THE ICE PICK

The Fiction Dictionary, by Laurie Henry. Cincinnati, Ohio, Story Press. ISBN 1-884910-05-X. $18.99.

If you’ve ever wondered what an editor meant in telling you a piece was over- or underwritten, been confused when someone in your writer’s group suggested you use a ficelle to help reveal information about your protagonist, or been lost trying to explain the distinctions of tone, atmosphere, and mood, you’re not alone.

Not only does this book define things like the difference between magic realism and surrealism--that you might see in market lists--but it also provides fairly lengthy examples from classic and contemporary works to show what is meant, and cites other works that you can read to see more of the particular narrative technique in action.

In the definitions of terms like tension, flashforward, diegesis, understatement, or vignette, you may find ideas on how to handle a story problem or a character; as well as pitfalls to avoid in writing, whether classic beginners’ mistakes or outmoded techniques--such as the metafiction of the 1970s or the minimalism of the 1980s--that many of us learned in writing or English classes. And it fully explains new terms, like voice, that have come into vogue in the 1990s.

The index is excellent, and the text itself is full of cross-references to related terms.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter. Oct. 1998. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Jan. 2000.}