Advanced Fiction

Confident with the basics of your craft? Looking to take your writing to the next level? Advanced Fiction gives you the tools to hone your skills by thinking more deeply and systematically about deploying them on the page. Friendly and down-to-earth, Amy Weldon guides you through the realities of craft and process, combining a broad anthology of landmark stories with instruction on the more advanced aspects of fiction writing.

Featuring interactive prompts, exercises and suggestions for further reading, this book guides you from larger philosophical issues to subtler technical ones, from topics as diverse as the intricate principles of storytelling to navigating artistic and political landscapes conscientiously and building a writing career.

Beginning with a brief recap of the basics, the text goes on to examine:

• The psychology of writing and revising
• Practical methods for drafting and notebook-keeping
• Taking personal and technical risks with ideas, images, and forms
• Making responsible decisions about representing identities, bodies, and histories on the page
• Complex craft concepts such as world-building, structure, time, and moving from short forms to novels

Placing students’ own work in conversation with established stories, the accompanying anthology selections range widely in culture, technique, and time period. This includes authors of dystopia, historical fiction, satire, and fiction in translation, as well as literary realists tackling themes like economic inequality, climate change, and identity.

Thoughtful and essential, this book provides excellent guidance for students and budding authors on the complexities of fiction writing from the beginning of a writing project—short story or novel—to the end.