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This article is from the misc.writing Recommended Reading List FAQ, by Terry L Jeffress jeffress@xmission.com with numerous contributions by others.

2.2 Recommended Reading List: Writing Fiction part2

Frey, James N. "How To Write a Damn Good Novel." St. Martin's
Press, 1987. ISBN 0-312-01044-3, hardcover, 174 pp., $19.95.

In a very breezy, no-nonsense style with plenty of examples,
author Frey goes into precise details about establishing good
characters, creating conflict within your story, coming up
with a premise, changing points of view, how to come up with
realistic dialog, and how to handle rewriting. Also covered is
a final chapter on the "Zen of Novel Writing," giving an
overall view of what kind of life you can expect, how to deal
with writers block, and a plethora of other tips.

I found the book to be remarkably useful. It's reasonably
short (well under 200 pages), yet zeros-in on the most
important facets of writing. Whether you're dealing with
novels or short-stories, I think there's a wealth of material
here to ponder and peruse. There's also a bibliography of
nearly two dozen additional books -- both works of fiction and
books on writing -- many of which were used as examples and
source material for the book. I think many would-be writers
who have a trouble getting a handle on "structure" will get
something out of "Damn Good Novel", if nothing else. And his
concept of Premise -- character, conflict and conclusion --
will be easy for beginners to digest.

Frey's book (and the sequel) has been enormously successful on
Amazon.com, and I think for good reason. Whole college courses
on writing could (and have) been taught with "How To Write a
Damn Good Novel"; Frey teaches at the University of California
at Berkeley, and his credentials are hard to criticize. I
consider both this book and the sequel to be absolutely
indispensible. Beginners looking for an ideal way to start
writing novels need look no further.
-- Marc Wielage <mfw@musictrax.com>

Frey, James N. "How To Write a Damn Good Novel II: Advanced
Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling." St. Martin's Press,
1994. ISBN 0-312-10478-2, hardcover, 161 pp., $18.95.

A follow-up to Frey's original top-rated treatise, Frey's
second book covers more advanced novel-writing techniques,
including "The Fictive Dream and How to Induce It," how to
create suspense, creating memorable characters, more on
premise, developing your voice, and how to write with passion.

I found the chapter on "The Seven Deadly Mistakes" to be
particularly useful: the topics here include Timidity, Trying
to be Literary, Ego-Writing, Failure to Learn to Re-dream the
Dream, Failure to Keep Faith with Yourself, choosing the Wrong
Lifestyle, and Failure to Produce. I admired Frey's
willingness to admit his own mistakes and follies from his
life, even to the point of using them as examples in the
chapter.

In some cases, I found what Frey wrote didn't necessarily help
me "directly", nor did this one have quite the same impact as
his first. But what he did do was to force me to look at
certain writing challenges from a different point of view.
That alone was worth the trip, because it enabled me to find a
way to write with more passion, with better descriptive
language, and with a clearer eye to the final goal. Like the
first book, I found it to be absolutely indispensible to new
writers.
-- Marc Wielage <mfw@musictrax.com>

Gardner, John. "The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young
Writers." New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983. Reissue ed.
Vintage, 1991. ISBN 0-67973-403-1, trade paperback, 226 pp.,
$11.00.

John Gardner has a lot to say and often uses as many words as
he can to express himself. He claims to be speaking only to
those who seek to write artistic, literary fiction, but his
discussions will fit every genre. Almost every sentence (and
at least every paragraph) makes a challenging statement about
fiction and its creation. Gardner beautifully describes the
state where the reader experiences the events put on paper by
the author -- and admonishes us to be very aware of how our
writing affects this state. You never want to jolt your reader
away from the dream you are creating in the reader's mind.

Part two presents Gardner's advice about writing, listing
common errors, writing techniques, and methods of plotting.
The most interesting chapter has various exercises for writers
to practice which embody all the points that Gardner tried to
make in the text of his book. Much of the primary message is
somewhat cryptic and difficult to extract without rereading,
but rereading is worthwhile.
-- Terry L Jeffress <jeffress@xmission.com>

This book is a classic, and is a must buy for anyone seriously
attempting to write fiction. However, you will not find any
formulas, point systems, or graphs that show you how to
construct a story (well, maybe a graph or two). What you will
find is meaty chapters on aesthetics, artistic mystery,
fiction as dream, genre, interest, and metafiction. You will
also find at the back a set of extremely useful exercises. All
material is gleaned from Gardner's years of teaching graduate-
level creative writing.level creative writing.

Gardner, John. "On Moral Fiction." Basic Books, 1978. ISBN 0-465-
05225-8, hardcover, 214 pp. Out of print.

Although first printed in 1978, Gardner's book on what is
wrong and right in contemporary fiction is perhaps even more
germane to writers today than it was then. This highly
intelligent, provocative, humorous, and ultimately upbeat work
would be valuable to novice and experienced writers alike,
whether they agree with Gardner's tenets or not: the questions
he asks inevitably lead the reader to deeply reflect on his or
her own art.

"On Moral Fiction" is garnished with practical, craft-related
case studies and examples of character and plot development,
intertwined with clearly stated opinion on the nature of
aesthetics and the creative act. The book can best be
summarized by the following excerpt:

Real art creates myths a society can live with instead of die
by, and clearly our society is in need of such myths. . . .
Such myths are not merely hopeful fairy tales but the products
of careful and disciplined thought, that a properly built myth
is worthy of belief, at least tentatively; that working at art
is a moral act; that a work of art is a moral example; and
that false art can be known for what it is if one remembers
the rules. (126)

"On Moral Fiction" then proceeds to explain the rules, drawing
on examples from the history of literature, painting, music,
philosophy, and the sciences.
-- Richard Guziewicz <rkg@worldnet.fr>

 

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