JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #81
December 16, 2021
The craft of fiction, by its very nature, must serve an underlying philosophy of what fiction is and how it is distinct from other kinds of writing. I’ve long taken my cue from John Gardner’s ideal that fiction "sets off a vivid and continuous dream in the reader’s mind," and all craft advice should provide the means of establishing and maintaining this dream. It is therefore in service of creating this fictive dream-state that we insist on specific and evocative details, on well-rounded characters that feel like real people, and on engaging plots that seize our interest. That, it seems to me, is the essence of fiction.
(I can’t fit this into the paragraph above without spoiling it, but I don’t want to neglect this point: I don’t think the fictive dream is primarily visual, or even sensory, but rather specific and distinct. To say that Anne and Mary were the young daughters of a 16th-century English courtier conjures no immediate sensory impressions, but it does distinguish and specify the character of the two girls. Further details can shape our understanding of the two characters and develop the fictional dream-state without ever resorting to what they look like or how they smell.)