Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219868 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 170 pages

From the Back Cover
"There are ways to create, fix, steer and discover plots--ways which, over a writing life, you'd eventually puzzle out for yourself," writes Ansen Dibell. "They aren't laws. They're an array of choices, things to try, once you've put a name to the particular problem you're facing now."

That's what this book is about: identifying those choices (whose viewpoint? stop and explain now, or wait? how can this lead to that?), then learning what narrative problems they are apt to create and how to choose an effective strategy for solving them. The result? Strong, solid stories and novels that move.

Inside you'll discover how to:
- test a story idea (using four simple questions) to see if it works

-convince your reader that not only is something happening, but that something's going to happen and it all matters intensely

- handle viewpoint shifts, flashbacks, and other radical jumps in your storyline weave plots with subplots

- get ready for and write your Big Scenes

- balance scene and summary narration to produce good pacing

- handle the extremes of melodrama by "faking out" your readers--making them watch your right hand while your left hand is doing something sneaky

- form subtle patterns with mirror characters and echoing incidents

- choose the best type of ending --linear or circular, happy or downbeat, or (with caution!) a trick ending

Whether your fiction is short or long, subtle or direct and hardhitting, you'll learn how to make the correct narrative choices that will lead to strong plots -- and fiction others will want to read.

About the Author
Ansen Dibell is the author of the five-novel science fiction series, The Rule of One. Currently she is involved with community writing groups and college level writing programs, in addition to working as a freelance writer and editor in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

"Like a recepie for a cake"
A big help for anyone who has written a plot that "starts to go wrong just after the first big scene"

Plot is all

Its not often you wanders into a junk shop and pick up a gem, but that is what I found with Dibell's '88 edition of 'Plot..'. I'm tempted to buy the '99 edition just to see how the author has improved it. At under $2, that's too good a bargain to miss, but I do not understand how any determined writer can sell such valuable reference book.

With all the hype about 'character' and claims there are only a limited number of plots that have all been done to death, it seems rather passe to study 'plot', but how many times can you imagine walking into an agent's or editor's office and hear them say "Oh do tell me about your characters". How many times do you hear readers say "Oh it had such wonderful, fully rounded characters". No they all say "What's it about?" What's the plot.

Dibell tells you what plot is, how to do it, and what stories do not have plot. Such knowledge is inspiring, it increases your confidence and your enjoyment in writing. Instead of wandering in a fog, you can see where you are going and confidently go. It helps you see how different stories can be differently structured to maximum effect. How to keep to the plot without meandering off. This is not a simple skill, its complicated. Don't expect to read this book and know it all. You have study and practice.

Dibell's 'Plot' is not merely an introductory book, it is a reference book to be reviewed before starting any story and to check progress as your story is written. So its good to see Dibell has included an index.

When you have finished your story, you will be a lot more confident in telling agents and publishers what it is about.

Sorry, have to dash, I've got to write.

FYI
"Ansen Dibell" is Nancy Dibble, a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, MENSA member, and native of Staten Island. She writes sci-fi/fantasy novels. Given her genre & personality, it's not surprising that readers find this book more affective than cognitive, more subjective than objective, more random than systematic. Those who share these qualities find value in the book; those who don't are critical--as reviews on this page indicate. Non disputandum. The telling point is that Dibble uses fiction to solve ill-formed problems that she is confronting in her life. Using creative writing as an instrument of growth isn't unusual, for those with a Romantic disposition; but using fiction to work out personal problems or as wish fulfillment enters the realm of Psychology or even pathology, even when imagination succeeds in transforming experience into fables. There's a danger in working in Middle Earth: The return to reality can be downhill.

She died March 7, 2006 in Cincinnatti OH.