The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

I m a new writer with a novel draft. I've done much reading from how-to books. I found this recently. Gardner is a recognized master, so I read this book. He died in 1982. Book out in 83.So its dated. Its like watching a movie on TCM made in the 40s. It can be good, entertaining but not as a how-to in building your wardrobe. This book feels like an old movie in some ways. Some of his teachings are no longer valid re. POV techniques.John was a snob. He was an intelligent man with no patience for the novice. He references classics for examples...see Herman Melville, Shakespeare, et al. Greek philosophers, etc. ... his example works are not contemporary. He refers to the writer short of college training in writing as the ignoramus. But he also trashes college professors which may be valid but not in a training guide.He labors in his own writing as if it's produced for profit and not for the love of teaching writing. It feels like the book was cobbled together from lectures, which his estate may have done given the date of his death and the publication date. Yes there are some nuggets buried but you have to dig to get to them. Don't make this you ultimate how-to book or you will end up with a crusty dated view of the skill of writing. He does have good exercises in tail end of the book. But if you are not trained in the skills, how will you grade your exercises? But once you do get it, the exercises are worthwhile. I get it, but not from this book.There are tons of good contemporary how-to books. You need to find authors in your genre, read and study their books using the current how-to guides to teach you.

Anyone who's serious about writing a book needs to start here. Gardner's advice on maintaining the "fictional dream" for the reader--that is, suspension of disbelief, immersion--is top notch. Part I, the discussion and overview of fiction, is engaging and helps contextualize the advice presented: where on the spectrum of the written word we are trying to fit into, what it aims to accomplish, what it needs to accomplish that, and how we go about creating it as writers.Part II covers the common pitfalls and offers technical advice. Style and structure are covered, with especially good lessons on diction and proper sequencing of signals in the test (stimulus, involuntary reaction, voluntary reaction--which may be thought of as cause & effect and is explained in greater depth in Dwight V. Swain's book as Motivation-Reaction Units), with solid explanations for why mistakes here harm the fictional dream and why it is important to get it right. Also covered are the "clumsy writing" mistakes such as characters looking in mirrors to shoehorn description into the text, as well as melodrama, which relies on cheap sleight of hand in writing as opposed to real drama. I loved the section on vocabulary, which explained the problem with writing-by-thesaurus while emphasizing the importance of expanding ordinary vocabulary that include more uncommon words (such as technical architectural terms like "lintel," which, while uncommon, are a benefit to writing) as well as brand names.What this book will do:- Give you a good overview of fiction- Help you understand what fiction tries to accomplish, why, and how- Explain the common clumsy mistakes and how to avoid them- Provide you exercises- Entertain you with Gardner's engaging writing voice (so it doesn't feel like a manual)What this book won't do:- Help you understand nonfiction and how to write it- Cover the common mistakes in-depth- Give you genre-specific advice- Cover anything related to self-publishing- Explain the business of writing- Take the place of critiquers, beta readers, or editorsThis is a great intro to writing craft book. It should, at the very least, help you understand what you're trying to do and identify your weaknesses so that you may find more narrowly tailored resources to help you. I find myself referring to the passages I highlighted quite often, both in the paperback and the Kindle version.FWIW, the Kindle version is now searchable. When I first bought it, it was not. The search function is a *great* help.

Reading this book one needs to take into account it's written in a very different time than now. The publish world changed drastic from that time to ours, most in the book about publishing is dated or not relevant. Mr Gardner his view on the world is also from another era, a time with less political correctness, the way he explains certain things can seem insensitive to some (not me).What's still current in this book and is the most relevant, is how he explains the art of writing. This book is not a how to write instruction book, but more the why one writes and should write in the way he explains. I don't agree with everything he writes, but I understand what he tries to say.I'm much a different writer than him. He was a literary writer and I'm a genre writer. He had not that a high of opinion of genre writers. Still the approach of writing may be different, but what he says about the art of writing is important for all writers that they should at least take notice of it. Your work needs to be made in the best possible way you can create it, without trying to cut corners or settle for less. His words are great for understanding the craft and the reason why somethings should be done and others shouldn't.I advise this book to all that want to learn more about writing fiction in itself, if it's an instruction book you want, you be best picking up another book.A.Rosaria, Author of "Finitum"

This book is almost impossible to get into due to the overblown language style used. I think it was Mark Twain who said “Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” Well John Gardner has obviously never read or heeded Mark Twain ! If you can get past this, then there are some good advice. But it is difficult, so a couple of stars knocked off. The opinion one gets is that Gardner considers himself superior to everyone and looks down with scorn on anyone who hasn't attended university. However, the joke is on him because, if you ask the average American who is a great author, their answer is more likely to be Stephen King or Dan Brown than John Gardner. A much better book is the "Fiction Writers Workshop" by Novakovich.

I kept reading this book for as long as I could digest it but at page 46, I got tired of Gardner’s pretentious nature. He says that it is only those who have attended university who can become great writers. If you want to produce fiction that stands the test of time, take a university course.So, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf.. all these people were what - bad writers? Really?I wouldn’t recommend this to any aspiring writers. I’m a Published Author and it put me off. God alone knows what it would do to someone who’s just starting out. Also, for a book on fiction teaching authors to have clearly presented ideas - this book seems to have been written by a scatter brain.

I found this author very pretentious. The book has some useful reminders of grammatical rules at the start which I found helpful, but overall I found the author's writing style grating.

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It's very, very simple: anyone who writes must read John Gardner's books about writing. And re-read. End of.