A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism
Superhero violence and graphic action sequences are prevalent on the screen and on the page, but this book takes an alternative route with practical guidance, frameworks, and tools for incorporating the principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence into compelling fiction. By mapping a path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact nonviolent 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 narrative 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 narrative craft techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features numerous creative writing prompts and examples from key works. These include films such as Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, and Frozen and literature ranging from Shakespeare's plays to Dickens' A Christmas Carol to 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 nonviolence as powerful and preferable.
1145552955
A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism
Superhero violence and graphic action sequences are prevalent on the screen and on the page, but this book takes an alternative route with practical guidance, frameworks, and tools for incorporating the principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence into compelling fiction. By mapping a path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact nonviolent 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 narrative 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 narrative craft techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features numerous creative writing prompts and examples from key works. These include films such as Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, and Frozen and literature ranging from Shakespeare's plays to Dickens' A Christmas Carol to 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 nonviolence as powerful and preferable.
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A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism

A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism

by Gabriel Ertsgaard
A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism

A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism

by Gabriel Ertsgaard

eBook

$26.95 

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Overview

Superhero violence and graphic action sequences are prevalent on the screen and on the page, but this book takes an alternative route with practical guidance, frameworks, and tools for incorporating the principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence into compelling fiction. By mapping a path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact nonviolent 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 narrative 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 narrative craft techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features numerous creative writing prompts and examples from key works. These include films such as Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, and Frozen and literature ranging from Shakespeare's plays to Dickens' A Christmas Carol to 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 nonviolence as powerful and preferable.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781350473973
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 06/26/2025
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 184
File size: 601 KB

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Is There Really an Imbalance?
Is Nonviolent Action Effective?
Are Stories of Nonviolent Heroism Compelling?
What This Book Is

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

Chapter 3: Character Arcs
Egri's dialectical approach
Writing exercise #1
Power and Love
Case study: Trading Places
Writing exercise #2
Creating Character Arcs
Getting to Yes
Writing exercise #3
Conclusion

Chapter 4: Campaigns
What is a caper story?
Underdogs versus powerful figure/force
Initial situation
Writing exercise #4
Scheme
Preparation
Writing exercise #5
Execution
Writing exercise #6
Aftermath
Writing exercise #7
Conclusion

Chapter 5: Duels
Substitution
Writing exercise #8
Intervention
Writing exercise #9
Victory through Nonresistance
Writing exercise #10
Conclusion

Chapter 6: Worldbuilding
The myth of redemptive violence
Love
Writing exercise #11
Persuasion
Writing exercise #12
Reconciliation
Writing exercise #13
Conclusion

Chapter 7: Peace Poetics for Activists
Creative Literacy
Counternarrative
FrameWorks and the bootstraps narrative
Narratology and narrative change
Conclusion

Chapter 8: Conclusion
Future directions for peace poetics
Against purity
Fitting things together


Bibliography
Index
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