Omss-Culture: Culturebox: How To Write Like a Victorian



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culturebox How To Write Like a Victorian What can the first how-to book for fiction still tell us? By Paul Collins Posted Friday, Nov. 26, 2010, at 7:23 AM ET In the fall of 1895, thousands of Brits were wracked by a painful and embarrassing affliction: rejection slips. Britain, it seems, was a nation of cracked Kiplings and ham-handed Hardys. "The number of persons who are now engaged in writing fiction," the Glasgow Herald estimated, "[is] somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand." For them, the publication that year of Jude the Obscure and The Time Machine meant far less than the appearance of a whole new kind of book: How To Write Fiction. Published under the pen name "An Old Hand," How To's anonymous author was a "well known novelist"--a man who, the Herald assured readers, might open "a new prospect for those would-be novelists who are annually rejected in their thousands." The introduction to the book promised to give readers the clarity of long experience--not some youth whose "work will appear like a picture in a stereopticon that is out of focus." To continue reading, click here. Paul Collins is an assistant professor of creative writing in the M.F.A. program at Portland State University. His latest book is The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World. Follow him on Twitter. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Hitchens: Forget Pat-Downs. Get Outraged About Our Weak Terrorism Defenses. Can Apps Like Glucose Buddy Help Diabetics Live Happier Lives? The Secret That Mark Twain's Autobiography Doesn't Reveal	Advertisement
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Now playing: *Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V* at www.slatev.com.
culturebox How To Write Like a Victorian What can the first how-to book for fiction still tell us? By Paul Collins Posted Friday, Nov. 26, 2010, at 7:23 AM ET In the fall of 1895, thousands of Brits were wracked by a painful and embarrassing affliction: rejection slips. Britain, it seems, was a nation of cracked Kiplings and ham-handed Hardys. "The number of persons who are now engaged in writing fiction," the Glasgow Herald estimated, "[is] somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand." For them, the publication that year of Jude the Obscure and The Time Machine meant far less than the appearance of a whole new kind of book: How To Write Fiction. Published under the pen name "An Old Hand," How To's anonymous author was a "well known novelist"--a man who, the Herald assured readers, might open "a new prospect for those would-be novelists who are annually rejected in their thousands." The introduction to the book promised to give readers the clarity of long experience--not some youth whose "work will appear like a picture in a stereopticon that is out of focus." To continue reading, click here. Paul Collins is an assistant professor of creative writing in the M.F.A. program at Portland State University. His latest book is The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World. Follow him on Twitter. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Hitchens: Forget Pat-Downs. Get Outraged About Our Weak Terrorism Defenses. Can Apps Like Glucose Buddy Help Diabetics Live Happier Lives? The Secret That Mark Twain's Autobiography Doesn't Reveal	Advertisement
Manage your newsletters on Slate Unsubscribe \| Newsletter Center \| Advertising Information Please do not reply to this message since this is an unmonitored e-mail address. If you have questions about newsletters, please go here.
Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to newsletters@slate.com. Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC \| Privacy Policy Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive \| c/o E-mail Customer Care \| 1150 15th Street NW \| Washington, D.C. 20071

Culturebox: How To Write Like a Victorian

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