Thinking of reading The Art of Fiction, “Young Writer?” Listen to this podcast first. Despite dying in a motorcycle crash in 1982, John Gardner achieved immortality (at least in the writing community) with the posthumous publication of the Art of Fiction
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Wow! We’ve gotten to the final chapter of John Gardner’s book, The Art of Fiction and it’s all about plotting your short story, or novella, or novel (there are, apparently differences). We also learn some fancy plot vocabulary. Oh, and the stripper? Her name is Fanny, and her story is the example that Gardner uses to explain how to devise a plot. Our guess is that most readers don’t make it to Fanny, but trust us, she’s totally worth it.
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Gardner promises to show us the proper way for the young writer to achieve artistic mastery. Doesn’t that sound marvelous? We take him to task on his analysis and advice on the techniques of Imitation, Vocabulary, The Sentence, Point of View, Delay and Style from chapter 6 of The Art of Fiction.
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Enough with the theoretical, in this episode we get some practical advice out of Gardner’s book, The Art of Fiction. Specifically, he tells us what we’re doing wrong. We discuss a few of what Gardner call’s clumsy errors before moving onto Faults of the Soul – Sentimentality, Frigidity, and Mannerisms.
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After last episode’s mother of all chapters, we get a reprieve – a much shorter and lighthearted chapter devoted to those weird genres of metafiction, deconstruction, and jazzing around (that last one we’re pretty sure Gardner made up.) While we do discuss Gardner’s take, we mostly just have fun geeking out over our favorite examples of the genres.
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Moving along to Chapter 3 in The Art of Fiction. We go to war over the various dichotomies that (what Gardner claims) make good fiction, his weird beef against experimental fiction–or what he calls “intellectual toys,” and why he chose a weird moment in Helen of Troy to serve as his example to illustrate the novel.
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Onto Chapter 2 of John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. We begin with Gardner’s opinions about grammar, and our opinions about those opinions. Then we move on to his definition of genres and the great importance of “verisimilitude.”
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We’re starting our first book – John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. Let’s find out why writing instructors and bloggers keep recommending it to aspiring writers. We’ll try to figure out what Gardner means by aesthetic law and if the literary cannon is worth a read, and we’ll address the (male) elephant in the room, er book.
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Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance The starving artist isn’t a cliché for nothing — we’ve long assumed that art requires sacrifice, usually financial....
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Five: Recovering A Sense of Possibility What gives? We hate this book but love talking about it. Week 5 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Four: Recovering A Sense of Integrity Do Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages work? Specifically, do they work for us? We begin this podcast by discussing...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Three: Recovering a Sense of Power Should you use anger to fuel your writing? Do you experience shame while creating art? Have you been...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity We’re on Week 2 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, shifting from internal creative obstacles to external ones—namely...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek One: Recovering a Sense of Safety What if the real barrier to making art isn’t talent or time, but whether you feel safe enough...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayThe Basic Tools Three pages. Every morning. No exceptions. No mercy. We’re going to unblock our inner artist using Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. For...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength Making art can hurt — even when you’re...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance The starving artist isn’t a cliché for nothing...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Five: Recovering A Sense of Possibility What gives? We hate this book but love...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Four: Recovering A Sense of Integrity Do Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages work? Specifically, do...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Three: Recovering a Sense of Power Should you use anger to fuel your writing?...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity We’re on Week 2 of Julia Cameron’s The...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek One: Recovering a Sense of Safety What if the real barrier to making art...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayThe Basic Tools Three pages. Every morning. No exceptions. No mercy. We’re going to unblock...
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WaySpiritual Electricity:The Basic Principles Over the past few months, we’ve taken a deep dive into...
Authors & AI SeriesRobot Reporters Need Not Apply:A Journalist’s Stand We’ve been looking at how AI chatbots have been...
Authors & AI SeriesTeaching Kids to Write in the Age of ChatGPT What if chatbots result in the next...
In our quest to cover the mind-blowing benefits AND the nightmare scenarios that AI chatbots are unleashing on the...
We've been putting AI chatbots through creative writing challenges, but what are these systems actually doing when they write? In...
Is nothing sacred? After exploring how AI might steal our writing jobs, we're now testing whether these digital usurpers...
We've explored AI as brainstorming allies, critique partners, and research assistants. Now we're tackling the most contentious question: should...
Week 8: When Art Hurts
Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s WayWeek 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength Making art can hurt — even when you’re fully bought into The Artist’s Way. This week Cameron tackles...