This book started as a search for stories authored by the instructors for the most successful writing course in the world.All as a comparison of how they "e;walked their talk."e; The search was for a set of stories that could be dissected and studied as examples of what the OU Professional Writing curriculum taught in it's heyday between 1938 and 1947. While it's also possible to dissect their many successful students, such a set of stories would be a first generational acid test. Of the three instructors who were foundational to the OU Professional Writing courses, this book focuses on a narrow set of eight stories that were published by Dwight V. Swain - after he signed onto the OU team as an instructor.Swain's first published fiction work was in 1941, but after WWII he felt the need to "e;burnish the rust of the war years off my own techniques."e; He longed to get back into the steady production of pulp fiction.So he signed up for a short summer course at OU. The exposure to training from Walter S. Campbell and Foster Harris was unique and valuable, but it was his close-shouldering with the other students that made him remark,"e;Best of all was my association with the other members of the class. Most of them were veterans like myself, and all were imbued with a wonderful fierce determination to become writers, no matter how long or hard the road. Night and day they wrote, wrote, wrote. And when they were not actually writing, they were studying it or talking about it."e;Returning home, he soon was back at his pre-war stride once more.Keeping track of his fellow classmates over the years following, he was astonished at what they accomplished with their training. Many were regular contributors to the major "e;slick"e; magazines such as Colliers and the Saturday Evening Post. Their books were also being regularly published.He had underestimated how a short period of training could be so effective."e;It was incredible. No matter how competent the Campbell-Harris team might be; regardless of the effectiveness of their methods, I still found it hard to understand how any course could turn virtual beginners into selling writers in so short a time. I knew that most college writing courses would have been shocked and delighted at even one sale a year. Yet the successes I have mentioned were only those of my own particular friends. In spite of relatively small classes, literally dozens of other Campbell-Harris students of the period were selling also."e;The more I thought about it, the more curious I became. Increasingly, I pondered as to just what unique touch or approach or technique or theory it was that distinguished OU's professional writing courses from the others. I even promised myself that if I ever had the time and opportunity to investigate them properly, I'd make it a point to find out the how and why of their achievement."e;In 1951, he got that chance. Swain was invited onto the faculty to substitute for Foster Harris, who was facing a long convalescence. After Harris returned, Swain remained on the faculty.This short set of Swain's science fiction stories was selected so you could follow Swain's own approach to writing, in light of what he had learned while teaching his students at OU.These stories are in their published order as they appeared in various pulp magazines of their day.You can now use what you've learned of dissecting stories in order to discover and extract the technical devices Swain used as a professional author.Good Hunting!
