Hints on writing short stories by Charles Joseph Finger
"Hints on writing short stories by Charles Joseph Finger" is a practical guidebook on the craft of fiction written in the early 20th century. Blending lively essays with hands-on advice, it champions sincerity and truth in storytelling, explores character, plot, style, and theme, and offers market tips for aspiring writers. Its likely topic is how to write short stories that feel real, avoiding cliché, distortion, and formula. The book opens by dismissing
correspondence-school formulas and sets its keynote: truth is the final test of literature. It urges writers to be sincere, see straight, and “set down the thing as it is,” warning against patriotic and class prejudices that flatten characters into types. It treats character as complex—often facets of the writer’s own nature—and shows courage more in moral choice than in brute action, advising restraint with murder and spectacle. Plot, it argues, grows from character and situation; plausibility matters less than convincing feeling and texture, so romance and fantasy are fair game if rendered with verisimilitude. It cautions against obsessive sex-themes and marriage-as-ending clichés, proposes contrarian story seeds, and defines style as clear, honest communication rather than ornament—illustrated with sharp quotations and examples. The author highlights a neglected field in writing for youth, lists welcoming magazines, and closes by urging writers to listen closely to real speech and moments, since truth, simply told, is what endures. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Finger, Charles Joseph, 1869-1941 |
|---|---|
| Editor | Haldeman-Julius, E. (Emanuel), 1888-1951 |
| LoC No. | ca22000708 |
| Title | Hints on writing short stories |
| Original Publication | Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1922. |
| Series Title | [Little blue book no. 326] |
| Series Title | Ten cent pocket series no. 326 |
| Credits | Carla Foust, Tim Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 68.6 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections |
| Subject | Short story -- Technique |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 76438 |
| Release Date | Jul 4, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 323 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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