Vheissu

“I learned to separate the story from the writing , probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn—that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you’re a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale.” “I have a master’s degree in literature, and in writing Ender’s Game I deliberately avoided all the little literary games and gimmicks that make ‘fine’ writing so impenetrable to the general audience. All the layers of meaning are there to be decoded, if you like to play the game of literary criticism—but if you don’t care to play that game, that’s fine with me. I designed Ender’s Game to be as clear and accessible as any story of mine could possibly be. My goal was that the reader wouldn’t have to be trained in literature or even in science fiction to receive the tale in its simplest, purest form. And, since a great many writers and critics have based their entire caree...

“In some twenty months, I had submitted half a dozen pieces [to the New Yorker ], short and long, and the editor, William Shawn, had bought them all. You would think that by then I would have developed some confidence in writing a new story, but I hadn’t, and never would. To lack confidence at the outset seems rational to me. It doesn’t matter that something you’ve done before worked out well. Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you. Square 1 doesn’t become Square 2, just Square 1 squared and cubed.” John McPhee, “Structure,” The New Yorker , January 14, 2013, p. 46 (abstract available here , on the New Yorker website)

“Every scene, every dialogue should advance the narrative and then if possible there should be a surprise ending.” ( about the most important aspect of the craft of fiction ) “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.” ( one of Vonnegut’s rules for fictional composition ) “The obvious alternative [to writing to please a small group of supporters] is, of course, something to please the  Atlantic ,  Harpers , or the  New Yorker . To do this would be to turn out something after the fashion of somebody-or-other, and I might be able to do it. I say might. It amounts to signing on with any of a dozen schools born ten, twenty, thirty years ago. The kicks are based largely on having passed off a creditable counterfeit. And, of course, if you appear in the  Atlantic  or  Harpers  or the  New Yorker , by God you must be a writer, because everybody says so. This is poor co...

Your First Novel (Cincinnati, 2006; 298 pp.) is actually two books in one. The first is written by Laura Whitcomb, a novelist, and it covers the whole range from inspiration to craft and revisions. It does go through everything that’s important, even if briefly. But, in contrast to other books on craft (most notably, Gardner’s ), the first half of Your First Novel is written with even the most inexperienced of authors in mind. This means that Whitcomb reaches down, with a Sistine strain, to people who are completely new to writing. This is great if that describes you. You’ll get the kind of buffet you need to survey the field. (Even then, something like Writing Fiction will serve as a day-to-day guide you’ll want to keep handy.) Plus, in Whitcomb’s section, you’ll find some positive advice on inspiration, and several reading suggestions. However, if you’re more familiar with writing, and particularly with literature on craft, you may find little more than scattered bits to knead in...

If you recognize the cover of this book, don’t read on. I’ve posted comments on other books on craft, so you might turn to those instead ( here ). Why? Because I don’t mean to preach to the choir. If you’re familiar with the book, these short comments will be unnecessary, even ingénue. I’m posting them for another kind of person, one who has been inebriated with writing for a while, but has not realized how important it is to master the business aspect of writing. You may think it’s all about the words, about crafting that perfect story and later that perfect novel. These will automatically unfurl a red carpet on which you can promenade or which you can studiously avoid in order to become a Pynchonesque figure somewhere, racking up royalties. That may be true for a handful of people. But while you craft the perfect piece of writing, keep in mind that you also have to reach publishers through a perfect cover or query letter, put together a perfect pitch for an agent, lure readers that ...

If you need to remind yourself of how vast the industry of writing how-to books is, just take a look at this list of “some of the newest books on the craft” of writing. The list is put together by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, which hosts a plethora of online writing courses. The Gotham crew also has a book of its own: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School (New York, 2003; 291 pp.). That’s what this post is about. What’s distinctive about this “practical guide”? First, it’s wide-ranging: it goes from fiction on chapter 1 to the industry of fiction on chapter 11. That’s a lot of bases to cover, and they don’t flinch before the task. Second, it’s very accessible, without being dumbed down. They’re not out to write treatises on character or point of view. They mention whatever’s essential, spice it up with insights, intersperse exercises, and that’s it. Chapters are a topic each, and about twenty-five pages apiece. There are plenty of e...

People often have warped images of writers: they drink or smoke too much, they obsess (think of Joshua Ferris’s cunning portrait in his recent short story “ The Pilot ”), they are quirky and maniacal (think of Jack Nicholson’s two roles as a writer). Thus, many people, afflicted by those images, shake their head mournfully when they hear you’re interested in pursuing writing as a profession. Some of these stereotypes come from people who’ve had few encounters with writers (perhaps they bumped into a pungent and mustachioed English major sporting a beret). Some come from deep within the writing trenches: Gardner presents a caricature of his own in On Becoming a Novelist . It’s healthy, though, to read accounts written by people who are deeply familiar with real, professional writers. Betsy Lerner is one of them. She worked as an editor for years, and got an MFA before that, so she’s been around writers for a while. She wrote The Forest for the Trees (New York, 2000; 284 pp.) by drawin...

We’ve seen editing tackled by professional editors ( Self-Editing for Fiction Writers ) and by a literary agent ( The First Five Pages ). Both perspectives are useful. But David Michael Kaplan’s Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction (Cincinnati, 1997; 226 pp.) is a book on editing written by a creative writer. The result is an excellent volume, which adds an important dimension to the discussion: while editors and agents focus on what to edit, Kaplan also tackles how and when to edit. These may seem like trifles, but they aren’t: you can revise before writing (by planning), you can revise while writing (for instance, I’ve chosen midway that another point of view was better, so do I go back and correct everything I’ve written?), and of course you can revise after you’ve written (even after you’ve published). Kaplan goes through all these issues, and offers both encouragement and knowhow. He’s been down that road; he knows it’s hard. He often proves his poin...

Would you rather have an avuncular, didactic writer who walked you through the editing process, or would you prefer the guidance of an impatient, help-us-editors-not-waste-our-time author? Noah Lukeman, an agent, comes much closer to the second voice in The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile (New York, 2007; 207 pp.). It’s a book about editing a manuscript, not about starting from a blank computer screen. And it’s not a book that unveils a ten-point plan to guarantee publication. As the subtitle says, it’s about avoiding rejection: “There are no rules to assure great writing, but there are ways to avoid bad writing” (11). Lukeman goes through some of the more egregious faults, starting with presentation and hustling all the way to pacing and progression. Some faults, things you may have been doing unthinkingly and insist on being harmless, are cardinal sins that an editor or agent will notice in a matter of seconds and toss the manuscript into ...

The author of a craft book I reviewed recently had this to say about writing: “Writing is way overrated. The truly creative writer gets the most mileage out of editing and revising” (98). Great. The question is exactly how to go about it? Sure, reading, letting it sit, rereading. Maybe finding some good readers to comment on it. Of course, making the plot strong and the characters complex and memorable. Of course, getting the grammar and the spelling right. But it would be useful to get some guidelines so that you can do your own editing after you’ve finished writing. The ideal would be to develop techniques that made you approach your writing with as much distance as if you were someone else. A very incisive, probing, and articulate someone else. Plenty of that is to be found in Renni Browne and Dave King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print (2 Ed., Collins, 2004; 279 pp.). It presents bundles of good advice, tied around a handful of basic ideas that ...

We already saw ( here ) that Gardner’s The Art of Fiction gave good advice on writing techniques. But writing is more than techniques. Being misunderstood and frequently undervalued by people outside of writing seem to be common denominators for writers, who are thus often prone to recurrent anxieties. In his second book on writing, On Becoming a Novelist (New York, 1983, 1999; 150 pp.), Gardner counsels writers on their expectations, frustrations, and challenges. He knows about them. He’s dealt with rejection and with publication. He has good advice on what to make of all the turmoil. In today’s parlance, we could call him a writing coach. He’s not proselytizing, turning people into writers; he’s talking to “serious writers” again (as he did in The Art of Fiction ), and he wants to walk them through the questions and the struggles without wearing rosy lenses. Here’s the bottom line: “Nothing is harder than being a true novelist, unless that is all one wants to be, in which case, th...

John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (Vintage, 1983, 1991; 224 pp.) is a classic. It’s printed like a classic: thick paper, hazy letters. It speaks like a classic: note the subtitle, for young writers, which we would most likely write today as beginning writers. Gardner’s voice in the book has the gusto and loftiness of an early twentieth century don, with an inordinate faith in formal, humanist education. It’s surprising that, despite the old-fashioned tone, Gardner died at the early age of 49. Finally, the work is self-consciously a classic in its intended audience (“What is said here […] is said for the elite; that is, for serious literary artists” [x]) and in its high regard for itself (this book, says Gardner, is “the most helpful book of its kind” [xi]). The claim that Gardner’s book is the most helpful book of its kind has ceased to be true in view of the profusion of writing manuals published over the decades that separate us from 1983. Gardne...