A long game : notes on writing fiction / Elizabeth McCracken.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing.

Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and bad news is that in fiction writing, there are no definitive answers to such questions: writers must come up with their own. Elizabeth McCracken, author of bestselling novels, National Book Award long-listed story collections, and a highly praised memoir, has been teaching for more than thirty-five years, guiding her many students through their own answers. In A Long Game, she shares insights gleaned along the way, offering practical tips and incisive thoughts about her own work as an artist. Writing "is a long game," she notes. "What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or self-delusion or self-forgiveness: every life needs all three."

As much a book about the life of a working artist as it is a guide to thinking about fiction, A Long Game is a revelatory and indispensable resource for any writer.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

McCracken (The Hero of This Book) has written many bestselling and award-winning books including four novels, three story collections, and a memoir. She has also, for over 35 years, taught students about writing and fiction at the University of Texas, Austin. This book delightfully distills advice from her expertise in the craft of writing. She approaches the task with a good deal of skepticism for the project, using the word "hogwash" in the opening pages. With a light touch, she deflates many lofty rules of writing, citing the fads and fashions in literary advice. What McCracken learned in the Iowa Writers' Workshop in when she attended in 1988 is not what students absorb today, and she speculates that any piece of advice she has given over the years has since been disproved by some brilliant piece of writing. McCracken's deep empathy for others is evident on every page. As much a book of philosophy as a treatise on writing, this work could even bear the subtitle Notes on Life. VERDICT A charming book that will have great appeal not only for aspiring writers but for all lovers of fiction and anyone interested in the complicated art of being human.--Jennifer Alexander

Publishers Weekly Review

Story Prize winner McCracken (The Souvenir Museum) distills decades of personal experience into 280 idiosyncratic reflections on writing. She eschews rigid, step-by-step advice in favor of "vague broad concepts, digressions, flights of fancy" drawn from her career. Still, an overarching philosophy emerges that emphasizes writing with total honesty about material one is passionate about--even when others don't get it (relentless approval-seeking is counterproductive) or when the work is going poorly. As advertised, she's decidedly nonprescriptive when it comes to other elements of the craft--questions about whether to write every day and when to start drafting are met with assurances that "no process is wrong that leads to a first draft of a book." While her approach may frustrate those looking for concrete advice, her incisive, witty observations capture important truths about fiction and the complexities of a writer's relationship to their work. "In first drafts," she advises, "we write as loving parents to our characters. We want them to make their own interesting mistakes.... In later drafts, we should be unforgiving gods, to do not what's good for the single character but for the world itself, which is often at direct odds with what's good for the character." Writers who feel stuck will be especially energized by McCracken's eclectic insights. (Dec.)

Kirkus Book Review

Pithy nuggets on writing well. Novelist, short story writer, and memoirist McCracken draws on her experiences as a student, writer, and creative writing teacher to offer 280 concise reflections--not rules, but guidelines--on writing fiction. Confessing a dislike for craft books and skepticism about the value of workshop critiques, still she acknowledges the value of sharing insights, some gleaned from teaching, many from failures and frustrations in her own work. "I try not to dispense imperatives," she says. Organized by "vague broad concepts, digressions, flights of fancy," the book covers topics typical of any writing guide: generating ideas, outlining, types of narrators (first person, singular or plural; second person; third). "All narrative decisions," McCracken advises, "are more interesting when you think about the mobility they grant you instead of the mobility they restrict." Narrators, in other words, should fit a writer's goals. "Beware of any dispenser of writing advice who deems one sort of narrator better than another." Writers would do well to be wary of any hard and fast rules: about the use of present or past tense, punctuation, and process. "No process is wrong that leads to the first draft of a book," she asserts. As for the dictum "Write what you know," she thinks it's simply silly. "If you already know it--if there's no mystery--what's the point in writing it?" She does hold strong opinions, though, on such matters as adverbs, writing about children, and the much-debated concept of "voice." She cautions beginning writers against looking for approval: "Why do I write these days? I want to be loved. But I don't care whether anybody approves of me." Every writer, she believes, has the same mantra: "I am a genius with much to learn." A witty, generous guide. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.