Don Quixote Meets the Mob: The Craft of Fiction & the Art of Life

by Susan Taylor Chehak

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738824763
• ISBN13: 9780738824765
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Antidote to Writer's Block, Procrastination & Delay

Are you suffering from writer's block because of your perfectionism? Are you taking forever to finish your book or novel? Well, Susan Taylor Chehak's short but inspiring meditation on "Perfection?" (page 145-146 of her book) might help get you over the hump. It did exactly that for me. And just that makes it worth more than the price of this unique book on the craft of writing. "Don Quixote Meets The Mob: The Craft of Fiction & The Art of Life" is not your typical, predictable how-to-write-fiction manual out to make a quick buck off aspiring writers. The author teaches her craft with subtlety, sophistication, and insight. You can feel the generosity here, for it is a work of love. And if you let it, it will boost and move and grow you as a writer in unexpected ways. ...

Entertainment and helpful.

I've read a lot of how-to-write-fiction books. Many of them were helpful on the mechanics of writing. "Don Quixote" covers some of that territory, but it's mostly about what makes a story. A novel has to have interesting people doing interesting things. The author uses relatives and people she has known along with real events to demonstrate the difference between family news or gossip and fictional reality. This book would be useful to most beginning writers because it covers an area of fiction which is generally ignored.

Attention Writers: This One's A Keeper

Susan Taylor Chehak has written a remarkable book which, as its subtitle suggests, is really about two subjects: the craft of fiction and the art of life. As a writer, I have started (but not finished) dozens of "how to" books on the craft of writing fiction. I usually nod off around the chapter on "point of view," and seldom make it to the all important discussion on "revising your work." But I read Chehak's book from cover to cover in just a few sittings. As a book on the "writing craft" it covers all the usual subjects. What sets it apart and makes it so engaging is Chehak's exceptional ability as a storyteller. Her conversational style is so convincing, you feel as though you're sitting around her kitchen table, drinking coffee, while she tells you, all wide eyed, the most improbable or outlandish thing that happened to her (or her family or friends)just last week. These stories, it turns out, are for the most part not really true. Or are they? At the core of this book is Chehak's fascination with "the peculiar relationship that seems to exist between fiction and reality." Using her stories as examples, and drawing on a rich source of literature, philosophy, and writing gurus, Chehak takes us on an exploration of her underlying theme: that it is not always easy to separate fact from fiction. Whether you are interested in the writing craft, or the art of life, this is a book that sings with originality.