Jeff VanderMeer éditera prochainement chez Abrams Image un guide d'écriture illustré.
Ce guide se nommera Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction et veut adopter une approche tout à fait nouvelle pour exploiter pleinement la nature visuelle de l'imaginaire. Le tout avec des dessins, des cartes et des exercices pour s'entraîner à créer un univers visuellement crédible et inspirant. De plus, VanderMeer est aidé dans sa tâche par des auteurs de renom comme Neil Gaiman, G.R.R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, Lev Grossman et d'autres.
Un coup d’œil à la table des matières suffit à démontrer l'ambition de la chose, attendue pour le 15 octobre.

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This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps, renderings, and exercises to create a spectacularly beautiful and inspiring object. Employing an accessible, example-rich approach, Wonderbook energizes and motivates while also providing practical, nuts-and-bolts information needed to improve as a writer. Aimed at aspiring and intermediate-level writers, Wonderbook includes helpful sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names in fantasy today, such as George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, and Karen Joy Fowler, to name a few. This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps, renderings, and exercises to create a spectacularly beautiful and inspiring object. Employing an accessible, example-rich approach, Wonderbook energizes and motivates while also providing practical, nuts-and-bolts information needed to improve as a writer. Aimed at aspiring and intermediate-level writers, Wonderbook includes helpful sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names in fantasy today, such as George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, and Karen Joy Fowler, to name a few.

Introduction

Organization and Approach
Your Guides
Wonderbooknow.com
The Journey
Featured Instructional Art
The History of Science Fiction
Novel Mountain: A Typology of Discovery (by John Crowley)

Chapter 1: Inspiration and the Creative Life

The Importance of Imaginative Play
The Fantastical and the Imagination
Imaginative Outputs
The Scar or the Splinter
Inputs for Inspiration
The Strangeness of the Imagination
Featured Instructional Art
Inspiration: Outputs
Inspiration: Inputs
Original Essays by Rikki Durcornet, Karen Lord, Matthew Cheney
Spotlight on: Scott Eagle
Writing Challenge: Using an Absurd Prompt

Chapter 2: The Ecosystem of Story

Narrative Life Forms
The Elements of Fiction
A Closer Look at Some of the Elements
Point of View
Dialogue
Description
Style
The Greater and Lesser Mysteries
The Complex Relationship Between Story Elements
The Roles of Types of Imagination
Featured Instructional Art
Dialogue in Action
Approaches to Style
Lifecycle of a Story
Essays by: Nick Mamatas, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing Challenge: Texture, Tone, and Style

Chapter 3: Beginnings and Endings

The Lure of the Hook
Elements of a Good Beginning
When Not to Commit
Bad Beginnings?
Novel Approaches: Finch
Other Approaches to Finch
Style, Tone, and Voice
Finch as Short Story
The End of Beginnings
The Beginning of Endings
Expectations and Elements for Endings
Falling Down at the End
The End of Finch
The End of Endings
Featured Instructional Art
The Widening Context
Myster Odd Presents: Beginnings
Story Fish
Myster Odd Presents: First Lines
Doors to Narrative
Letting Light into the Eye
Modulations of Tone and Style
The Middle Zones of Story
Arrows and Targets
Myster Odd Presents: Final Lines
Essays by: Neil Gaiman and Desirina Boskovich
Writing Challenge: “Kraken!”-Where to Begin?

Chapter 4: Narrative Design

Plot
Structure
Creating Scenes
Pacing: Beats and Progressions
The Beginnings and Endings of Scenes
Repetition and Invisibility
Cutting Scenes
Intercutting scenes
Translating Movie and Television Technique into Fiction
What Not to Dramatize
The Uses of Interruption and Contamination
The Role of Time
Featured Instructional Art
Natural and Dramatic Scenes: Story versus Situation
Plot Diagrams
Plot Lizards
Life Is Not a Plot
Plot Devices
The Structure of Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons
The Structure of Angela Carter’s Story “The Fall River Axe Murders”
The Structure of “The Leonardo” by Vladimir Nabokov
Myster Odd Presents: Structure
Beats Examined (Under the Microscope)
The Hand of Possibility, The Eye of Cause and Effect
Cutting Scenes: Airship Disaster
Intercutting Scenes: Conflict on the Island
Flay and Cook: Gormenghast and the Action Scene
The Science of Scenes
Spotlight on: Nnedi Okorafor
Writing Challenge: Beyond Standard Plots

Chapter 5: Characterization

Types of Characterization
The King and His Hippo: Full versus Flat
Whom Should You Write About?
Getting to Know Your Character
Mistakes to Avoid
Creating Further Depth and Nuance
Character Arcs
Featured Instructional Art
Protag/Antag
186 Mystery Odd Presents: The Character Club
Transfer of Energy and Emotion
The Secret Life of Objects
Types of Character Arcs
Mexican Wrestler Monomyth
Essays by: Lauren Beukes and Michael Cisco
Spotlight on: Stant Litore
Writing Challenges: Animals as People, Secondary Characters

Chapter 6: Worldbuilding

Worldview versus Storyview
Characteristics of a Well-Realized Setting
Dangers and Opportunities
The Strangeness of the World
Featured Instructional Art
All Our Fictional Worlds (types)
Myster Odd Presents: Worldview versus Storyview
Essays by: Catherynne M. Valente, Joe Abercrombie, Charles Yu
Spotlight on: David Anthony Durham
Writing Challenge: Investigation of a Floating City

Chapter 7: Revision

What is Revision?
Drafting Strategies
Specific Questions for Writers of the Fantastical
Systematic Testing
Step 1: Reverse Outlining
Step 2: Interrogating Your Characters
Step 3: Paragraph-Level Edits
Your Process: To Keep in Mind
Choosing First Readers
Reconciling Feedback
Don’t Kill the Spark
Featured Instructional Art
Chart of Revision
Peter Straub Manuscript Pages
Grandville Character Circle
Bestiary of First Readers: To Avoid
Story Fish that May Require Revision
A Tale of Resurrection
Essays by: Lev Grossman, Karen Joy Fowler
Spotlight on: Peter Straub
Writing Challenge: Transformation by Increments

Workshop Appendix

LARP and Writing by Karin Tidbeck
George R. R. Martin on the Craft of Writing
Games and Storytelling by Will Hindmarch
Writing Exercises
Cannibalism & Constraint: Finding the Story Right in Front of You
Stealing the Skeleton: Goldilocks and the Three Nubs
Cause and Effect: The Case of the Wheelbarrow Deer, the Severed Finger, and Your Messed-Up Friends
The Secret Life of Objects
Speak, Don’t Speak: Are We There Yet?
Found History: Everything’s Personal
Tactile Experience: GO!
Last Drink Bird Head: Don’t Think, Write
The Forgotten Works of Cassandra N. Railsea
“The Quickening”: The Rabbit Must Speak!
“The Leonardo” Variations: Living Without Fantasy
The Development of a Writer

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