Mary Duffy's Writing Guide:
Write Clear and Crisp prose
- The central love story between Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky is compelling and tragic. Anna and the Count have an affair, causing much talk in society. Due to the double standards of the time, while Vronsky may still hold his head high in society, Anna is forced to stay inside and hide her shame.
Anna turns to Vronsky─a dashing military man─as a refuge from her passionless marriage to a pompous, despotic bureaucrat--a move that results not only in the loss of her position in the world, but also in total social ostracism. A situation that fills her with self-doubt, and which ends up destroying her confidence.A parallel plot follows the contrasting fortunes of Levin (Tolstoy's alter ego, with his deep love of the land) and Kitty, whose marriage thrives and prospers because of mutual commitment, sympathy, and respect. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy reaches deep into his own experiences and his observations of family and friends to create a picture of Russian society that reaches from the high life in St. Petersburg and Moscow to the idyllic rural existence of Kitty and Levin.
Tolstoy shows Anna Karenina as a young woman who finds herself in a loveless and hopeless marriage. But this fact might not have seemed so intolerable had she not met and fallen in love with Count Vronsky. But she did and the affair commenced. In contrast to Anna's tragic affair, we hear about the relationship between Kitty and Levin, a conjugal, idealized love match. Levin is first rejected by Kitty because she has her heart set on Count Vronsky whose affections are already taken by Anna Karenina. Brokenhearted, Kitty eventually turns back to Levin for love and marriage.In the character of Anna, Tolstoy creates a woman fated for tragedy.
Anna falls in love blindly with Count Vronsky. Although she could well have continued the relationship in secret she defies the "rules," by having her affair in the public’s eye. For this she is forced to lose all contact with her son; she is shunned from proper society, and forced to pay the ultimate price.
The length of this novel might be overwhelming to many readers. But─in a work of art─it couldn’t be otherwise as each character had to be depicted in detail and each situation covered fully.This book is rich in psychological insights as it gives you the feeling that is really about people. Their personalities are worked out so well that you can really feel their pain as well as their pleasure. At the beginning, I had the odd impression that all the characters were presented as good people, but later we see them for what they are: some good, others bad, and a few really repulsive.
We follow the eponymus heroine─loveless, unloved, a doomed pariah─to social ruin and ultimately to her death. Beneath the drama and the tragedy we find discussions of Russian politics and the introduction of some socialist ideas, topics which are interesting indeed─but inimical to the towering humanity of Anna Karenina.
The characterisations are dazzling and the prose superb, lyrical at times. Although the novel is long, the plot moves at a rapid pace. The sense of impending doom is palpable and in some passages it becomes almost unbearable. Tense. Tout like the strings of a violin. Tolstoy shows his understanding of the human heart in this masterpiece.
Many Conferences and Writers Workshops offer terrific courses that cover the fundamentals of writing; especially of fiction writing. In addition, there are many good books that cover "craft."
Principles such as plot, character, voice, dialogue, description, point of view, climax, etc., can easily be picked up and grasped in no time.
Our Guide covers the way sentences should be put on paper. In particular in what order.
From the outset you'll be startled to learn that the old, revered, traditional way of the sentence: subject-verb-complement, should be, if not abandoned, at least used sparsely.
Britney shaved her head.
Boring! We've found many other interesting ways to spice up prose. You'll see.
Even if you are grammatically challenged, our techniques will ask you to simply follow our patterns; we won't ask you to diagram or parse sentences and transform them into convoluted trees.
No trees! That's how many bright youngsters develop a distaste instead of a love of language.
The only requirement for you to succeed in writing with our techniques, is that you be able to read and tell what is boring. If you know what is boring, you will not bore anyone.
Once you've learned and mastered our techniques, you should go to the nearest bookstore and pick at random any book. By reading just one or two paragraphs you'll see whether the book is well written or sluggish and tedious. How? Well, you'll be armed with ten techniques that the great majority of the public ignores.
Writing is a vast field. You could go into fiction, mystery, romance, science fiction, children book writing, business writing, memoir writing, travel writing, article writing for magazines, etc. You might even become a writing consultant!
Of all of the above, fiction is the most challenging since it deals with the imagination. And also the most rewarding for the writer. If you have the talent, go for it!
But there's also screenwriting, TV writing, playwriting, humor writing, and even songwriting! Can you tackle a mystery book? Of course, and more. Do you want to write your memoirs? You can start immediately; whatever writing plans you might have in your life--you'll accomplish them.
The only aspect we don't cover in our Guide is poetry.
If you are a parent, you'll be able to coach your children for their college admission essays. And if you are the child applying, then you can correct your parents!
The other side of writing is reading. We recommend good reading habits. You'll never go wrong with the masters. God only knows how many times I've read Tolstoy's War and Peace, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood, and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and never failed to learn something new every time.
Write FICTION books, non-fiction books, and screenplays in just hours! |
