Conflict, Action and Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing)

Media:	Paperback
Author:	William Noble
Publisher:	Writer's Digest Books
Release date:	01 June, 1999
List price:	~~$12.99~~
Our price:	$10.39 that is 20% off!

Conflict, Action and Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing)

Average rating: Stars

All Technique? How About Heart, Soul, and Guts?

So much of this book seems to be devoted to the singular objective of conjuring up and applying technique--for the sake of conjuring up and applying technique. How about heart, soul,and guts, the innards of what makes a truly great novel great? After reading Conflict, Action, and Suspense I find not the slighest nod in this direction. If, for example, you set out to portray a protagonist with deep-seated psychological problems, is it best to first think of how to create conflicts and actions for him / her, as Noble urges? Or, is it best to largely monologue your way into the story in order to "set up" the forthcoming suspenseful situations you have in store for him / her? If you carefully shepherd the reader's thought-flow by way of psychological portrait, isn't this a better setting of the stage for real life-like suspense to follow? Sure, most writers of books on writing will tell you that you must make things get very ugly, very quickly. But, is this really the best way to paint the Celebrated Dreamer, The Simpleton, The Fool In Love, The Anti-Hero who believes his peers are all conditioned to suppose they can get rich "thinking" while other schmucks sweat? ##### Noble writes well enough. And, there is no shortage of ideas in this book. But, alas, the ring of "artificiality" is too much for me.

Conflict, Action and Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing) - William Noble

True to the title a good resource

As he indicate by his title choice, William Noble has provided his readers with a resource to implement 'Conflict, Action & Suspense' in their works. This is obviously not a general 'how to write book' even though others have carelessly reviewed it that way. I found the book very useful in my first and subsequent works and recommend it to others when asked how they can make their fiction more engaging for their readers.

William Noble - Conflict, Action and Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing)

A handy, if slightly flawed, book

Drama produces excitement in our writing. It keeps the reader interested. And how do we create drama? By playing with conflict, action, and suspense. Noble's book covers the basic concepts of drama, confrontation, pulling on the reader's emotions, escalation, and immediacy. He also deals with elements that keep your story moving: appropriate grammar, charged images, shifts in point of view, and contrast. He does a good job of telling us the how and why of things, rather than simply telling us what to do.

He touches on suspense's relationship with all sorts of basic writing issues such as dialogue, openings, cliffhangers, mood and atmosphere, character development, point of view, pacing, endings, and so on. Noble does a good job of focusing on specific techniques relevant to suspense for the most part.

It isn't a perfect book. It isn't as dry as most textbooks, but it could certainly be better than it is. Some of the examples that Mr. Noble makes up to use in the book are a bit on the overblown side, which kind of undercuts some of his points. He might have been better off using more examples from published fiction. Also, some of Mr. Noble's assertions regarding his topics have since been proven to be wrong. For example, when talking about the logic of settings: "...And a horror-suspense story would have problems if it was set in the unfolding of a miracle." I've seen this done quite well, actually.

This book was originally copyrighted in 1994, and this may be part of the problem. Since then some of the techniques that he lauds as strong and effective have become over-used and trite. (Overused techniques became that way precisely because they're so effective.) Some of the things he says can't be done have been done. As it is, this book serves as a very good example of why you need to do a lot of reading in the fiction field you want to write in. Otherwise, how will you know which of his techniques have been over-used, which can be seen as trite if you aren't careful how you use them, and which are still seen as solid, useful methods?

Wholesale Bookstore