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In this book, prizewinning novelist and popular creative writing instructor Douglas Bauer (The Book of Famous Iowans) shares the secrets of his trade. Talent, as Bauer acknowledges, is the most crucial element for a writer and cannot be taught. But without a regular habit of work, and a perseverance of effort, no amount of talent can come forward and be recognized. His lively and candid essays on subjects critical to the fiction writer’s success demystify the essential elements of fiction writing, how they work, and work together.
Bauer’s focus is on the building blocks of successful fiction: dialogue (the intimate relationship between characters talking and the eavesdropping reader), characters (the virtues of creating fictional characters that are both splendidly flawed and sympathetic), and dramatic events (ways to create moments that produce an emotional and psychological impact). There are also chapters on crafting effective openings and memorable closings of stories and on the vital presence of sentiment in fiction versus the ruinous effect of sentimentality. By assuming the point of view of someone at the task, engaged with the work, inside the effort to bring an invented world to life, The Stuff of Fiction speaks to writers of all ages in a pleasurable yet practical voice.
Douglas Bauer is the author of three novels, Dexterity, The Very Air, and The Book of Famous Iowans, and one book of nonfiction, Prairie City, Iowa. He is also a core faculty member with the MFA Program at Bennington College and has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Massachusetts Artists Foundation grant, and two Harvard Danforth Excellence in Teaching Citations.
- Sales Rank: #675087 in Books
- Published on: 2006-08-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .60" w x 5.50" l, .61 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 200 pages
Amazon.com Review
To read Douglas Bauer's lovely ruminations on the art of literary fiction is to be transported back to those intimate seminars one never quite appreciated enough in school. How refreshing it is to read a book about fiction writing that speaks of nothing so crass as hooking readers or marketing oneself or conforming to genre specifications. Instead, Bauer contemplates one element of fiction per chapter, opening with openings and ending with endings. What he finds, whether developing dialogue or character or sentiment, is that it is crucial to say neither too much nor too little. A writer must have the balance of an acrobat, and be able to navigate the gray zones. An opening should "beckon" readers. Dialogue works best when one eliminates many of the words. "Villainous, ignoble, antiheroic characters" should be presented sympathetically; "admirable, noble, heroic characters" should be flawed. "Any ending that succeeds both culminates and at the same time continues the story," he says. While "schlock is primarily interested in the breathless depiction of the drama," Bauer (and literary fiction) is interested in "the richness of the resonance." And though he has written a primer on the craft, bad news: "No amount of tweaking and altering ... can rescue a piece of elementally flawed writing." The book contains excerpts from the works of William Kennedy, Denis Johnson, Alice McDermott, E.B. White, Toni Morrison, and others. --Jane Steinberg
From Library Journal
Drawing on lectures for the Bennington College Writing Seminar, where he is a core faculty member, novelist, essayist, and lecturer Bauer (Dexterity) presents a unique and refreshing approach toward writing realistic fiction, arguing that while the process of writing is a craft and ultimately a business that can be learned, talent must be the underlying foundation. Talent comes from within, he argues, but it can be nurtured and developed through determination, rigorous daily practice, and the habit of reading widely with a discriminating eye. Bauer proceeds through the usual steps, discussing plot and character development, dialog, setting, and resolution, but the way he dissects selected samples of contemporary fiction to reveal the architecture of the passage will inspire his readers to deeper critical attention and thought. Unfortunately, though Bauer's lectures both stimulate and challenge, in print he can be wordy and esoteric. Recommended for libraries supporting writing workshops and programs. Denise S. Sticha, Murrysville Community Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Step into Bauer's ballroom and you'll find a sophisticated handling of the provocative universe of fiction. - The Writer
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Illuminating for any writer or reader of realistic fiction
By Judy Karasik
If you want to understand more about how a good piece of realistic fiction is put together, read this book. It provides both rules and the wisdom to make it clear that if a writer is on the right track, he or she can go ahead and break those rules.
*The Stuff of Fiction* explains to ordinary readers what has gone wrong when a book suddenly turns unsatisfying (for example, when it doesn't know when to end), the book gives new writers a set of guidelines to keep in the back of their heads while they are slaving away, a kind of frame to check the day's work against, and the book offers experienced writers a welcome articulation of the things they have been trying to do since they began this strange line of work.
The book explains how to start a story (maybe at the beginning, maybe not), how to write dialogue that doesn't thud or crawl on the page, how to create characters with mixed blessings and curses (like a human being in other words), how to give drama its necessary subtlety, how to create sentiment not sentimentality (a discourse on how to write with taste, which is kind of like explaining how to play jazz, but amazingly it really works), and how to end a story. Bauer uses examples effectively--taking apart work from Denis Johnson, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, and yes Wm. Shakespeare--and writes directly but also elegantly.
Douglas Bauer is the author of three novels, each of which I loved (he never does the same thing twice, but since the prose always contains the same steely twists, you know it is the same guy), and teaches at the Bennington MFA Program.
Writing programs, take note--instructors can cut to the chase by judicious use of this handy and straightforward volume. I won't say it's the Strunk and White of contemporary realistic fiction writing--only time can tell that--but it's as close as I can imagine. Full disclosure requires me to say that I know Douglas Bauer personally, but honestly, I would say all of this if I didn't know him. It is a terrific and useful volume.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
for all writers
By A Customer
What a beautiful book! I can't remember when I've read such an eloquent work about the craft of writing, making me wonder why any of us pay any attention to advice about writing which arrives in less artful form ("the long half-life of sorrow" is one of the many well-turned phrases which clings to memory). This essay collection (nonfiction writers have as much to gain as fiction writers from reading the book) is elegant, compelling, succinct, and breathtakingly clear without being condescending. The author (who also writes gorgeous fiction) covers all of the most important aspects of craft--openings, dialogue, character, high events (dramatic moments), sentiment vs. sentimentality, and closings, and includes advice from the best of the other writing "gurus" and wonderful passages of first-rate literature to illustrate points made. The Stuff of Fiction is truly a book for writers at all levels. I felt an immediate need to underline when I began reading; the book made me seriously re-think a novel on which I'm currently working. What more could a writer ask.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Buy this book
By Jonathan Carr
Weighing in at a mere 131 pages, Douglas Bauer's book is the Cassius Clay of my craft shelf. And though I am tempted to take this boxing metaphor farther, tempted to say things like, "it floats like a butterfly stings like a bee", and draw parallels between its eight chapters and the eight fast rounds Ali went with Sonny Liston in 65', I'll check myself and simply note the elements of the book that I found most helpful.
The language is so wonderfully straight forward and the examples so clear that I used the chapter on dialogue with a group of high level 8th graders who are working with me on an independent study. We were able to have a wonderful conversation about "TV Dialogue" and how we can best to avoid it in our writing. They were quick to point out how rampant this sort of mundane dialogue is in adolescent and young adult fiction.
Along with clear language, the chapters in Bauer's book are concise. Despite their brevity they draw on a wide range of other craft books and essays. In the dialogue chapter, Brauer mentions Dillard's "Notes for Young Writers." A few of my young writers became curious about Dillard and her work. They expressed an interest in this book, and if I wasn't so personally biased against Dillard's other essays I might have taken it on myself.
This anecdote points to the fact that Brauer does not shy away from the words of others on the subject of craft. To the contrary, this book excels at pairing down those words to essential ideas. He draws from Booth's "The Rhetoric of Fiction" and E.M. Foster's "Aspects of the Novel." He quotes from Gardner's "The Art of Fiction" and Joy William's "Why I Write." I am sure that there are others that he mentions, but those are the ones that I personally underlined in the text.
The two most useful chapters for me, the chapters that answered questions I have long harbored concerning fiction, were chapters 5 and 6. These two chapters examine the issues of what Bauer calls "High Points" and "Sentiment versus Sentimentality."
I especially liked his treatment in the chapter, "High Points," of television violence, "the sort of violence with no accompanying long-lasting emotional consequences." It in some ways resembles television dialogue in that it draws the reader's attention to something that has no real importance to the characters or the story. It is interesting to me, as somebody who has not lived in a house with a television for over a decade, to see how television affects the way people write. I also cannot help but to think that it also changes the general public's expectations of stories.
The chapter on sentiment versus sentimentality, cleared up very nicely the differences between the two. I had always thought of sentimentality as something I could recognize, but nothing I could clearly define. I believe Bauer makes a comparison to pornography--we know it when we see it. But he does not stop there; he gives clear examples of how sentimentality can be avoided and points the reader in the direction of people who define this boundary.
"The Stuff of Fiction" is not the end all and be all of craft books. But it is for me at this point one of the most valuable books on craft I have read. It is a book I can draw from as I teach my students about some of the elements of fiction. It is a book that answered some fundamental questions I have had for some years now. Lastly, it is a book that points the reader in the right directions, bringing into view not only some of the great writers and storytellers of the West, but also the great works by others on craft.
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