John Gardner and the Fictive Dream

The Art of Fiction (Excerpt)
by John Gardner

In the writing state—the state of inspiration—the fictive dream springs up fully alive: the writer forgets the words he has written on the page and sees, instead, his characters moving around their rooms, hunting through cupboards, glancing irritably through their mail, setting mousetraps, loading pistols.

The dream is as alive and compelling as one’s dreams at night, and when the writer writes down on paper what he has imagined, the words, however inadequate, do not distract his mind from the fictive dream but provide him with a fix on it, so that when the dream flags he can reread what he’s written and find the dream starting up again.

This and nothing else is the desperately sought and tragically fragile writer’s process: in his imagination, he sees made-up people doing things—sees them clearly—and in the act of wondering what they will do next he sees what they will do next, and all this he writes down in the best, most accurate words he can find, understanding even as he writes that he may have to find better words later, and that a change in the words may mean a sharpening or deepening of the vision, the fictive dream or vision becoming more and more lucid…

The Art of Fiction is available at Amazon.com

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night, quote by E.L. Doctorow

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. DOCTOROW

Photo: BAZZAE73, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Stephen King on How a Daily Routine Helps Put You in the Writer’s Trance

In a CNN interview, Stephen King gives concise answers to a variety of subjects — including his writing routine, which he says helps him get into his daily writer’s trance. Here’s the quote:

I have a routine because I think that writing is self-hypnosis and you fall into kind of a trance if you do the same passes over and over.”

Watch the video at youtube.com.

John Gardner Discusses the Writer’s Trance (Fictive Dream)

“In the writing state—the state of inspiration—the fictive dream springs up fully alive: the writer forgets the words he has written on the page and sees, instead, his characters moving around their rooms, hunting through cupboards, glancing irritably through their mail, setting mousetraps, loading pistols.

The dream is as alive and compelling as one’s dreams at night, and when the writer writes down on paper what he has imagined, the words, however inadequate, do not distract his mind from the fictive dream but provide him with a fix on it, so that when the dream flags he can reread what he’s written and find the dream starting up again.

This and nothing else is the desperately sought and tragically fragile writer’s process: in his imagination, he sees made-up people doing things—sees them clearly—and in the act of wondering what they will do next he sees what they will do next, and all this he writes down in the best, most accurate words he can find, understanding even as he writes that he may have to find better words later, and that a change in the words may mean a sharpening or deepening of the vision, the fictive dream or vision becoming more and more lucid…” 

JOHN GARDNER, The Art of Fiction, available at Amazon.com

Novel Writing and Patience by Kurt Vonnegut

“Novelists…our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.” KURT VONNEGUT

Thoughts on Writing a Novel by E.L. Doctorow

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. DOCTOROW

Photo: BAZZAE73, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED