The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

Gardner's tone can be obnoxious. He continually references his own work, and he has very strong opinions about the purpose of literature, i.e. that a writer must believe in free will in order to be engaging, that shoddy work is an example of impurity in a writer's soul, that all good writing is subtly moral. Also, he rambles; the organization isn't very good. Some of his advice...more

Gardner's tone can be obnoxious. He continually references his own work, and he has very strong opinions about the purpose of literature, i.e. that a writer must believe in free will in order to be engaging, that shoddy work is an example of impurity in a writer's soul, that all good writing is subtly moral. Also, he rambles; the organization isn't very good. Some of his advice though, I think will be helpful: 1) Treat the "rules" only as tools to some purpose. 2) Use associations to create dynamic climaxes in longer forms, and the always popular 3) Write often and seriously.   hide

If you want to learn to write well, this is your book. Written by a man who was taken from us too soon.

THE book to read if you want to learn to write correctly.

Great, but one thing makes me uneasy... See my rating of his other book :P