How Fiction Works

What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step.

The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel—plainspoken, funny, blunt—in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. It will change the way you read. James Wood is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a visiting lecturer in English and American literature at Harvard. He is the author of two essay collections, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self, and of a novel, The Book Against God. A New York Times Book Review Notable Book

A Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of the Year

An Economist Best Book of the Year

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year

What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic of his generation. Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step.

The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style by summing up two decades of insight with wit and concision.

“[Wood] tells us in his preface that the book ‘asks theoretical questions but answers them practically,’ and by practical, he means analysis of techniques as illustrated by a series of generally superb line-by-line readings. This is a technical book, a primer of sorts, of interest to the practicing writer but probably most useful and illuminating for the serious reader who enjoys the fictive ride and wants to take a look under the hood.”—Christopher Tilghman, The Washington Post

"[Wood] opens his introduction by referring to John Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing, published in 1857, 'a patient primer,' Wood writes, 'intended by casting a critic's eye over the business of creation, to help the practicing painter, the curious viewer, the ordinary art lover.' So How Fiction Works is, or is intended to be, a specialist's guide for the nonspecialist, and with this aim in view it remains resolutely nontechnical and amply accommodating. Wood displays his usual genius for apt quotation, and as always his enthusiasm for those writers about whom he is enthusiastic is both convincing and endearing. If Roland Barthes had not already used the title, this book might well have been called A Lover's Discourse . . . He mentions also E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera's three books on the art of fiction, but only in order delicately to dismiss them—of Kundera he remarks, with what is surely a tolerantly patrician smile, that 'occasionally we want his hands to be a bit inkier with text.' Barthes and Shklovsky on the other hand, 'thought like writers: they attended to style, to words, to form, to metaphor and imagery,' a trait which Wood shares in abundance. Yet in a profound way he disagrees with and even disapproves of them and, by implication, therefore, disagrees with all other critics who, like them, 'thought like writers alienated from creative instinct, and were drawn, like larcenous bankers, to raid again and again the very source that sustained them—literary style.' This tendency to stylistic pilfering, of which, as has been implied above, Wood himself is not entirely free, led his two admired predecessors to conclusions about the novel that are 'wrongheaded' and against which Wood's book is, he tells us, a sustained argument. After this bit of spirited internecine sparring Wood adopts a brisk and practical tone, listing some of the 'essential questions' about fiction that he will address: on the nature of realism, on the definition of metaphor, on the reality or otherwise of fictional character, on the importance of detail, on point of view, on imaginative sympathy; he sets out his hope that 'this book might be one which asks theoretical questions but answers them practically—or to say it differently, asks a critic's questions and offers a writer's answers.' All this is admirable, and admirably stated . . . As we see, then, Wood's aim is an admirably old-fashioned humanistic affirmation not only of the aesthetic but of the educational value inherent in art, and specifically in the art of fiction . . . Like the figures in our dreams, the characters we encounter in fiction are really us, and the story we are told is the story of ourselves. And therein resets the delightful paradox that the novelist's transcendent lies are eminently more truthful than all the facts in the world, that they are, in Wood's formulation, 'true lies.' This is what Wood means when, dealing with fiction, he speaks of the real. It is an unfashionable view, and not the only possible and surely not the only valid one, but in the hands of this fiercely committed critic, and consummate stylist, it compels us to look that way with him."—John Banville, The New York Review of Books

"Wood's models for the 'best' in fiction will not surprise either his admirers or his detractors. He has his contemporary favorites, but the models are the masters: Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, James and above all, never far from view, Flaubert. He tells us in his preface that the book 'asks theoretical questions but answers them practically,' and by practical, he means analysis of techniques as illustrated by a series of generally superb line-by-line readings. This is a technical book, a primer of sorts, of interest to the practicing writer but probably most useful and illuminating for the serious reader who enjoys the fictive ride and wants to take a look under the hood."—Christopher Tilghman, The Washington Post

"His essential point is this: Novels and short stories succeed or fail according to their capacity (a capacity that has progressed over the centuries rather like the march of science) to represent, affectingly and credibly, the actual workings of the human mind as it interacts with the real world. The mind and the world, as Wood defines them, are dependable, fixed phenomena, for the most part, possessed of natural, intrinsic qualities that fiction writers in their ink-stained lab coats measure, prod, explore and seek to illustrate using a rather limited range of instruments that can be endlessly adjusted . . . Wood’s precise, dialectical approach is well adapted to tracing the paradoxes behind standard literary conventions . . . he makes many nuanced observations about the fetishes and habits that mark individual writers’ styles."—The New York Times Book Review

"In his poem 'The Novelist,' W.H. Auden contrasts novelists with poets in terms of their different aptitudes. Poets can 'dash forward like hussars,' but novelists must '

Amazon Best of the Month, July 2008: The first thing you'll notice about How Fiction Works is its size. At 252 pages, it's a marvel of economy for a book that asks such a huge question and right away you'll want to know (as you might at the start of a new novel) what the author has in store. James Wood takes only his own bookshelves as his literary terrain for this study, and that in itself is the most delightful gift: he joins his audience as a reader, citing his chosen texts judiciously--ranging from Henry James (from whom he takes the best epigraph to a book I've ever read) to Nabokov, Joyce, Updike, and more--to explore not just how fiction works, mechanically speaking, but to reflect on how a novelist's choices make us feel that a novel ultimately works ... or doesn't. Wood remarks that you have to "read enough literature to be taught by it how to read it." His terrific bibliography will surely be a boon to anyone's education, but it's his masterful writing that you'll want to keep reading over the course of your life. --Anne Bartholomew

As Lev Grossman says on the cover, it is entertaining to watch Mr. Wood read. This is true. I feel like a trumpet player who's just put in another 1000 hours of practice and can now read music an octave higher. Yet while this is wonderful, I would rather the book be split into 1. The techniques of fiction and 2. How to read fiction.

His points about free indirect style left me wanting more, and beside David Jauss's book Alone With All That Could Happen I found this one of the most helpful publications I've read about how to get into a character. I especially love the excerpts from the masters of fiction--where Wood points out the one word that is the character's or the phrase that is the author's. I can't tell you how helpful this is.

As the book progresses, he delves into the philosophies of character and realism, arguing for realism against those who think its conventions tired. Wood's point is that all writers are looking for the real, or the truth, or what he terms `lifeness.' He's a wonderful thinker, and this conversation is definitely about how fiction works, but the argument no longer resides on the microscopic descriptions of craft many of us expect. It is a book about fiction which ranges from the micro to the macro levels of craft. An important expectation, I think.

I went into Powell's yesterday after having read this book. I looked at the wall of writing texts and thought 'there is nothing here which can offer me something I haven't read.' A silly thought, to be sure, but after reading Wood's book, I felt better prepared to write, in a way that left me cold to all the hopeful enthusiasms of other texts. A blasphemous feeling, maybe, but conclusive.

The title attracted my attention: I know what I like when I read it, but I don't always stop to analyse how it works, or even why. I also wondered, as I made a decision to read, whether a book of less than 300 pages could address this to my satisfaction.

I found the book interesting. Far from attempting definitive answers, Professor Wood poses a set of questions to consider as part of critical reading. Consider the following:

`What do we mean when we say we `know' a fictional character?'

`What constitutes a `telling' detail?'

`When is a metaphor successful?'

`Why do most endings of novels disappoint?'

Professor Wood covers the narrative and style of a range of different authors, including Homer, Austen, Woolf, Bellow, Beatrix Potter, Coetzee, Le Carre and Pynchon.

For me, this book is a starting point rather than a destination. I enjoyed the writing, didn't always share the conclusions and would like to consider further some of the other forms of fiction apart from novels.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

One the most enjoyable aspects of this wonderful little book is its brevity; a lesser writer would have written a book ten times as long. As a reader of fiction, I can attest that this is exactly the kind of thoughtful, heartfelt analysis that improves the experience of reading beyond measure. The simple, condensed and accessible style makes this a book that anyone who reads any type of fiction will doubtless appreciate.

Additionally, this edition (Picador, 2008) is one of the most elegantly designed books I've read in years. The layout, typeface, paper grade, etc., are all superb; everything about the book serves to calm and focus the reader on the ideas within. It's simply exceptional.

I loved this book. It's over two hundred pages but I could have read three times that much. I kept hoping he'd introduce more writers (he seems to have ready everyone), especially contemporary ones, although he does comment some on Delillo and Roth. His take down of Rick Moody's snobby assertion that the novel needs a kick in the butt was brilliant. It's not the hammer it's the carpenter, Rick!

If you love literature, read this book. It will make you a better reader. It's the equivalent of semesters in a college-level lit class.

As the old saw goes: "Don't ask me what I am reading. Ask me what I am re-reading." Wood's book How Fiction Works" tells me why I read certain works of fiction multiple times. It is a 'must' for any writer or reader of fiction who wants to know what makes certain authors' works so superb that they can be--and are--read again and again with pleasure. Wood's book is plainly stated, avoiding jargon, and brilliantly thought out, obviously based on many years of re-reading. His passion for his subject is contagious; his writing is a pleasure to read in itself. I read a borrowed copy of Wood's book and immediately bought my own copy upon finishing it. It's a book that I will re-read many times.