The Stuff of Fiction

by Bauer, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780472031535
• ISBN10: 0472031538
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-29
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

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 Fictionspeaks to writers of all ages in a pleasurable yet practical voice. Douglas Baueris the author of three novels,Dexterity,The Very Air, andThe 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.

Author Biography

Douglas Bauer is currently a member of the Literature faculty at Bennington College and Writer-in-Residence at the Bennington MFA Seminars.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
Openings	5	(16)
Ways of Starting the Story
Exercise: And So We Begin	18	(3)
Sentences	21	(18)
Doing the Dusty Work
Exercise: How Sentences Work	37	(2)
Dialogue	39	(24)
The Reader as Eavesdropper
Exercise: Think of Your Ears as Magnets	60	(3)
Putting It in Context	63	(20)
Foreground Needs Background
Exercise: But Why Did the Queen Die?	81	(2)
Implicit Narrative	83	(20)
Achieving Subtlety while Avoiding Confusion
Exercise: Presence and Absence	101	(2)
Characters	103	(20)
Flawed Heroes and Sympathetic Villains
Exercise: Making Heroes Flawed	121	(2)
High Events	123	(22)
The Treatment of Dramatic Moments
Exercise: The Richness of the Resonance	142	(3)
Sentiment versus Sentimentality	145	(22)
The First, Always; the Second, Never
Exercise: No Cheating Allowed	164	(3)
Closings	167	(16)
Ways of Ending the Story
Exercise: Finally	181	(2)
Conclusion	183	(4)
Works Cited or Discussed	187