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    Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters
    Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters
    Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters
    Ebook157 pages34 minutes

    Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters

    By Damon Knight

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Bonus! Two chapbooks on writing from the master.

    Faking Out the Reader focuses on using "head fakes" in writing for delightful results.

    It All Begins with Characters is a brief masterclass on how to create the best characters.

    Both of these were originally published in Pulphouse Publishing's "Writer's Chapbook Series" (#27 and #37, respectively). Both of Damon's contributions to the series are presented here in one volume for your enjoyment and writerly improvement.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReAnimus Press
    Release dateMar 13, 2021
    ISBN9781005559175
    Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters
    Author

    Damon Knight

    Damon Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre. He was a member of the Futurians, an early organization of the most prominent SF writers of the day. He founded the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA), the primary writers' organization for genre writers, as well as the Milford Writers workshop and co-founded the Clarion Writers Workshop. He edited the notable Orbit anthology series, and received the Hugo and SFWA Grand Master award. The award was later renamed in his honor. He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm.More books from Damon Knight are available at: http://reanimus.com/authors/damonknight

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      Book preview

      Faking Out the Reader and It All Begins with Characters - Damon Knight

      FAKING OUT THE READER & IT ALL BEGINS WITH CHARACTERS

      by

      DAMON KNIGHT

      Produced by ReAnimus Press

      Other books by Damon Knight:

      Creating Short Fiction

      The Futurians

      The Best of Damon Knight

      CV

      The Observers

      A Reasonable World

      In Search of Wonder

      The World and Thorinn

      Hell's Pavement

      Beyond the Barrier

      Masters of Evolution

      A for Anything

      The Sun Saboteurs

      The Rithian Terror

      Mind Switch

      The Man in the Tree

      Why Do Birds

      Humpty Dumpty: An Oval

      Far Out

      In Deep

      Off Center

      Turning On

      Three Novels

      World Without Children and The Earth Quarter

      Rule Golden and Other Stories

      Better Than One

      Late Knight Edition

      God's Nose

      One Side Laughing: Stories Unlike Other Stories

      Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction

      Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained

      Clarion Writers' Handbook

      © 2021, 1991 by Damon Knight. All rights reserved.

      https://ReAnimus.com/store?author=Damon+Knight

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Publisher's Note

      Faking Out the Reader

      It All Begins with Characters

      About the Author

      Publisher’s Note

      These two pieces were originally published separately as small chapbooks in the Pulphouse Writer’s Chapbook Series (#27 and #37). We’ve combined them into this one volume to make them more cost-effectively available, for your reading and writing pleasure.

      Faking Out the Reader

      In football and other team sports, I am told, there is a move called a head fake, meaning that a player by a slight and apparently involuntary movement of the head gives his opponents a cue that he is about to run in one direction, then cuts the other way. I have no personal experience of this, but I do know that something similar takes place in fencing: it is called a feint. (I did a lot of head fencing in my early teens while reading the novels of Raphael Sabatini.)

      Now, then: in writing there is a parallel trick that not many people know about. It consists of turning the readers’ unconscious expectations against them and faking them out for fun and profit. Usually the readers’ expectation is that some basic rule of writing will be followed. When the author violates it with deliberate intent, the result is an unexpected delight for the readers.

      In each of the following examples, I’ll begin by stating the reader’s expectation in the form of a rule; then I’ll show you how to turn it against them.

      Rule 1: Begin at the beginning.

      In spite of all the pulp writers who have broken this rule into flinders, we still expect that the reasonable advice of Carrol’s King of Hearts will be followed: Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop. For most beginning writers, breaking this rule is instant disaster:

      Zing! Another bullet whizzed past his ear.

      Whose ear? Where, when? Why should we care? To answer these questions, writers have to jerk the reader back in time, then forward again

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