Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by

Description: Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin A revised and updated guide to the essentials of a writers craft, presented by a brilliant practitioner of the art FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description From the celebrated Ursula K. Le Guin, "a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller" (Boston Globe), the revised and updated edition of her classic guide to the essentials of a writers craft. Completely revised and rewritten to address modern challenges and opportunities, this handbook is a short, deceptively simple guide to the craft of writing. Le Guin lays out ten chapters that address the most fundamental components of narrative, from the sound of language to sentence construction to point of view. Each chapter combines illustrative examples from the global canon with Le Guins own witty commentary and an exercise that the writer can do solo or in a group. She also offers a comprehensive guide to working in writing groups, both actual and online. Masterly and concise, Steering the Craft deserves a place on every writers shelf. Back Cover "There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin." -- Slate Author Biography Over the course of her career, URSULA K. LE GUIN has published more than sixty books of fiction, fantasy, childrens literature, poetry, drama, criticism, and translation. She is the winner of many awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Review "A must-read for intermediate and advanced writers of fiction and memoir." --Library Journal, STARRED "A succinct, clear, and encouraging companion for aspiring writers." --Kirkus Reviews "It would be churlish to deny the benefits of this thoughtful, concise volume...In essence, Le Guin reveals the art of craft and the craft of art...this book is a star by which to set ones course." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED "There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin." -- Slate "Le Guin is a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller with the humor and force of a Twain. She creates stories for everyone from New Yorker literati to the hardest audience, children. She remakes every genre she uses." -- Boston Globe -- Review Quote "There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin." -- Slate Excerpt from Book 1 The Sound of Your Writing The sound of the language is where it all begins. The test of a sentence is, Does it sound right? The basic elements of language are physical: the noise words make, the sounds and silences that make the rhythms marking their relationships. Both the meaning and the beauty of the writing depend on these sounds and rhythms. This is just as true of prose as it is of poetry, though the sound effects of prose are usually subtle and always irregular. Most children enjoy the sound of language for its own sake. They wallow in repetitions and luscious word-sounds and the crunch and slither of onomatopoeia; they fall in love with musical or impressive words and use them in all the wrong places. Some writers keep this primal interest in and love for the sounds of language. Others "outgrow" their oral/aural sense of what theyre reading or writing. Thats a dead loss. An awareness of what your own writing sounds like is an essential skill for a writer. Fortunately its quite easy to cultivate, to learn or reawaken. A good writer, like a good reader, has a minds ear. We mostly read prose in silence, but many readers have a keen inner ear that hears it. Dull, choppy, droning, jerky, feeble: these common criticisms of narrative are all faults in the sound of it. Lively, well-paced, flowing, strong, beautiful: these are all qualities of the sound of prose, and we rejoice in them as we read. Narrative writers need to train their minds ear to listen to their own prose, to hear as they write. The chief duty of a narrative sentence is to lead to the next sentence ?-- ?to keep the story going. Forward movement, pace, and rhythm are words that are going to return often in this book. Pace and movement depend above all on rhythm, and the primary way you feel and control the rhythm of your prose is by hearing it ?-- ?by listening to it. Getting an act or an idea across isnt all a story does. A story is made out of language, and language can and does express delight in itself just as music does. Poetry isnt the only kind of writing that can sound gorgeous. Consider whats going on in these four examples. (Read them aloud! Read them aloud loudly!) Example 1 The Just So Stories are a masterpiece of exuberant vocabulary, musical rhythms, and dramatic phrasing. Rudyard Kipling has let generations of kids know how nonsensically beautiful a story can sound. And theres nothing in either nonsense or beauty that restricts it to children. Rudyard Kipling: from "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin" in Just So Stories Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour. And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat and his knife and a cooking-stove of the kind that you must particularly never touch. And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself one cake which was two feet across and three feet thick. It was indeed a Superior Comestible ( thats magic), and he put it on the stove because he was allowed to cook on that stove, and he baked it and he baked it till it was all done brown and smelt most sentimental. But just as he was going to eat it there came down to the beach from the Altogether Uninhabited Interior one Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and few manners. [. . .] And the Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose, and the cake rolled on the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of his nose, and he ate it, and he went away, waving his tail, to the desolate and Exclusively Uninhabited Interior which abuts on the islands of Mazanderan, Socotra, and the Promontories of the Larger Equinox. This passage from Mark Twains early story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is totally aural/oral, its beauty lying in its irresistible dialectical cadences. There are lots of ways to be gorgeous. Example 2 Mark Twain: from "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" "Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom cats and all them kind of things, till you couldnt rest, and you couldnt fetch nothing for him to bet on but hed match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he callated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. Hed give him a little punch behind, and the next minute youd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut ?-- ?see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep him in practice so constant, that hed nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything ?-- ?and I believe him. Why, Ive seen him set Danl Webster down here on this floor ?-- ?Danl Webster was the name of the frog ?-- ?and sing out, Flies, Danl, flies! and quickern you could wink hed spring straight up and snake a fly offn the counter there, and flop down on the floor agin as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadnt no idea hed been doin any moren any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightforard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever they see." In the first example the more-than-oriental splendor of the language and in the second the irresistibly drawling aural cadences keep moving the story forward. In this one and the next, the vocabulary is simple and familiar; its above all the rhythm that is powerful and effective. To read Hurstons sentences aloud is to be caught up in their music and beat, their hypnotic, fatal, forward drive. Example 3 Zora Neale Hurston: from Their Eyes Were Watching God So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment. The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without masters; walking together like harmony in a song. In the next passage, Tom, a middle-aged rancher, is coping with the early onslaught of the cancer he knows will kill him. Molly Glosss prose is quiet and subtle; its power and beauty come from the perfect placement and timing of the words, the music of their sound, and the way the changing sentence rhythms embody and express the emotions of the characters. Description for Library Since the 1960s, Le Guin has written perceptive fantasy-plus thats won her all the expected honors (e.g., the Hugo, the Nebula), as well as the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Her smartly named Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew has been an enduringly popular source for aspiring writers since its 1998 publication. Now newbies can rejoice, for the guide has been completely rewritten. Details ISBN0544611616 Short Title STEERING THE CRAFT Language English ISBN-10 0544611616 ISBN-13 9780544611610 Media Book Format Paperback Residence Portland, OR, US Birth 1929 Pages 160 DEWEY 808.02 Year 2015 Publication Date 2015-09-01 Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2015-09-01 NZ Release Date 2015-09-01 US Release Date 2015-09-01 Imprint Harper Perennial UK Release Date 2015-09-01 Publisher Harper Perennial Subtitle A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story Audience General Imprint US Harper Perennial Publisher US HarperCollins Author Ursula K. Le Guin We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:95043433;

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