connect mac to pc via ethernet

I am trying to conect my macbook pro to a windows 8 computer. I have researched the daylights out of this topic and have gotten it to work one time, but then nothing. Most of the time it defauts to using the wireless network we are on which is just too slow. We are tranferring rather large files and the ethernet connection seems to be best. Please, could someone help? I woudl like informaiton on what to do on my macbook pro 15" mid 2010 running mavericks as well as what to do on the PC running windows 8.