Students ask me one question a lot: “How do I know when my essay/memoir/novel is finished?” And I always blithely quote someone who once said “A work of art is never finished, it’s abandoned.” Or some version of that. Usually there’s the feeling you can do it better. Sometimes though you really do feel that…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
Lies & Truth in Fiction
The 4th Week: Fiction
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 10 Comments
What is fiction? It’s made up, it’s truth, it’s pretend, it’s your reality, it’s your imagination – it’s all those things. Or as Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey had a character in one of her novels say: “Finally you must free yourself from the facts and create a lie that tells a larger truth.” In class this…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
The Difference Between Non-Fiction and Fiction & Other Writing Exercises
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 3 Comments
Years ago I came up with an exercise to show this difference. Ideally you do it in a group or with a writing buddy. Take an object – something from your pocket or purse or desk. Write for 5 minutes about where you got it, how you feel about it, etc. Now exchange objects with…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
Making Stuff Up As You Go Along
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 5 Comments
“..she’s just making stuff up as she goes along ” was what the scathing review in last week’s New York Times Book Review said of Alice Sebold’s new novel, The Almost Moon. Of course most of us who write fiction do exactly this – make it up as we go along. Yes, novelists have an…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
The 1,978th Attempt At A Novel
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 13 Comments
I’ve just printed out two copies of what I blithely call the first draft of my novel, even though certain chapters may have been rewritten oh, let’s say a hundred and eighty-seven times or so. When I typed the words “first draft, May 2007” on the cover page this week I thought, what a lie. …
Lies & Truth in Fiction
Icebergs: Some Thoughts On Writing Fiction
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 4 Comments
If I averaged out how much I write and how much I get published it would look like an iceberg – the tiny tip is what turns into a real book. Under water there are reams and reams of badly written, truly cringe provoking prose, pages of wandering off in the wrong direction. This is…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
What Does It All Mean?
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 2 Comments
Theme is what your memoir/essay/fiction is really about, what it all means. It’s the subtext of the story. Sometimes writers are very clear about their theme; they’ve consciously woven it into the plot from the moment they started writing. Other writers haven’t a clue what their story means, at least not until after it’s written.…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
First Drafts Revisited
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 9 Comments
A number of posts back, a reader asked me to write more about first drafts, and I realized that I prefer writing about first drafts than actually writing one. Most of us believe that “real” writers simply write their first drafts with ease and dignity and then sail on with great confidence to the second…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
The First Draft of a Novel
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 0 Comments
I’ve written and rewritten the first 105 pages of my novel, shown it to writer friends, and gotten some good advice. It still needs more work, but for now I’m leaving it as is and forging on to the end. Writing fiction in first draft feels like hacking your way through a jungle to make…
Lies & Truth in Fiction
Writing in Bars
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 8 Comments
Scene: The Blue Anchor Bar in Twin Bridges, Montana, population 400. (Truth in advertising: my stepdaughter owns the bar.) It’s Friday night. I order Moose Drool beer. M. tells me her husband just bought a truck on e-Bay and flew to Pittsburg this morning to pick it up and drive it back to Montana. I…
