The Black Writers' Toolbox: A Practical Guide to Writing Fiction

Presenting a new way of thinking about the practice of writing fiction for Black writers and any writer who includes non-white characters in their work, The Black Writer's Toolbox is a practical guide to crafting authentic Black characters and fictional worlds. For Black writers, there are connotations within description, language, setting, characterisation and voice when they approach the page that are often overlooked in creative writing instruction. This book seeks to address this gap, offering writers the tools to decolonise their own minds, banish stereotypes and caricatures from their writing and address important contemporary cultural questions. Helping writers articulate their fully formed characters as well as guiding readers to understand the nuances of writing while Black, the book considers the effect of stereotypes on Black writers and readers, explores the historical implications of language, voice and power, and explains why all writing is not the same. With consideration of sentence structure, senses, scene, point of view, plot, emotion, writing 'self' and 'other' and more, each chapter employs examples of literature from Black authors that explore narrative perspective within the cultural, racial and historic contexts of the work, and features writing prompts and exercises around the topics discussed. Calling upon the writings of Yaa Gyasi, Courttia Newland, Bernadine Evaristo, Nalo Hopkinson, Marlon James and Jamaica Kincaid and many more, The Black Writer's Toolbox is an important corrective to existing literature on the writing process. Read more