Meg Leader Book Reports

[MegLeader]

WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL, by Donald Maass.

 

I've had this book (and its companion book WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL WORKBOOK) on my bookshelf since it was first published, as well as Maass's other craft books. I find them extremely helpful, but primarily in the way of editing pages once they're written; less so in the realm of helping me plan and execute a first draft. I've attended the Breakout Novel Intensive (BONI) workshop Maass gives twice. (BONI is based on this book and his more recent ones, particularly WRITING 21st CENTURY FICTION.) The exercises provide insight and help in making sure there is "tension on every page" and in crafting a compelling story. This book (and its brethren) are on my "favorite writing books" shelf for their practical usefulness and overall help in improving the craft of writing a publishable novel in today's market.

 

The two key lessons learned from this book really are the absolute necessity of constructing a solid character change arc not only for the protagonist but also for the opponent to make a solid believable conflict, and second, how essential it is to pull the reader in on every single page and have that "tension" everywhere--that you cannot possibly have too much tension.

 

I have not found anything in this book that contradicts the NWP course. Instead, it offers a nice complement to the structure in this course.

 

A WRITING LIFE, by Anne Dillard

 

This book, and the one by John Gardner, were the least useful to me. I appreciate Ms. Dillard's struggle to produce her work, but...guess what? I already know that. Writing is HARD. Very hard. Her life and mine are so far apart in the particulars that few of her strategies and responses were of value to me--they simply do not translate well to my life. It's always interesting, however, to see how other writers cope with the writing life, even if they do not directly correlate to me.

 

What I did enjoy was the beauty of her prose. She is an exceptional, talented writer, and it was a pleasure to read her prose, even if it is of less direct value to my needs.

 

Nothing in her book exactly contradicted the NWP, though I was left with the impression that she is more of a "pantser" type of writer, who does not do a ton of planning (at least not explicit planning) before sitting down to write the first draft. I also assign her work to the more literary or mainstream category rather than genre fiction, which is what I write. That is pretty far from the structural approach NWP takes. However, I have friends who are pantsers and I recognize that not everyone has the same process.

 

THE ART OF FICTION, by John Gardner

 

Of all the books on the required reading list, this was the most difficult for me to slog through. I actively ended up disliking it and found it not at all useful. Oh, yes, there were certainly occasional pieces of good advice, but they were so buried--and so readily available from other books, including, for example, Maass's WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL--that this book simply did not compute for me.

 

First, I should say that I found nothing particularly wrong with Gardner's advice. Nor did it contradict anything in the NWP. It's just that it was too simplistic and too buried most of the time. The most useful section was the 5 Common Errors piece toward the end--but Maass has all that covered more completely and with explicit techniques to fix them.

 

I believe most of the problem is that it was written decades ago, when the publishing world was very different than today. For example, Michner was publishable then--and I sincerely doubt that today any unpublished writer who turned in a tome similar to ALASKA or CENTENNIAL would ever find a publisher to take it on. The advice seems highly appropos to the publishing world of the mid-20th century...not so much today. 21st century fiction is different from mid-20th century fiction in many ways. It's also more appropriate for those aspiring to literary fiction than commercial fiction today, though there's nothing wrong with the advice to generate quality characters, etc.

 

The advice offered in THE ART OF FICTION didn't contradict the NWP. I got the sense that Gardner was focusing on the author as "artiste" rather than as craftsman. That could be why so many of the useful craft tips were buried under mounds of what I can only call "twaddle" (sorry, Mr. Gardner!) that it was barely worth excavating them. And none really struck me as more than superficial--they lacked the essential "how."

 

When the book was first published, I'm not sure if there were many books on the craft of writing publishable fiction. In fact, the only one I know of for sure is Dwight Swain's TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, originally published in 1965. (Despite its age, I do still find Swain's book very helpful in understanding craft.) But, honestly, I'd put Swain's book far and away better than Gardner's. Swain is a very difficult read for a new writer and Gardner is less so, but Swain is clearer and more effective at conveying quality information. And with Swain, the focus begins at the sentence level, making sure that stimuli and responses are in proper order, carrying all the way up through the overall structure of the novel itself.

 

I think my main issue with Gardner's book is that it is both too superficial and too "arty"--it places too little emphasis on useful techniques to achieve the desired story qualities and relies heavily on generalities without offering much if anything in the way of "how do I do this?" responses. The examples, of course, are wildly outdated too, but that's just a by-product of the era in which it was written.

 

In all fairness, this may well be my problem rather than an issue with the book itself. I have an entire large bookcase on craft books on writing, some good, some not so much. This one is well into the "not so much" category.

 

WRITE AWAY by Elizabeth George

 

I bought this book and read it when it was first published, in part because I do enjoy Ms. George's books, and because it seemed to offer excellent and specific advice.

 

First, the book covers basic writing techniques and I particularly liked the strong emphasis on story being about characters rather than about "what happens." That to me is one of the biggest lessons any writer needs to learn. I don't really believe in "plot-driven" fiction because plot is what characters DO.

 

But the most important advice is that of "Bum Glue". What you need to do to succeed is glue your bum to your chair and keep writing away. I loved that advice.

 

The other aspect I particularly enjoyed in this book was Ms. George's description of her writing process. Somehow, understanding the process by which other writers produce books offers insight into how to do it.

 

Ms. George's process isn't exactly the same as NWP, but then the reality is that all writers have to come up with a process that works for them. There is no universal process at anything much. But I didn't see anything in the book that I felt strongly contradicted anything in NWP.