Tuesday, September 11, 2007
O Henry, . . .
Today was the birthday of one of my all time favorite authors of fiction, O. Henry, or should I say William Sydney Porter. His stories are a must read for anyone interested in learning about plot construction. His most famous short story The Gift of the Magi is, in my opinion, not among his best, but you should decide for yourself; one of O. Henry's collections of short stories, The Four Million, is available for download as an audio file at Librivox.
You might also check out other writings, like those by Oscar Wilde, which are also on my "must read" list for hopeful authors. Wilde had the best dialog in the business, it is now dated, but any fan of The Gilmore Girls or Boston Legal ought to appreciate his works.
On the lighter side, they have copies of one of the first authors of science fiction that I ever read, Edger Rice Burroughs. A quick listen to A Princess of Mars will show that his work was written before much of the scientific knowledge that we take for granted, but it will also reveal the art of the cliffhanger. Burroughs strove to create anticipation when he wrote each chapter as a short story in a magazine. He was preoccupied with anthropology and seems to call upon the "Orientalism" of his time as a major informant.
If you've never read other great authors (like Mark Twain) you might also give them a try and see if they're there. Among the authors I'd suggest are Frank Baum, who wrote an entire Oz (as in Wizard of) series that is far trippier than the movie; I'd compare him to Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), who is also featured. Then maybe go for some Tolstoy, Poe, or Shakespeare, and continue to the Avonlea series by Montgomery (which I have yet to read, but which Gina loved). Of course, I should probably listen to some James Joyce (since I avoided him in High School) and the braver of you should try Kafka, and the Christians among us, and those who are interested in such things, might try Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God (BTW - Lawrence authored one of my favorite prayers).
Have fun, kids . . .
You might also check out other writings, like those by Oscar Wilde, which are also on my "must read" list for hopeful authors. Wilde had the best dialog in the business, it is now dated, but any fan of The Gilmore Girls or Boston Legal ought to appreciate his works.
On the lighter side, they have copies of one of the first authors of science fiction that I ever read, Edger Rice Burroughs. A quick listen to A Princess of Mars will show that his work was written before much of the scientific knowledge that we take for granted, but it will also reveal the art of the cliffhanger. Burroughs strove to create anticipation when he wrote each chapter as a short story in a magazine. He was preoccupied with anthropology and seems to call upon the "Orientalism" of his time as a major informant.
If you've never read other great authors (like Mark Twain) you might also give them a try and see if they're there. Among the authors I'd suggest are Frank Baum, who wrote an entire Oz (as in Wizard of) series that is far trippier than the movie; I'd compare him to Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), who is also featured. Then maybe go for some Tolstoy, Poe, or Shakespeare, and continue to the Avonlea series by Montgomery (which I have yet to read, but which Gina loved). Of course, I should probably listen to some James Joyce (since I avoided him in High School) and the braver of you should try Kafka, and the Christians among us, and those who are interested in such things, might try Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God (BTW - Lawrence authored one of my favorite prayers).
Have fun, kids . . .
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