Press, 1987.
The book is organized in a way that makes it perhaps of more use as a desk reference, rather than straight reading. Part way into the book I felt as though I needed to set it aside and come back to it later, when my interest would eventually be piqued by the topics in the contents. It would be better to read a chapter and give it some thought and practice, and when interest wanes to read the next installment. So, as soon as I can locate a copy to purchase, it will find a place on my reference shelf.
Why books of this nature are not required reading for literature classes is beyond my understanding. Though the writing of fiction may not be a universal desire, the understanding and appreciation of it seemingly is. And yet, how much of people's interest is stifled by stodgy texts that seem to place literature in a context it was never meant for? Macauley and Lanning seem to agree: "There is a vast amount to be learned about technique from reading masterpieces of the novel or short story; unfortunately there is far less to be learned from criticism" (xiii). When I read my first book on fiction writing, it was ostensibly to better understand why novels appealed so much to me, and why I had an inkling to start writing one of my own. Dating back to high school I had occasionally cracked open a book of literary criticism that had caught my eye; unfortunately, I don't believe I had ever made it past the first chapter. So much of criticism seems to disconnect the fiction from its readers' implicit criteria for enjoying or understanding it. What I was struggling for was a way to put those implicit criteria into expressable views, a communication with others about what really is important in storytelling, and I did not find it until I began reading about the writing of fiction.
I believe John Gardner said that everyone is a novelist, a storyteller. Or perhaps he quoted someone else in saying this. In any case, it is difficult to imagine people living any other way. Stories are with us from our earliest memory, and have as much to do with our survival as with our leisure. Whether or not fiction writers imagine more than their share of stories is subject to debate, but the book does offer this: "It seems, therefore, that fiction originates in direct personal impression linked by imagination with the writer's resources of experience. This is a matter of looking and listening not just with eyes and ears but with intelligence and memory" (3). Storytelling seems to be a fundamental thought process in learning and understanding our world, and the writing of a story is only an extension of this need, as natural as reading or listening to someone else's story. Writing fiction is only an unusually time-intensive form of daydreaming or storytelling, a more complete and permanent form of an everyday process.
Much has been made about writers, artists, and creative people being sensitive, introspective individuals. I prefer to think that this is not so unusual, that most people share these qualities, the difference being that the few who are willing to harness those qualities (or who can afford the time to do so) can bear fruit in some form of creative output. For these people, curiosity cannot be quenched for long: "Astonishments are everywhere. The only luck lies in having--or in cultivating--what Elizabeth Bowen calls 'susceptibility,' which is simply the trait of looking hard at the life around one and relating it quickly to ideas, memories, or knowledge" (5).
At this point I couldn't help but think of how ordinary classes tend to stifle creativity. Students' thoughts always are focused on what is needed to please the teacher and the almighty multiple-choice test, and creativity is relegated to mere daydreaming. For the creative student then, taking classes becomes a struggle to wedge personal interests into instructors' requirements. It's no wonder I wound up going to Vermont College; it is the only program I could find that would foster the style of thought espoused here: "This kind of thinking depends on mental processes that are subjective, nonlogical, associational, uninhibited, and with a random quality. The result is not conceived until it is arrived at" (6). Writing fiction, and learning in general, requires the freedom to follow your own associations, and the freedom to make mistakes and change direction on a moment's notice.
Part of my goal with these readings is to find some real grounds to support my instinct that "realism" isn't a term that should be applied to fiction, or really to any art. Already I have found one citation to help me, on Henry James: "Life, he said, is all 'inclusion and confusion,' and the point of any event is lost in the uproar. Art, on the other hand, is 'discrimination and selection,' and this point is its raison d'etre" (9). Art has distilled meaning from life's raw material. This is part of my argument against realism, not just in my own fiction but in all fiction. The notion that someone's scribblings on paper could in anyway objectively convey reality seems silly to me, particularly in a work of fiction, a story originating in the mind of its creator. Later readings undoubtedly will give me reason to doubt my gut instinct, but for now I have some support.
The best part of these readings is that I'm allowed to ask myself what it is I'm looking for from each book, since there is no arbitrary list designed to answer that question for me. What I looked most for from this book was encouragement. Though I've felt for some time that I simply must write my novel, actually having the intestinal fortitude to try it and even to work it into an educational program has been daunting. Fortunately, I did not have to read far into the book before finding support:
All contents, except where otherwise noted, are copyright Andrew Lee Hunn.