The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft

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.

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