For aspiring novelists and short-story writers, this engaging, informal guide of 10,000 words covers all the essentials you need to know. For experienced fiction writers, it will remind you of the basic truths of story telling that you may have lost sight of. Topics include "The Rules of Fiction Club"; "The Importance of the Small Details: Creating Fiction Brush Stroke by Brush Stroke"; showing vs. telling; balancing narration, dialogue, and description; structure, plot, and pace; flashbacks; point of view; writing dialogue; punctuation; grammar; common usage and style errors; writers groups; word count; and "Why We Write." Mark Spencer is the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Creative Writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He is the author of the novels The Weary Motel, Love and Reruns in Adams County, The Masked Demon; the nonfiction novel A Haunted Love Story; the story collections Wedlock and Trespassers; and a history book, Images of America: Monticello. His short stories, novellas, and articles have appeared in over 100 journals. His work has received the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award for the Novel, The Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Bradshaw Book Award, The Cairn Short Fiction Prize, and four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize. He and his family live in Monticello, Arkansas, in the famously haunted Allen House, the subject of his book A Haunted Love Story and featured on four TV shows, including My Ghost Story, A Haunting, Paranormal Witness, and Ghost Hunters, and soon to be the location of a feature-length film.
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