Following his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel , award-winning author Walter Mosley delivers an eloquent treatise on the craft of fiction writing--part writing guide, part study of the mechanics of the genre. In his essential writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel , Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools to write a novel in one year. In this complementary follow up, Mosley guides the writer through the elements of not just any fiction writing, but the kind of writing that transcends convention and truly stands out. How does one approach the genius of writers like Melville, Dickens, or Twain? In The Elements of Fiction , Walter Mosley contemplates the answer. In a series of instructive and conversational chapters, Mosley demonstrates how to master fiction's most essential elements: character and char-acter development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description, and more. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from the blank page to the first draft to rewriting, and rewriting again. Throughout, The Elements of Fiction is enriched by brilliant demonstrative examples that Mosley himself has written here for the first time. Inspiring, accessible, and told in a voice both trustworthy and wise, The Elements of Fiction writing will intrigue and encourage writers and readers alike.

For a writer, voice is the problem that never lets you go. For a reader, voice is a profound mystery. What is it? How does it develop and why should it even matter? How does the reader hear and respond to an authentic voice, and what happens when the cult of personality threatens to subvert it? These are some of the slippery questions The Writer's Voice addresses with confidence and clarity. Aspiring young writers often confuse voice with stylishness, but the voice that matters has the whole weight of a life, however young, behind it. In this compelling book, renowned poet, author, and critic A. Alvarez defines "voice" as the vehicle by which a writer expresses his aliveness, hooks his readers, and keeps them listening. These powerful reflections from a lifetime's experience belong alongside John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, and William Zinsser's On Writing Well.