A Long Game
Notes on Writing Fiction
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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. The book covers:
Understanding and developing charactersPlot, and what to do if it eludes youHer thoughts on common writing “rules”And of course, the Butter Cow Lady of the Iowa State Fair and her work as it relates to revision
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
