar	103

CHAPTER VIII
THE SECRET OF STYLE
Communicable Elements	105
Incommunicable Elements	HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL Clyx.com