Posted 28 Feb 2005 · Report post I am looking for two literary biographies -- that is, books that describe a novelist's (or short-story teller's) progress in gaining skills such as plot development, exposition, and dialogue.It's okay if a biography covers other aspects of a writer's life too, but it should be mostly about literary development. The authors described might be either popular or serious fiction writers. Examples might be L'Amour and Hugo.I know of only one book like this. It is Francis Fugate's biography of Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of the Perry Mason series of novels and TV shows. (The title, from memory, is Secrets of the World's Best Selling Author.) But, at $104US per used copy, on Amazon, it is far outside the price range of our local Objectivist Story Teller's group. (We have two members, which is why we are looking for two biographies, if possible, but even one would do.) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 1 Mar 2005 · Report post I am looking for two literary biographies -- that is, books that describe a novelist's (or short-story teller's) progress in gaining skills such as plot development, exposition, and dialogue.←Offhand I can recall no such biographies.But can't you learn what you want to know first-hand, by studying a writer's works chronologically?Have you studied, for instance, Victor Hugo's first two novels, Han d'Islande (Hans of Island) and Bug-Jargal? The first shows Hugo deliberately mastering plot construction. The second shows him learning how to highten moral conflict.And of course plenty of material has been published in The Early Ayn Rand to elucidate Miss Rand's early development. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 1 Mar 2005 · Report post ... Han d'Islande (Hans of Island) and Bug-Jargal?←Correction: it should translate as Hans of Iceland ... a Gothic novel Hugo wrote when only 18. Hans, son of Ingolphus the Exterminator, drinks blood out of a skull and generally makes life difficult for Ordener, the young hero, and his sweetheart Ethel. There's a brilliant scene near the end in which a man hangs his own long-lost brother. The last sentence of the novel states that the marriage of the hero and heroine gave rise to the Counts of Danneskiold.Bug-Jargal is a tale of the 1790s slave revolt in Santo Domingo, written when Hugo was 16 but revised a few years later. The hero, a leader of the revolt, gives his life in a dramatic act of self-sacrifice Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
