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The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth Reprint Edition
Author(s): James Frey (Author)
- Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
- Publication Date: 3 Aug. 2002
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Print length: 272 pages
- ISBN-10: 9780312300524
- ISBN-13: 9780312300524
Book Description
The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth is designed as a practical step-by-step guide for fiction writers and screen writers who want to shape their own ideas into a mythic story.
In his widely read How to Write a Damn Good Novel and How to Write a Damn Good Novel II: Advanced Techniques, novelist and fiction-writing coach James N. Frey showed writers how–starting with rounded, living, breathing, dynamic characters–to structure a novel that sustains tension and development and ends in a satisfying, dramatic climax.
Now, in The Key, Frey takes his no-nonsense, “Damn Good” approach and applies it to Joseph Campbell’s insights into the universal structure of myths. Myths, says Frey, are the basis of all storytelling, and their structures and motifs are just as powerful for contemporary writers as they were for Homer. Frey begins with the qualities found in mythic heroes–ancient and modern–such as the hero’s special talent, his or her wound, status as an “outlaw,” and so on.
He then demonstrates how the hero is initiated–sent on a mission, forced to learn the new rules, tested, and suffers a symbolic death and rebirth–before he or she can return home. Using dozens of classical and contemporary novels and films as models, Frey shows how these motifs and forms work their powerful magic on the reader’s imagination.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“You could struggle through learning the basics of storytelling by trial anbd error or you could just read this book. I wish I had this fifteen years ago.” —Sara Pariott, screenwriter for The Runaway Bride
“For me, the mythological approach has indeed been the key to creating stories that have a far greater impact on the reader than anything I’d written before.” —Tess Collins, author of The Law of Blood and The Law of Revenge
“This well-written and witty how-to [focuses] on the tradition of myth as a recipe for storytelling. Drawing from Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, Frey explains that people respond strongly to mythic images and will essentially read the same stories over and over again; readers of romances are a good example of this concept. The first half of the book is especially interesting, for it examines the mythic structure in such diverse works as Robin Hood, Beowulf, and Jaws and looks at myths that function in everyday modern life. In the second half, Frey provides the reader with a sample novella titled ‘The Blue Light’ to illustrate the use of myth as a writing tool. Expect beginning writers to use this informative guide along with the author’s other books.” —Library Journal
“Everything I know about plotting a novel, I learned from Frey.” —Marjorie Reynolds, author of The Starlite Drive-In
