The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft

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