Product Description
Writing successful fiction is a balance between trusting one’s own instincts and making the right conscious choices. In By Cunning & Craft, award-winning novelist and short-story writer Peter Selgin shows you how to combine the instinctive process of creation with sound technical ingenuity. With precise instruction and examples from classic and best-selling works, this authoritative guide helps you master the ten essential fiction-writing elements: in… More >>
By Cunning and Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers
Tags: Advice, authoritative guide, conscious choices, Craft, craft award, Cunning, Fiction, fiction writers, instincts, novelist, peter selgin, Practical, Sound, sound advice, story writer, technical ingenuity, Wisdom, Writers
#1 by Craig Nybo on May 13, 2010 - 10:40 am
Peter Selgin has credentials. He is an accomplished writer, teacher, and editor to boot. His book, By Cunning & Craft offers much advise in the form of short essay-styled chapters to writers of all levels. There is no doubt that Selgin is well read, as he sites examples from many classics and contemporary works. Unfortunately, I found his approach to be a bit elitist, both in his prose and his review of work. Reading his book, I tended to be discouraged as a writer; it seemed he couldn’t let his hair down and actually like anything.
On the other hand, he did offer some gems of advice. I particularly found the last few chapters on agents, query letters, theme, and revision particularly helpful. To sum it up, Selgin offers much professional quality advice, even if he toots his own whistle occasionally. I’m sure I have him all wrong personally; I’m sure he’s an effective teacher and a standup gentleman.
Hope this helps, Craig Nybo, co-author of Total Human: The Complete Strength Training System
Rating: 3 / 5
#2 by C. Whitaker on May 13, 2010 - 1:16 pm
I’ve never given a book just one star, and had I been able to read this one, I’m sure I would have rated it higher as well.
I’m not an old person with failing eyesight. Nor am I a high school student who can read the label of a single dose package of Bayer aspirin. I have normal, 20/20 vision.
That said, dear F&W Publications, i.e., Writer’s Digest Books, publisher of at least 90% of books for writers: what’s with the 6 pt. type in this book? And this book is not the only one. I could cite at least two more recent titles of yours that are just as hard to read (practically impossible to *study*). Such a shame that good content (as the other reviewers report) has to be *crammed* so ridiculously onto the page. What was the objective here? Do you think this tiny, strain-your-eyes-out print will make the information easier to learn? I doubt it. Was this necessary if you were to make a profit and stay in business? I REALLY doubt that. Do you think it makes the book “prettier?” I’d really like to know who decided to publish this book this way, and I’d like to ask that person WHY?
I know there are readers who will say the small print didn’t bother them, and this is fine for them. I might ask them though, “Are you related to Clark Kent?”
My point is: this is not a Penguin Classic. It’s a *text* book. To *learn* from. I got this book from the Writer’s Digest Bookclub. I think this is the last straw, that I’ll return the book and cancel my membership after six years. Why publish great information in print so small that probably half the population won’t be able to read it anyway?
Rating: 1 / 5
#3 by James B. Johnson on May 13, 2010 - 2:59 pm
Save your money. This manual includes everything every other how to write book has. I found nothing new or different or unavailable in most other books. It’s filled with all the usual quotes from all the usual suspects.
Do this: Buy 6 of the best novels there are and study them instead.
Rating: 1 / 5
#4 by Donald Lowe on May 13, 2010 - 4:40 pm
Peter Selgin’s By Cunning & Craft is the most useful book that I have ever read on the subject of writing fiction. Chocked full of practical gems, he covers the ins-and-outs of all aspects of creating fiction. And Selgin backs up his “sound advice and practical wisdom for fiction writers” by citing numerous examples from an eclectic range of styles. This book surprised me by being fun and interesting — a product of Selgin’s abundant wit. By Cunning & Craft is beautifully bound and fits perfectly in a knapsack or briefcase for reference. A must-read for any level or style of fiction writer.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Perry Brass on May 13, 2010 - 7:09 pm
This is a delicious book about what I feel is the world’s most exciting art form: writing fiction. In it, Peter Selgin not only gives you a very good grounding in the basics of working with fictional structures (like characters, setting, action, plot, and dialogue), but he also gives us a good approach to appreciating fiction itself. So the book reminds me of the work of the great food writer M. F. K. Fisher who wrote wisely and wittily about how food is savored and appreciated more than simply giving us a bunch of recipes. “The truth of the imagination doesn’t lie,” Selgin says. “It doesn’t lie because it taps into the universal unconsciousness, the place where dreams and myths shared by all of us are born. It is no less reliable a source of truth than the deep instincts that prompt us to love and fear.” This is one of the truest statements I’ve ever read in a book, and it shows the author’s own genius, which is at play in this book, where he brings so much of himself to us in the form of a handbook about fiction. Perry Brass, author of Warlock, The Substance of God, and Carnal Sacraments.
Rating: 5 / 5