Read The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers Online
Authors: John Gardner
Tags: #Writing Skills, #Reference
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (28 page)
To a large extent, whatever kind of plot he chooses, the writer is more servant than master of his story. He can almost never use important details only once: They are sure to call out for repetition. For instance, if the writer gives the hero a nightmare, a nightmare so well done (as it had better be) that the reader feels something of the character’s distress, the writer—and the reader after him—will feel a need for another nightmare later, or some clear equivalent, element calling to element through the novel, form crying out to form. If he introduces a love scene, he commits himself to later developments of that scene; if he focuses closely on a minor character, he commits himself to that character’s return, if only as a memory.
It is this quality of the novel, its built-in need to return and repeat, that forms the physical basis of the novel’s chief glory, its resonant close. (It also sets up a risk that the novel may seem contrived.) What rings and resounds at the end of a novel is not just physical, however. What moves us is not just that characters, images, and events get some form of recapitulation or recall: We are moved by the increasing connectedness of things, ultimately a connectedness of values. Coleridge pointed out, stirred to the observation by his interest in Hartleian psychology, that increasingly complex systems of association can give a literary work some of its power. When we encounter two things in close association, Hartley noticed, we tend to recall one when we encounter the other. Thus, for example, if one is standing in a drugstore when one first reads Shelley, the next time one goes to a drugstore one may think of the poet, and the next time one encounters a poem by Shelley one may get a faint whiff of Dial and bathsalts. The same thing happens when we read fiction. If the first time our hero meets a given character it occurs in a graveyard, the character’s next appearance will carry with it some residue of the graveyard setting.
The effect can be roughly illustrated this way. Let
a
represent a pair of bloody shoes, first encountered at the foot of a willow tree,
b
; let
c
equal an orphan home, first encountered in
a thunderstorm,
d
; and let
e
represent a woman’s kiss, experienced on a train,
f
. If
a
(the bloody shoes) is mentioned later in the story, it draws with it a memory of the willow (
b
in brackets). In the same way
c
produces [
d
] as an echo, and
e
produces [
f
]. If the top of the line below is the beginning of the narrative and the bottom of the line is the end, then a writer might develop some such pattern of associations as the following:
Compared to what actually happens in fiction, this diagram is simple and crude in the extreme, but perhaps it makes the point. Even at the end of a short story, the power of an organized return of images, events, and characters can be considerable. Think of Joyce’s “The Dead.” In the closing moments of a novel the effect can be overwhelming.
We are of course not talking about just any old return of images, etc. The images that come together at the end of “The Dead,” each dragging its train of associations, are all images of death. The images and experiences brought together in Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in
Ulysses
create an equally symbolic but vastly more complex thought-emotion in which the principle of coherence is loving affirmation against odds associationally recalled. The “yes” that begins as a copulative cry enlarges outward to become a mystical affirmation of all the universe, including even death. To achieve such an effect, the writer must
rise above his physical plot to an understanding of all his plot’s elements and all their relationships, including those that are inexpressible. The novel’s denouement, in other words, is not simply the end of the story but the story’s fulfillment. Here at last, emotionally if not intellectually, the reader understands everything and everything is symbolic. This understanding, which the writer must reach before he can make it available to the reader, is impossible to anticipate in the planning of the novel. It is the novelist’s reward for thinking carefully about reality, brooding on every image, every action, every word, both those things he planned from the beginning and those that crept in in the service of convincingness. Unfortunately, though the effect of a true denouement can be described, the writing of a good denouement cannot be taught. One can only give hints and warnings. The most useful hint is perhaps this: Read the story over and over, at least a hundred times—literally—watching for subtle meanings, connections, accidental repetitions, psychological significance. Leave nothing—no slightest detail—unexamined; and when you discover implications in some image or event, oonch those implications toward the surface. This may be done in a variety of ways: by introducing subtle repetitions of the image, so that it catches the reader’s subliminal attention; by slipping the image into a metaphor that helps to fix and clarify the meaning you have found in it; or by placing the image (or event or whatever) in closer proximity to related symbols. As for the warnings, two are of most importance: On one hand, don’t overdo the denouement, so ferociously pushing meaning that the reader is distracted from the fictional dream, giving the narrative a too conscious, contrived, or “workshop” effect; and don’t, on the other hand, write so subtly or timidly—from fear of sentimentality or obviousness—that no one, not even the angels aflutter in the rafters, can hear the resonance.
ExercisesOne of the best ways of learning to write is by doing exercises. The following group and individual exercises are some I have found helpful, but any teacher or student can think up others just as good. I recommend keeping the exercises in a notebook (a loose-leaf or spring-binder) for reference later, perhaps along with other things useful to the writer—story ideas, impressions, snatches of dialogue, newspaper clippings. Some writers of course find such things more useful than do others. Some write each story from scratch, making everything up; others build more slowly, depending more heavily—as Dostoevsky did—on snippets from their reading, journal entries, and the like.
Many of the individual exercises in section II below work equally well as exercises to be written, read aloud (voluntarily), and discussed in class. One advantage of using them in this way is that students discover how good they all are—no small matter. Once a class discovers that it’s very good (and most students, when they work on some limited, clearly defined problem,
are surprisingly good), the class becomes exciting. (In my experience, fifteen to twenty minutes is enough class time to spend on the writing, and for writers well beyond the beginner stage, five minutes may be sufficient.) A second advantage of doing individual exercises as class exercises is that the criticism that follows tends to be of the kind most useful to the writer, especially when the course is still young. No one is likely to come down hard on an exercise knocked off in fifteen minutes. A few slips and infelicities are to be expected. So the discussion is of the kind it ought to be. It points out small mistakes, not making too much of them, and focuses on virtues or potential. The third advantage, of course, is instant feedback.
Some of the things that ought to be covered in every course on writing prose fiction can be covered efficiently only by a class working as a group. Exercises of this kind follow. No one class can get through all of them, and it should always be borne in mind by both the teacher and his students that the most important thing that can be done in class, once the basics have been covered, is the reading and criticism of original fiction. Thinking about the exercises can sometimes be as valuable as sitting down to do them. As a rule, it is useful to do certain kinds of exercises—especially those involving plotting—throughout the term, since the skills to be developed by these exercises cannot be acquired all at once. With practice the group and each of its members gets faster and better at doing the job. For most of these exercises, either the teacher or some member of the group will need to act as blackboard recorder and referee. The class will need to recognize the referee’s decision as final. Group exercises become chaotic and therefore boring if no one is accepted as the settler of disputes about, for instance, the name and age of the character being made up. It should also go without saying that occasionally some of these exercises might be used not for group discussion but for essays or meditations in the writer’s notebook.
1. Create, in oral cooperation, two characters suitable for a ghost story—first the victim (the person frightened or harmed), then the ghost. Work out for these characters the name, age, background, psychological makeup, physical description, family connections, circle of immediate friends, occupation, appropriate setting, and anything else that seems important. In doing this exercise, and all those that follow, do not be unduly clever—for instance, choosing as the two characters here a dog and a lizard. Undue cleverness defeats the purpose of the exercise, raising complex problems before the simple ones have been solved.
2. Write, by oral cooperation, the opening paragraph (a description of setting) for a parodic or serious gothic tale.
3. Write, by oral cooperation, the opening paragraph (a description of the yarn-spinner told in the voice of the poor, dumb credulous narrator) of a comic yarn. Consider using not the traditional yarn-spinner (a backwater Southerner or New Englander) but some interesting variant: a canny old woman, a black, a first-generation Chinese-American.
4. Cooperatively list the customary elements of one or more of the following: a gothic romance, a murder mystery, a yarn, a TV situation comedy, a Western, or some other popular genre with which the whole group is familiar. What are the philosophical implications of each of these elements? For example: The traditional ghost story includes, among other things, some old, remote building, an emphasis on weather (especially wind, cold, and dampness), a restless animal (dog, wolf, owl, bat). What do these elements seem to mean psychologically? What are some possible symbolic meanings of the ghost’s return? The genres listed above are all “popular”; that is, their appeal is usually just adventure or entertainment. Suggest ways in which one or more of them might be elevated to serious fiction. How,
for instance, might ghost-story conventions be used to explore the relationship of an independent, domineering mother and her intimidated daughter?
5. Plot a realistic short story, beginning with the climax and working backward. What characters are needed for the climax and what are they like? (See exercise 1, above.) What must be dramatized to authenticate the climax? How many scenes are necessary to achieve the climax?
6. Using the story worked out in exercise 5, divide up the scenes among members of the group and write them, then read aloud and discuss.
7. Plot a realistic story, working forward from an initial situation.
8. Plot a story based on some legend.
9. Plot a comic or serious fable. For examples of the form, see Aesop or James Thurber.
10. Plot an allegorical fiction, beginning with the idea or “message” and translating to persons, places, and things.
11. Plot a short surreal fiction; a short expressionistic fiction.
12. Plot a tale.
13. Plot a realistic or fabulous short story, beginning with three basic symbols (for example, an axe, the moon, a set of golden dentures). Before working out the plot, discuss possible meanings of the symbols. By a “fabulous” story I mean here one containing nonexistent beings or some imaginary and fantastic
place, but a story that, given these oddities, operates realistically; that is, by ordinary, not poetic, cause and effect.
14. Plot a realistic or fabulous story, beginning with the theme, or philosophical subject (for example, loss of innocence, possessive versus selfless love, varieties of courage and cowardice).
15. Discuss ways of giving fiction profluence (forward-movingness) without causally related events. Plot such a story.
16. Plot a story by beginning with a choice of the style to be used. Let the style be in some way odd or unusual—for example, a preponderance of very long sentences, or the use of the virtually unusable second-person point of view.
17. Plot a novella.
18. Plot a novel.
19. Plot an interesting novel on a hackneyed subject; for example, a novel about a circus, a lost valley, a gold mine, an unfaithful wife, a doomed planet, first love.
20. Plot an architectonic (or multi-plot) novel; plot a novel that imitates the form of the biography (
David Copperfield
).
It is not necessary that a beginning writer do all—or any—of these exercises, and it would be impossible, as well as wasteful, for a student to do all of them in one term, since the exercises should not be substituted for the writing of actual short stories, tales, fables, yarns, sketches, novellas, or novels. One of the most
important things a writer can learn is the feeling from within of a complete fictional form; so the student should work on the exercises only during the early weeks of the course and thereafter only at odd moments, putting most of his effort into complete pieces of fiction, preferably short forms, then longer forms.
The point of these technical exercises is this: Most apprentice writers underestimate the difficulty of becoming artists; they do not understand or believe that great writers are usually those who, like concert pianists, know many ways of doing everything they do. Knowledge is no substitute for genius; but genius supported by vast technique makes a literary master. Especially just now, when competition for publication is probably greater than ever before, it is helpful for a writer to know technique.
Any apprentice writer who does at least some of these exercises faithfully and well will see that when he gets to, say, exercise 20, he is in a position to do the early exercises with much more facility than when he began; and every exercise faithfully performed will teach a technique useful in short or long fiction. The writer who has worked hard at these exercises will see, whenever he writes a story or novel, that he has various choices available at every point in his fiction, and he will be in a better position to choose the best—or invent something new.
The exercises should be approached, then, with the utmost seriousness. Every true apprentice writer has, however he may try to keep it secret even from himself, only one major goal: glory. The shoddy writer wants only publication. He fails to recognize that almost anyone willing to devote between twelve and fourteen hours a day to writing—and there are many such people—will eventually get published. But only the great writer will survive—the writer who fully understands his trade and is willing to take time and the necessary risks—always assuming, of course, that the writer is profoundly honest and, at least in his writing, sane.
Sanity in a writer is merely this: However stupid he may be in his private life, he never cheats in writing. He never forgets that his audience is, at least ideally, as noble, generous, and tolerant as he is himself (or more so), and never forgets that he is writing about people, so that to turn characters to cartoons, to treat his characters as innately inferior to himself, to forget their reasons for being as they are, to treat them as brutes, is bad art. Sanity in a writer also involves taste. The true writer has a great advantage over most other people: He knows the great tradition of literature, which has always been the cutting edge of morality, religion, and politics, to say nothing of social reform. He knows what the greatest literary minds of the past are proud to do and what they will not stoop to, and his knowledge informs his practice. He fits himself to the company he most respects and enjoys: the company of Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, and so forth. Their standards become, in some measure, his own. Pettiness, vulgarity, bad taste fall away from him automatically, and when he reads bad writers he notices their lapses of taste at once. He sees that they dwell on things Shakespeare would not have dwelled on, at his best, not because Shakespeare failed to notice them but because he saw their triviality. (Except to examine new techniques, or because of personal friendship, no serious apprentice should ever study second-rate writers.)
To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one’s work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write, as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on. This is not to say, of course, that the writer who has no personal experience of pain and terror should try to write about pain and terror, or that one should never write lightly, humorously; it is only to say that every writer should be aware that he might be read by the desperate, by people who might be persuaded toward life or death. It does not mean,
either, that writers should write moralistically, like preachers. And above all it does not mean that writers should lie. It means only that they should think, always, of what harm they might inadvertently do and not do it. If there is good to be said, the writer should remember to say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living. The true artist is never so lost in his imaginary world that he forgets the real world, where teen-agers have a chemical propensity toward anguish, people between their thirties and forties have a tendency to get divorced, and people in their seventies have a tendency toward loneliness, poverty, self-pity, and sometimes anger. The true artist chooses never to be a bad physician. He gets his sense of worth and honor from his conviction that art is powerful—even bad art.
For all these exercises, avoid the cheap, obvious, and corny. For example, in exercise 3, don’t write a sentence built almost entirely of adjectives. In other words, don’t waste time.
1. Write the paragraph that would appear in a piece of fiction just
before
the discovery of a body. You might perhaps describe the character’s approach to the body he will find, or the location, or both. The purpose of the exercise is to develop the technique of at once attracting the reader toward the paragraph to follow, making him want to skip ahead, and holding him on this paragraph by virtue of its interest. Without the ability to write such foreplay paragraphs, one can never achieve real suspense.