On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner

On Becoming a Novelist



Download On Becoming a Novelist




On Becoming a Novelist John Gardner
Language: English
Page: 180
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0060149566, 9780060149567
Publisher: Harpercollins

Picture the poor, young, serious-fiction writer. He toils alone at a pace not so different from that of Lincoln Tunnel traffic at rush hour in New York. His spouse has a "real" job, or perhaps he has a trust fund. His college friends are cashing in on their dot-coms and wondering if he's ever going to join the real world. He is not hell-bent on publication; he is trying to write "serious, honest fiction, the kind of novel that readers will find they enjoy reading more than once, the kind of fiction likely to survive." He's likely to have no idea whether he's succeeding. Nobody understands him.

On Becoming a Novelist is the novelist's ultimate comfort food--better than macaroni and cheese, better than chocolate. Gardner, a fiction writer himself (), knows in his bones the desperate questioning of a writer who's not sure he's up to the task. He recognizes the validation that comes with being published, just as he believes that "for a true novel there is generally no substitute for slow, slow baking." Gardner also has strong feelings about what kinds of workshops help (and whom they help), and what kinds hinder. But a full half of Gardner's book is devoted to an exploration of the writer's nature. The storyteller's intelligence, he says, "is composed of several qualities, most of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or incivility." In addition, a writer needs "verbal sensitivity, accuracy of eye," and "an almost demonic compulsiveness." But wait--there's more. A writer needs to be driven, and to be driven, he says insightfully, "a psychological wound is helpful." --Jane Steinberg --This text refers to the edition.

“The book is the result of John Gardner’s twenty-odd years of teaching experience, and it shows . . . He answers exactly the questions that a dedicated writing student would be most likely to ask . . . A satisfaction to those who wonder, with growing frustration, just exactly how it’s done.” —Anne Tyler, The Baltimore Sun  “One of the essential books for any writer’s library. With imagination and breathtaking dedication, [Gardner] trained a generation of young writers to reach for the highest artistic standards . . .” —Charles Johnson, National Book Award–winning author of Middle Passage

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