Picture the poor, young, serious-fiction writer. He toils alone at a pace not so different from that of Lincoln Tunnel traffic at rush hour in New York. His spouse has a "real" job, or perhaps he has a trust fund. His college friends are cashing in on their dot-coms and wondering if he's ever going to join the real world. He is not hell-bent on publication; he is trying to write "serious, honest fiction, the kind of novel that readers will find they enjoy reading more than once, the kind of fiction likely to survive." He's likely to have no idea whether he's succeeding. Nobody understands him.

Well, almost nobody. John Gardner understands him. Gardner's sympathetic On Becoming a Novelist is the novelist's ultimate comfort food--better than macaroni and cheese, better than chocolate. Gardner, a fiction writer himself (Grendel), knows in his bones the desperate questioning of a writer who's not sure he's up to the task. He recognizes the validation that comes with being published, just as he believes that "for a true novel there is generally no substitute for slow, slow baking." Gardner also has strong feelings about what kinds of workshops help (and whom they help), and what kinds hinder. But a full half of Gardner's book is devoted to an exploration of the writer's nature. The storyteller's intelligence, he says, "is composed of several qualities, most of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or incivility." In addition, a writer needs "verbal sensitivity, accuracy of eye," and "an almost demonic compulsiveness." But wait--there's more. A writer needs to be driven, and to be driven, he says insightfully, "a psychological wound is helpful." --Jane Steinberg


Bret Lott, author of "Jewel"
There are three books I keep on my desk so that I'll have them at the ready at any given moment in my writing life: the Bible, Roget's Thesaurus, and "On Becoming a Novelist." There is no better book on what it takes to be a writer than Gardner's classic. Period.


Charles Johnson, National Book Award-winning author of "Middle Passage"
Few, if any, American writers in our time understood the theory and practice of great literature better than novelist John Gardner. With imagination and breathtaking dedication, he trained a generation of young writers to reach for the highest artistic standards. That legacy is contained in "On Becoming a Novelist," one of the essential books for any writer's library.


Nicholas Delbanco, author of "Old Scores"
John Gardner's book is worth a thousand pictures of the writer writing--bemused, puffing a pipe, one hand on the keyboard, one in his hair. John was a devoted teacher, and those of us who witnessed his generous attention must be grateful for these pages and his enduring example. "On Becoming a Novelist" evokes the life of the writer, the student, the teacher, as few other documents can.


Joyce Carol Oates
A classic of its kind.


Stewart O'Nan, author of "A Prayer for the Dying" and "A World Away"
John Gardner taught me how to write. I've read this book countless times, underlined it in many different inks, taught it, quote it, write by it. . . . Alone in my basement after my day job, I pawed through "On Becoming a Novelist," hoping to understand what it was I was trying to achieve, and why. John Gardner answered these questions and many more--and still does. Currently there are a number of popular writing guides--all worthwhile I'm sure--but there's no substitute for experience and the hard work of composition. John Gardner put in countless hours at his desk sweating over the depth, generosity and elegance of his fiction. That after his death he continues to share his practical knowledge with us is a gift.


Book Description
On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's distinguished twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot. "For a certain kind of person," Gardner writes, "nothing is more joyful or satisfying than the life of a novelist." But no other vocation, he is quick to add, is so fraught with professional and spiritual difficulties. Whether discussing the supposed value of writer's workshops, explaining the role of the novelist's agent and editor, or railing against the seductive fruits of literary elitism, On Becoming a Novelist is an indispensable, life-affirming handbook for anyone authentically called to the profession.


Card catalog description
"On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's distinguished twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot."--BOOK JACKET.


About the Author
John Gardner is the best-selling author of more than 25 books and taught creative writing at many universities, among them Chico State, Bennington College, and SUNY-Binghamton. His novels Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, and October Light are regarded as modern classics. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1982 at the age of 49.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Top Ten Things First Novelists Do Wrong

There are 100 things first novelists do wrong. In fact, to really catalogue the things first novelists do wrong could fill a book. However, for brevity's sake and in order not to frighten first novelists too unmercifully, let's look at just ten.

1. THEY FOLLOW. First novelists are timid and want to feel safe, so they write novels that are pale imitations of the next guy. Yet no one needs or wants another Stephen King or Tom Clancy. Imitation leads to failure. Henry Miller said to leap without a net. Risk writing passionately about what means the most to you.

2. THEY DON'T READ ENOUGH. If a writer is not reading every novel he can get his hands on, both classics and modern, then why should he think he will make a novelist? Without reading widely, he could believe he has a unique idea and not even realize it's already been written to death.

3. THEY DON'T KNOW THE MARKET. There are major publishers and minor ones, East Coast and West Coast, small-press publishers, genre publishers, literary publishers, mass market publishers, electronic publishers, and publishers who put out works only on CD. You can't enter the marketplace to peddle your wares when you don't know your buyer.

4. THEY ARE PRIMA DONNAS. Some first novelists should write on stone so the words can't be changed. And they invariably believe they're going to be rich. The truth is, first novels usually need work and the advances are small. There might be some changes called for, proofing will be done, and maybe even the title will be changed. If the prima donna struts onto the scene, the contract walks out the door.

5. THEY THROW IN THE KITCHEN SINK. First novelists need to keep it simple. They try to tell the equivalent of five plots in the space of one book. Mario Puzo, when he wrote The Godfather, said that he put everything in, even the kitchen sink. But that was Puzo.

6. THEY HAVE NO THEME. Many first novelists have no idea what a theme is. A book must say something. The one idea it's talking about throughout the story is the theme, the core, the center. How love triumphs. Why people suffer. How courage is formed. Too many themes, however, and the book is a collage.

7. THEY AREN'T HONEST. Know thyself. Unless the novelist knows himself and has faced up to all his failings, secrets, flaws, and weaknesses, how can he show a character who is imperfect? Books aren't about perfect people in a perfect world. That's a sitcom.

8. THEY WRITE SKIMPILY OR TOO ELABORATELY. First novelists have a tendency to write too much or too little dialogue, narrative, action scenes, or description. They often tend to give tedious character details, use too many adjectives or adverbs, or just outright find ways to bore the reader. Balance must be sustained.

9. THEY CREATE WOODEN CHARACTERS. Characters in books can't live by the use of mere gimmicks -- physical tics, the use of repetitive phrases, and TV soap opera reactions. Characters live only when the author loves them enough to let them go. Let them breathe. Characters create plot, not the other way around.

10. THEY WRITE DEAD ENDINGS. First novelists often, in sheer desperation, leave the denouement dangling or come up with some off-the-wall solution that tries to tie up loose ends while only making it worse. The ending must pertain to everything that came before, and it must satisfy completely. Endings that are wrong or do not satisfy sabotage a novel.

Other books I recommend:

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

The Crack-up

—Billie Sue Mosiman

Billie Sue Mosiman is an Edgar nominee for her novel Night Cruise and a Stoker nominee for Widow. She is the author of 8 suspense novels and more than 150 short stories and is coeditor of 6 anthologies. Her latest work is Red Moon Rising, first in a series about modern-day vampires, due out from DAW Books in 2000. She has published articles in Writer's Digest Magazine and has taught fiction writing for Writer's Digest School. She's a featured author on CNN Interactive Online, in the "Ask the Author" book section. She enjoys computers, quilting, and gardening at her cattle ranch in southeast Texas.

ANNOTATION

"...answers exactly the questions that a dedicated writing student would be most likely to ask ..."--Anne Tyler

FROM THE PUBLISHER