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A review by milktoast
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner
4.0
I typically walk away from books about writing with a few new tips or tricks and maybe a new idea. This book is very different. As the title reflects, it explores fiction as both craft and art. At first I worried that Gardner was kind of pretentious--his style is certainly very academic. But he managed to fuse together solid writing advice with interesting theory in a way that challenged me to think about how I approach writing (without making me feel like I had to write like ~*the classics*~). He uses classic lit for his examples, and sometimes I was annoyed by his assumption that his reader would be familiar. I'm fairly well read in the classics, but I haven't read everything dude.
I've seen people say that this book is only for those who write literary fiction, but I disagree and I think Gardner would too. Regardless of your genre, if you are interested in advancing your writing as craft and art, this is a good read. I've been working on the exercises at the end of the book and some of them are hard!
I've seen people say that this book is only for those who write literary fiction, but I disagree and I think Gardner would too. Regardless of your genre, if you are interested in advancing your writing as craft and art, this is a good read. I've been working on the exercises at the end of the book and some of them are hard!