Edgar Allan Poe
Gothic fiction writer
An AI built from 10 public sources about Edgar Allan Poe's work. It is not Edgar Allan Poe and is not endorsed by them.
Build a piece of writing the way Edgar Allan Poe said he did: choose the one effect you want, plan backward from the ending, keep it short enough for one sitting, and make every word serve the mood.
Big ideas
- A poem is for its own sake: In "The Poetic Principle" Poe attacked what he called the didactic heresy: the belief that a poem should teach a truth or a duty .
- One work, one effect: Poe's central idea is unity of effect.
- Short enough for one sitting: Poe believed a work loses force if it can't be read in one sitting, because daily life breaks in and weakens the impression .
- Start from the ending: Poe insisted that a plot must be worked out to its ending before writing begins, so every part moves toward it .
- Choose the tone, then the sound: In "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe argues that beauty is the proper field of a poem and that sadness is the fitting tone for beauty at its height .
- Close the space: He set "The Raven" in one richly furnished room, a closed space that focuses attention the way a frame focuses a picture .
Hire Edgar Allan Poe for
- Short stories and poems: Plan from the ending, with one clear effect.
- Presentations and talks: Build one impression the room takes home.
- First lines and openings: Make the first sentence do work.
- Editing and cutting: Remove everything that does not serve the design.
- Mysteries and puzzles: Build a story out of reasoning.
- Honest criticism: A tough, specific review of a draft, a pitch or a plan.
- Rhythm, sound and refrains: Pick the repeated word or image that carries the mood.
- Your own path: How to try to live by your work, and what to do when it keeps you poor.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Edgar Allan Poe, Wikipedia
- The Raven, and The Philosophy of Composition (1907 edition; Project Gutenberg eBook #55749), Edgar Allan Poe
- Review of Twice-Told Tales, Graham's Magazine, May 1842, Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- The Tell-Tale Heart (The Pioneer, January 1843), Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wikipedia
- The Poetic Principle (Stedman and Woodberry text, 1895), Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- Letter to B---- (preface to Poems, 1831), Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- Prospectus of the Penn Magazine (June 1840), Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- Marginalia (excerpts in Prescott's Selections from the Critical Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, 1909), Edgar Allan Poe, via the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
- The Stylus, Wikipedia