English 114 Expository Writing- Personal Response to John Gardner

Personal Response to "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner

There’s a dream of mine I’ve been working on, the way someone works on an intricate knot or the way threads are woven into a pattern. The materials for this pattern fall into the form of words, and the sources of these materials are the books, movies and songs I read, see and hear. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner has made an addition to my supplies of thread, introducing new vibrant colors and rich and comforting textures.

“Art depends heavily on feeling, intuition, taste. (Gardner 7).” The thoughts I previously categorized as cluttered, unpredictable, or messy are reorganized by this sentence, forcing me to give myself credit for artistic ability that I previously neglected. He apprehends readers-writers (that includes me) of writer’s block, or “the first stage of aesthetic arthritis, the disease that ends up in pedantic rigidity and the atrophy of intuition (Gardner 3)”-- ironically so eloquent with his words that he makes it sound appealing. He has a way of instilling confidence in my ability to focus on the center instead of being distracted: “Seize the trunk of any science securely, and you have control of its branches (Gardner xi).” When I feel myself getting distracted by irrelevant thoughts, remembering this sentence is the cure.

Once I harness the ability to focus on the center, I will know what is at the heart of the matter. Namely, that is practice. For “the true writer is one for whom technique has become… second nature (Gardner 9).” Practice in reading and writing teaches me when or why something works. “If [a work of art] has no laws, or if its laws are incoherent, it fails, usually, on that basis (Gardner 3).” He encourages would-be writers by saying that “most of the people…who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers.”

I want to be a writer! Once you know what work has to be done, all you have left is to do it. Then it’s done. A main ingredient of this work is “good teaching supported by a deep-down love of writing.” Good teaching has been given to me, as well as a deep-down love of writing, especially this sentence: “Whereas the realist argues the reader into acceptance, the tale writer charms or lulls him into dropping objections,” and “persuades him to suspend disbelief… simply walks past our objections… winning our suspension of disbelief by the confidence and authority of the narrator’s voice (Gardner 24).” I aspire to this sentence in all the writing I do, finding ways to “distract the critical intelligence (Gardner 22),” …especially my own.
I can stop now, “not…because [this paper] seems to me to have at last reached perfection… but because I’m convinced that in its present stage it’s good enough (Gardner xi)."


These assignments were written late 2005 and early 2006.