Another book review? Already?
Yes.
Alice LaPlante, seasoned writing teacher and writer, has written a compelling compendium of story writing. The Making of a Story is packed with insights for the fledgling writer all the way up to the most experienced novelist.
This is not just your average book on story writing either. I have shelves of books on writing and this one trumps them all. LaPlante touches on issues that I’ve never seen anyone else discuss. Rather than recycle complex rules and algorithms about “how” to write, LaPlante encourages new writers to just set down on paper what they are thinking about. Just write something. LaPlante reiterates that there is “no wrong way into a story.”
And I love that.
The book has complete short stories and essays, snippets from longer pieces, and exercises that really do work together to cement in your mind the concepts she teaches. The exercises work in a group setting or even when you’re on your own. I have done every single one (took me a long time) and have been immeasurably helped by the pieces I created and by the lessons I internalized while creating those pieces.
For writers tired of bogging down in the midst of yet another book on how to write, chuck it and try this one. It’s more of a stretch of the writing muscles and not just a how-to book.
You’ll be in good company. LaPlante includes pieces by Francine Prose, Timothy O’Brien, John Cheever, Anton Chekhov, Katharine Mansfield, and Flannery O’Connor throughout her book, and includes some terrific literary criticism comments here and there, which I loved.
I’ve read Janet Burroway’s Creating Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft and John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction and I think LaPlante might have surpassed them both. Combined with Jane Smiley’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, I could easily be quite content if I were marooned on a desert island (provided I had Internet access).
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