A Fiction Writers Guide to Peace

With superhero violence and graphic action sequences prevalent on the screen and on the page, this book takes an alternative route to the mainstream, offering practical guidance, frameworks and tools for incorporating the principles of peace-building and non-violence into compelling fiction. Definitely the path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact non-violent heroism in their characters, model civil resistance in their stories and create worlds around a mythos that champions redemptive nonviolence. With concepts applicable to writing for fiction, drama, the screen and poetry, A Fiction Writer''s Guide to Peace deconstructs the necessity for violence in popular works, explores key concepts in peace studies and helps writers establish their own peace poetics. Focused around the craft narrative techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features creative writing prompts after each chapter and examples from key works such as the films Trading Places, Selma, Lago, Raho Munna Bai and Frozen and literature from A Christmas Carol to Asphalt Jungle and Julia Quinn''s Bridgerton novels. A timely and important expansion to any writer''s toolkit, A Fiction Writer''s Guide to Peace allows storytellers to understand the complex dynamics of, and the damage caused by, violent perspectives and actions, giving them a way into considering non-violence as powerful and preferable.>

Préface
The fiction writer's guide to making peacebuilding, civil resistance, and conflict transformation as compelling as battles and explosions.

Auteur

Gabriel Ertsgaard is Interviews Editor for the Peace Chronicle and Copy Editor for the poetry journal Drifting Sands Haibun. He also serves on the board of directors for the Quaker magazine Western Friend. He has taught university English courses for the past decade, and is the author of numerous poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles. He holds a Doctor of Letters with a concentration in Global Studies from Drew University, USA.

Contenu

1. Introduction
Is There Really an Imbalance?
Is Nonviolent Action Effective?
Are Stories of Nonviolent Heroism Compelling?

2. From Peace Studies to Peace Poetics
Peace Education
Civil Resistance
Case Study: For the Snake of Power
Conflict Transformation
Case Study: Big Rural

3. Character Arcs
Egri's dialectical approach
Power and Love
Case study: Trading Places
Creating Character Arcs
Getting to Yes
Conclusion
Writing exercises

4. Campaigns
What is a caper story?
Underdogs versus powerful figure/force
Initial situation
Scheme
Preparation
Execution
Aftermath
Conclusion
Writing exercises

5. Duels
Substitution
Intervention
Nonresistance
Conclusion
Writing Exercises

6. Worldbuilding
Mythos and worldbuilding
Love
Persuasion
Reconciliation
Conclusion
Writing exercises

7. Peace Poetics for Activists
Creative Literacy
Counternarrative
Narratology

8. Conclusion
Against purity
Future directions for peace poetics
Bibliography
Index