- Hardcover: 149 pages
- Publisher: Writer (April 1972)
- ISBN-10: 0871160722
- ISBN-13: 978-0871160720
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.7 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,077,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Suspense, like other genre fiction, is often assumed to be inferior in quality to more "serious" fiction. A suspense story can be every bit as well-wrought as any other, argues Patricia Highsmith in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. To show how, Highsmith focuses as much on her failures as on her successes. Amid discussions about growing ideas, story development, plotting, first and second drafts, and revisions are anecdotes from Highsmith's own career. Highsmith (Strangers on a Train) admits to editing with crayon (doing so "gives one the proper cavalier attitude"), napping on the job (it helps solve problems), and having written one "really dull" book. Though this book is slim, there are some lovely thoughts on such issues as creating a murderer-hero with "pleasant qualities," "stretch[ing] the reader's credulity," and using "as much care in depicting the face and appearance of ... main characters" as a painter would with a portrait. --Jane Steinberg
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
From the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley comes a how-to manual on her craft. In Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, the late Patricia Highsmith gives advice on generating ideas ("It is amusing to let the imagination play with such incidents as a faintly heard song and an invaded apartment, and to see what evolves from them"), helpful practices (keep a notebook), overarching philosophies ("The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself") and specific craft issues ("where should one place the climax in a book?"). The advice is all sound (particularly her ideas on "almost incredible" coincidences), and her status as a suspense heavyweight and a commercial success make her book eminently credible.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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First Sentence
THE first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting and entertaining,
This review is from: Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (Paperback)
I'm glad I bought this book. As an author of suspense myself, I found it very worthwhile. It won't teach you how to write--but I've found no book can really do that. In the same vein as Stephen Kings book On Writing, it is more an account about how this highly successful author developed her craft over the years, her successes and failures. If you want a how to guide you would be better off with another title. It also enhances the enjoyment of this book if the reader is familiar with Highsmith's books. I found it interesting to know where she got her ideas and how she developed a small incident into a novel.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mildly amusing, but useless.,
By Karen D. (Cheney, WA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (Paperback)
Very little useful information contained in this book. You can learn more about the craft from reading her fiction!Get Stephen King's On Writing instead. Much more practical advice.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Behind the Scenes at the Abbatoir,
By
This review is from: Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (Paperback)
A modestly written, terse, readable and nuts and bolts book about how plots come to be put together, how a writer makes a living (or doesn't) and how to tell the story. What I found most charming about this "How-To" book was that it wasn't chirpy, wasn't preachy, didn't have a whiff of unreality arising from its advice, and was eminently practical. The only crime writing manual so far that I have picked up, browsed in, bought, took home and actually finished reading from cover to cover (sometimes doing the reading on a bus, that's how gripping it is). Recommended.
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