Art and Life in Novel Writing
Misc pearls of utility plus takeaways on craft learned from books utilized in the AAC novel writing program including "Write Away" by Elizabeth George, "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner, "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass, and "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard:
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Book Report 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing and/or your novel? 3. Was there anything in the books that obviously conflicted with lessons and readings in our novel writing program. If so, what were they? The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner 1. It taught me that the rules of writing a novel have roughly been the same ever since the beginning. It also taught me that all rules to writing are breakable and many of the early authors broke these rules to some degree or another. Therefore,…
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New York Pitch Book Reports "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program) How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something“ The Art of Fiction” helped me as a writer by introducing me to the concept of fiction as a vivid dream and presenting many tools to create that dream for the reader. The book also talks about the important of sentence structure down to word choice and explains the use of scansion as a tool to create the vivid dream. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing a…
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The Art of Fiction While rewriting my manuscript (from basically a clean slate), I've been more mindful of making my current draft publishable. The learning curve in doing so has been necessary and useful, yet my progress on this draft (as opposed to my original) has unfortunately been much slower. John Gardner's advice not to sacrifice your writing's "delight" was helpful, as that's one of my motivating factors when writing (and one that is sometimes lost when I feel overwhelmed about strategically perfecting something as opposed to simply writing it). Gardner reiterated that good writing should shift in and out of various POV's, as opposed to limiting the na…
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Book Reports Connie Whitmer WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL Donald Maass I found Donald Maass’s book empowering, and invaluable as a writing craft reference, in general, and for my project in particular. “If I write an amazing story, well – they will come!â€� His advice improved every paragraph, page and chapter, knowing what to cut, and what to leave in. And affirmed the passion I feel for the importance of my story, and my need to tell it. And, most exciting, he reaffirmed exactly what I am trying to do. “To write a Break out Novel is to run free of the pack – To go beyond what has been done before - delve deeper, more original, unexplored realm…
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Book Reports: The Art of Fiction by John Gardner This book has been aided me greatly in fleshing out a succinct plot, as well as promoting good writing practices. John Gardner really knows the great detail that goes into writing a believable plot with multidimensional characters and interactions. For that reason, my writing has flourished. The craft points he makes are spot on, and any novice or intermediate writer would be wise to take notice. The three lessons that I’ve learned from John Gardner include the importance of plotting, characterization, and good practices. His plotting advice is something I’ve referred to whenever I’ve gotten stuck on how scenes s…
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The Writing Life 1. Dillard's perspective of the writing life provides insight into the reality of writing for a living, rather than the romantic notions that my brain tends to fixate upon. I love how she gives permission for it to take years to write a book. I often berate myself for being so slow, but Dillard gives me permission to take my time. I also needed the reminder to create a schedule. It is all too easy to not get around to writing without one. 2. On the practical end she had some motivating comments about revision. Two that particularly struck me were, "I hope you will toss it all and not look back," and "You can waste a year worrying about it, or y…
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"The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program) "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass (another good primer) "Write Away" by Elizabeth George (a no nonsense primer, and humorous) "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard (a look at the struggle) The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? What spoke to me the most regarding this book was the focus on the authenticity of a story. As well as the focus on "feeling" giving rhythm to sentences. It caused me to go back and look at my sentence variation. Was I using fragment…
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Ben Chewey Reaction to Algonkian Novel Writing Program Readings The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? The Art of Fiction helped me as a writer by introducing me to the concept of aesthetic interest. Since the start of my writing career I was aware of the importance of a story having a cast and setting that stands out. John Gardner made it clear why it's important for every aspect of one's story to be organic, or at least as organic as possible from something that does not actually exist. 2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book …
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The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner 1. One of the major lessons I learned from Gardner’s work was that all questions I raise within a text, I must answer. Otherwise, it leaves the reader feeling dissatisfied. Upon reflection, I discovered that all of my favorite works follow this guideline.They wrap up every individual character’s storyline and identify any unknowns/solve any mysteries by the end of the story. For example, in Les Miz Hugo wraps up the storyline for not only Valjean, but for Cossette, Marius, Javert, Eponene, Gavroche, and even the Master and his wife. They don’t all have happy ends, but they all have definitive conclusions to their stories. …
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The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 1. John Gardner is very smart and talented, but also extremely condescending and pompous. As such, I often found myself sort of chuckling reading this book, as he called certain types of would-be writings insulting names, but when I look past the tone, I know there's good advice here. Gardner's emphasis on the importance of reading and engaging in deep, meaningful exploration and study of writing craft is well taken, but I do feel this book is for undergrads and as such was basic for me. I've been teaching English for 16 years. For me, the book had good reminders but no new information. 2. Gardner's advice about clarity and the…
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The Writing Life - Annie Dillard 1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? This is the journal entry I wrote directly after finishing the book: In reading this book I find myself wishing I had read it in my early teens, so as to have clearer expectations for the life of a writer, though by now, I largely have learned the same lessons on my own. Enough time in any craft allows a person to bump into tricks of the trade in the dark, and in this way of bumping into them in the dark, the artist happens upon the secrets. In this way this book felt...validating, like a sigh of relief, "Thank God, it's that way for me too.…
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Book Review - Part 2 - Module 8 The Writing Life by Annie Dillard This book plus some of the assignments within The Art of the Novel gave me permission to be more descriptive in my novel. I fear that it also led me to start too many chapters with exposition. My excuse is wanting to assure that readers know when they pick up the book each time the place and the point of view. The chapters of Dillard's book that I hope to keep in mind are the last two, Chapters 6 and 7, with her analogies of writing and Ferrar Burn's struggle to bring in the log from the sea and then Dave Rahm, the stunt pilot. The first tale is about the writer's struggle against and with th…
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The Art of Fiction – John Gardner 1. A valuable grammar Bible in Part II - Notes on the Fictional Process - that includes basic skills to avoid common errors. Gardner also encourages writers to create their own style. Both directions require practice! 2. Major lessons: A. CHAPTER 5 VOICE: Vary sentence lengths and rhythms to excite the reader. *A sentence with three syntactic slots: The man/walked/down the road. (pg. 106) Don’t cram all three with details. Load down slot 1: The old man, stooped, bent almost double under his load of tin pans, yet smiling with a sort of maniacal good cheer and chattering to himself in what seemed to be…
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These bullets of advice for writers in all genres were taken from a review of the SFF author Brandon Sanderson on the video forum and they're worth repeating here for emphasis: The concept of "borrowing" or getting story ideas, entire structure, or themes from other books or films can't hurt and might actually lead to publication; but I maintain you step carefully. The concept may already be overdone, a stale trope. His advised method of transposing the "structure" of one type of genre novel onto another can be productive--reminiscent of Italian writers in the old days transposing Japanese samurai scripts into spaghetti westerns. Another good example is the …
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WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL by Donald Maass How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something? Each chapter breaks down a key element of the breakout novel. Essentially Maass offers an outline, followed by straight-forward detail, to writing a publishable novel. The book is simple and isn’t cluttered with poetic rhetoric just for poetry’s sake. In other words, Maass’ writing isn’t bogged down in fancy wordplay; instead he uses his time to clearly articulate what young writers need to know. If the writing of the breakout novel were a pool, I felt this book was the diving board. He asks the reader a lot of quest…
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Are "brutal" reviewers really good for you? So what spurred this question? A friend recently said she had a "brutal critique partner" that could be relied on. It got me to thinking about brutal reviewers in my own experience who were worse than useless and actually destructive. We need to keep in mind that the better an ms becomes, the harder such "brutal" critics are forced to dig for critique at all costs, inevitably focusing on matters of taste, e.g, "I don't like that character's personality..." as opposed to "I think this point could be made clearer by doing XYZ." You could put 10 of these brutal negative types in a room and they would shred an unpublished no…
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The Art of Fiction 1. This book was helpful in giving insights regarding what to write. It gave perspective regarding the liberties a writer should embrace and the risks he should be aware of. The section regarding basic skills convinced me to develop the habit of writing and then proof reading what I wrote to develop the innate skill to write good sentences. Writing sloppily from the outset creates a huge task to pore over tens of thousands of words correcting multitudes of bad structure. 2. a. Part 1 is good in helping to formulate personal styles and approaches to a story and how to test those styles whether they are functional for a reader to follow. b. …
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Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
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Conflict should be at the very heart of every story you write. Its presence throughout your manuscript, or lack thereof, can literally make our break your ability to get published. Your main characters need internal conflict, they need conflict between themselves and other characters (more than just the conflict raised by the antagonist). There should also be conflict within the setting of your novel like a picturesque countryside that isn’t entirely what it seems, etc. etc. etc. Without conflict, or tension or raised stakes for the main characters, beginning with the first scene and ending with the resolution, stories meander, they are quiet and your readers get bor…
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A subject that often goes by the wayside until too late. People say, I write for myself, and it sounds so awful and so narcissistic, but in a sense if you know how to read your own work—that is, with the necessary critical distance—it makes you a better writer and editor. When I teach creative writing, I always speak about how you have to learn how to read your work; I don’t mean enjoy it because you wrote it. I mean, go away from it, and read it as though it is the first time you’ve ever seen it. - Elissa Schappell ____________ Twenty years, several novels, a room full of edited manuscripts, and hundreds of workshops late…
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By Richard Curtis If you do something so horrendous as to provoke your agent to declare, "Life is too short," you'd better start looking for someone else to handle your work. It means you have tried his or her patience beyond its limit. You're a walking dead author. We recently described good timing as one of the most important virtues a literary agent can bring to the job. There's another that most good agents possess, and that's patience. If timing is the art of "when to," patience is the art of "when not to." Unfortunately, that often means when not to knock my head against a wall, wring an author's throat, or hop in a taxi, race over to a publisher's office…
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Since you asked... Nearly everyone has the potential to write a breakout novel and go on to become a successful commercial author, but precious few finally accomplish the task. Do we know why this is the rule? Writer conferences, author workshops, books, ms editors, and even the most pointless of MFA programs play a part in a writer's evolution, but none of these provide the overall pragmatic means and method to finish the job (and quite often, not even to start it). If this were not the case, an imaginative and ambitious writer would only have to attend an MFA program at Iowa, for example, and become a published author in due course. But this rarely if ever hap…
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1. The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner Invoking the power of the pen (keyboard), I will return to review this novel after the other three with a brief explanation for why I changed the order. 2. Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maas: I read the book years ago and reread it for this program. Key overall aspects I took to heart then (and now) include: I want to write a breakout novel, not a mid-list one, storytelling matters above all other considerations, word of mouth drives a breakout novel rather than marketing, and high stakes and gut emotional appeal are critical, especially when they escalate. Major lessons that I sort of learned years ago, an…
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Also created in error! Sorry, please delete.
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The Writing Life – Annie Dillard HOW DID THE BOOK HELP YOU AS A WRITER? WHAT OVERALL ASPECTS OF IT TAUGHT YOU SOMETHING? This book helped me connect with the pure beauty of the word, and the wonder I felt at the beginning of writing novels when I realized that setting my own vision down could make me feel something so powerful. I just loved the sentiment in this writing guide, which is epitomized by this statement: "The line of words fingers your own heart" (p. 20). WHAT 2-3 MAJOR LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM THE BOOK THAT YOU CAN APPLY TO YOUR WRITING AND/OR YOUR NOVEL? 1. How to use metaphor in writing non-fiction. This style has influenced my writing o…
Last reply by EvadneMacedo,
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