What do you think?
Rate this book
From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction
Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, has been praised as -the best living American writer- (Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram). During his prestigious career, he has taught graduate fiction at Florida State University-his version of literary boot camp. Now Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction, the classic text on creative writing--the best such book on the market- according to James L. Marra of Temple University-introduces her edited transcripts of Butler-s thought-provoking lectures. From Where You Dream reimagines the process of writing as emotional rather than intellectual and tells writers how to achieve the dreamspace necessary for composing honest, inspired fiction. Proposing fiction as the exploration of the human condition with yearning as its compass, Butler reinterprets the traditional tools of the craft using the dynamics of desire. He offers invaluable insights into the nature of voice and shows how to experience fiction as a sensual, cinematic series of takes and scenes. Offering a direct view into the mind and craft of a literary master, From Where You Dream is an invaluable tool for the novice and experienced writer alike.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 2, 2005
260 people are currently reading
2021 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olen Butler
86 books451 followers“I’ll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period.”
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 214 reviews
April 9, 2009
3 stars
I got some good ideas out of this book. In Part I, The Lectures, I found useful points in the sections: The Zone; Yearning, and A Writer Prepares. In Part II, The Workshop, I thought a few suggestions were valid, mainly in the section, The Written Exercise. Part III, The Stories Analyzed, is when I put the book down. I picked it up again later, long enough to skim the rest of the text. Overall, I found about one-seventh of this book worthwhile.
The book is based on a semester’s worth of Butler’s lectures about the methods he employs in his own writing. The tone is therefore casual, but Butler still manages to toss out lines like, “…all the fiction you’ve written is mortally flawed.”
Although I did find useful tidbits in Part II, I found it painful reading. The four student volunteers completely opened themselves up to Butler in order to better learn their craft, but even as a reader I cringed for what he put those students through. To be fair, Butler believes he’s doing a good service, and he believes that through his Method, the use of “dreamspace” -- you must achieve a trancelike state in order to write from your unconscious, in order to write inspired fiction -- is based on his assessment that literary fiction is the exploration of the human condition, and yearning its compass.
In the section Yearning, he says, “…of the three fundamentals of fiction, there are two that aspiring writers never miss: first, that fiction is about human beings; second, that it’s about human emotion …but the third element, which is missing from virtually every student manuscript I’ve seen, has to do with the phenomenon of desire.” To me, this statement epitomizes the messages that run through this book: there are things to learn, and there is the author’s attitude towards his students.
Perhaps this book just wasn’t all that useful for me, personally. But I would still recommend that before spending money, you borrow this book from your local library, and then decide whether or not you think it would be worthwhile as a permanent addition to your bookshelf.
I got some good ideas out of this book. In Part I, The Lectures, I found useful points in the sections: The Zone; Yearning, and A Writer Prepares. In Part II, The Workshop, I thought a few suggestions were valid, mainly in the section, The Written Exercise. Part III, The Stories Analyzed, is when I put the book down. I picked it up again later, long enough to skim the rest of the text. Overall, I found about one-seventh of this book worthwhile.
The book is based on a semester’s worth of Butler’s lectures about the methods he employs in his own writing. The tone is therefore casual, but Butler still manages to toss out lines like, “…all the fiction you’ve written is mortally flawed.”
Although I did find useful tidbits in Part II, I found it painful reading. The four student volunteers completely opened themselves up to Butler in order to better learn their craft, but even as a reader I cringed for what he put those students through. To be fair, Butler believes he’s doing a good service, and he believes that through his Method, the use of “dreamspace” -- you must achieve a trancelike state in order to write from your unconscious, in order to write inspired fiction -- is based on his assessment that literary fiction is the exploration of the human condition, and yearning its compass.
In the section Yearning, he says, “…of the three fundamentals of fiction, there are two that aspiring writers never miss: first, that fiction is about human beings; second, that it’s about human emotion …but the third element, which is missing from virtually every student manuscript I’ve seen, has to do with the phenomenon of desire.” To me, this statement epitomizes the messages that run through this book: there are things to learn, and there is the author’s attitude towards his students.
Perhaps this book just wasn’t all that useful for me, personally. But I would still recommend that before spending money, you borrow this book from your local library, and then decide whether or not you think it would be worthwhile as a permanent addition to your bookshelf.
August 6, 2021
It's definitely one writer's perspective, with the particular wisdom and anxieties that brings. But the points and ideas felt well explained to me, and the examples were generally useful and made me think about how to improve my writing. I particularly liked the chapter on cinema of the mind, about using film techniques in writing.
July 31, 2014
Maass mentioned this book in Writing 21st Century Fiction, specifically that Butler was the best teacher of "intuitive" writing. I was intrigued.
I think this is a wonderful counterpoint to Maass's books, too. Maass's perspective is commercial, whereas Butler's is literary. At least in that last book, Maass came off much like a writing coach (to me), whereas Butler is a teacher. This book is a collection of transcripts of his lectures on writing, as well as some stories being workshopped in his class. Overall, Butler's approach is less about reader reaction and more about reader experience...
And those two things are obviously quite similar, but the spin is different. One of my favorite concepts from Maass is microtension, where you make sure every element of every scene has some underlying conflict to keep a quick pace that the reader will respond to by turning pages. With Butler, that same pull is achieved through the emphasis, as you write, on the character's yearning in each scene. If there is no desire of any kind, there is no scene. For the most authentic effect, Butler demands that you get out of your intellectual head and write from the emotional center of every description, action, and piece of dialogue.
I have to admit: I was surprised by how fresh his approach seemed. I don't know that it will work for me, but its intuitive, fluid nature might suit my pantsing tendencies better than all the structure/outlining books I've been studying. I'm going to try it. He even suggests an index-carding technique for plotting that still emphasizes discovery (or at least sounds like it does -- we'll see).
One of the cornerstones of the technique is much like sense memory in method acting. He encourages method writing, basically, which should result in something rich with description and emotion. Some people are turned off by his reference to accessing the right mental place for this as a trance. It does seem a bit new-agey, I know, but he is referring to that state of flow, when the writing is skipping your rational brain and effortlessly appearing on the page. With practice and regular exercising of the ability, he feels you should be able to enter that state nearly upon command and produce writing that has all the appropriate emotion, yearning, etc.
But the chapter that resonated with me most was the one titled "Cinema of the Mind." He likens the building blocks of novels to the building blocks of films. I've certainly come across this concept before, and have read some screenwriting books about plot structure, but here he emphasizes the final product: the visual experience of the movie-goer. As writers, we are the directors choosing the shots.
Thinking about this in terms of reader experience really crystallized a few things for me in considering what to put on the page and what to leave out as the first draft is happening. It's very easy to add something to a scene, a description or stage direction of some sort, just because we know that it happens. But is it important? Is it what the audience needs to see? Is it something they already know or can infer? It seems obvious when you hear it, and there's a lot of advice for pantsers that says, "Just put it down and fix it later," but when you end up with 125,000 words and need to pare it down to 80,000, that "later" part is really daunting. If you're the intuitive, pantser type, this perspective can help you be more efficient and save yourself some work later without feeling like you're being forced into making an outline.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'd put this one on the favorites shelf quite yet, but with all the writing books I read, it's nice to find something new. I'm looking forward to trying some of the techniques to see how they mesh with my process.
I think this is a wonderful counterpoint to Maass's books, too. Maass's perspective is commercial, whereas Butler's is literary. At least in that last book, Maass came off much like a writing coach (to me), whereas Butler is a teacher. This book is a collection of transcripts of his lectures on writing, as well as some stories being workshopped in his class. Overall, Butler's approach is less about reader reaction and more about reader experience...
And those two things are obviously quite similar, but the spin is different. One of my favorite concepts from Maass is microtension, where you make sure every element of every scene has some underlying conflict to keep a quick pace that the reader will respond to by turning pages. With Butler, that same pull is achieved through the emphasis, as you write, on the character's yearning in each scene. If there is no desire of any kind, there is no scene. For the most authentic effect, Butler demands that you get out of your intellectual head and write from the emotional center of every description, action, and piece of dialogue.
I have to admit: I was surprised by how fresh his approach seemed. I don't know that it will work for me, but its intuitive, fluid nature might suit my pantsing tendencies better than all the structure/outlining books I've been studying. I'm going to try it. He even suggests an index-carding technique for plotting that still emphasizes discovery (or at least sounds like it does -- we'll see).
One of the cornerstones of the technique is much like sense memory in method acting. He encourages method writing, basically, which should result in something rich with description and emotion. Some people are turned off by his reference to accessing the right mental place for this as a trance. It does seem a bit new-agey, I know, but he is referring to that state of flow, when the writing is skipping your rational brain and effortlessly appearing on the page. With practice and regular exercising of the ability, he feels you should be able to enter that state nearly upon command and produce writing that has all the appropriate emotion, yearning, etc.
But the chapter that resonated with me most was the one titled "Cinema of the Mind." He likens the building blocks of novels to the building blocks of films. I've certainly come across this concept before, and have read some screenwriting books about plot structure, but here he emphasizes the final product: the visual experience of the movie-goer. As writers, we are the directors choosing the shots.
Thinking about this in terms of reader experience really crystallized a few things for me in considering what to put on the page and what to leave out as the first draft is happening. It's very easy to add something to a scene, a description or stage direction of some sort, just because we know that it happens. But is it important? Is it what the audience needs to see? Is it something they already know or can infer? It seems obvious when you hear it, and there's a lot of advice for pantsers that says, "Just put it down and fix it later," but when you end up with 125,000 words and need to pare it down to 80,000, that "later" part is really daunting. If you're the intuitive, pantser type, this perspective can help you be more efficient and save yourself some work later without feeling like you're being forced into making an outline.
Anyway, I'm not sure I'd put this one on the favorites shelf quite yet, but with all the writing books I read, it's nice to find something new. I'm looking forward to trying some of the techniques to see how they mesh with my process.
June 29, 2007
This guy is a genius or insane. I will not be able to tell unless I try his technique. He is a Florida State prof. and this book is a series of lectures. He does capture his audience well when he says if you are reading this book you are probably smarter than everyone you know. You have always been. You probably have different opinions than most of your peers and march to your own drum. You have always been rewarded academically for your literal memory. Yes, yes and yes. However, literal memory is the enemy of art. He shows us how to shut it off and tap into a trance state to write. He believes that all novels should be developed this way if they are to be art. According to the author, writing either by detailed planning or discovery (my style) will result in crap. I'm willing to give it a shot as he has dozens of published novels and I have . . . crap.
January 25, 2013
I'll start with what I didn't like: Robert Butler is extremely arrogant. He proposes a way to write and declares it the only way to write. It kind of reminded me of those books I'd read when my kids were little where they'd tell you that if you didn't follow certain steps to get your kids to sleep, your kids would grow up to be zombies and would never sleep, ever. Then he goes on to insult numerous people in the industry (for example, he calls Stephen King a "non-artist". Really? I hope to become non-artist enough to write a book like 11/22/63 one day), and finally goes so far to say that basically every other writing professor has it wrong, so then he has to back pedal and admit that he's not talking about his colleagues at Florida State.
That said, if you can get through his bluster and arrogance, there's a lot of value in this book, which is basically a transcription of his lectures to students. He talks about achieving the "dreamspace" to write creative, inspired fiction and he does a great job of showing insightful examples of where writers generalize, summarize and keep the reader at a distance. He talks about the "emotional reaction to a work of art...you do not fill in from yourself; you leave yourself. You enter into the character and into the character's sensibility and psychology and spirit and world." And then he discusses ways that this is achieved in writing. It seems that he is a fairly intolerable person, yet a brilliant writer, so it's still worth the read.
That said, if you can get through his bluster and arrogance, there's a lot of value in this book, which is basically a transcription of his lectures to students. He talks about achieving the "dreamspace" to write creative, inspired fiction and he does a great job of showing insightful examples of where writers generalize, summarize and keep the reader at a distance. He talks about the "emotional reaction to a work of art...you do not fill in from yourself; you leave yourself. You enter into the character and into the character's sensibility and psychology and spirit and world." And then he discusses ways that this is achieved in writing. It seems that he is a fairly intolerable person, yet a brilliant writer, so it's still worth the read.
October 3, 2012
For all those who revere postmodern theory, “From Where You Dream” will both inspire and infuriate. Butler is a successful fiction writer who shares some valuable insights about his own craft, and his creative way of piecing together seemingly random, dreamed-up scenes on the structural level is definitely reflective of postmodern literary movement. But in the same lectures, he undermines the diversity of processes that exist among story tellers by arguing there are "fundamental truths" which separate literature from non-literature, thus reinforcing limited and dualistic perspectives on art.
Butler argues that artists are sensualists, not intellectuals. He immediately adopts a traditional perspective on the nature of art and intellectualism that is quite alienating to the contemporary aspiring writer – that art and intellectualism are two polar opposites, antithetical concepts that necessary repel each other. What Butler does not consider is that intellectualism is fed by experience – the information we process through our senses. Our ideas (a word which he strongly rejects) are born from what we hear, what we smell, what we see and touch and taste. Intellectualism, therefore, can be deeply sensual, emotional, etc. Indeed, cultural studies are a beautiful example of intellectualism that rises from lived experience and story telling!
What Butler should state is that our *intentions* as artists shape the heart of our work. When you approach a project, whether it be a painting or a novel or a poem, and you aim to win accolades, your work falls flat. When you create a story because you want to be a “writer” or “meaningful,” it almost necessitates that your work deflates. What Butler wants his pupils to understand is that when they set out to write a story, it should come naturally and organically from a part of them that earnestly desires to create (or, rather, recreate) experience. Indeed, they shouldn't "set out" to write a story at all, but rather allow the story to emerge from their inner self. This is a powerful concept!
Yet should a story about a man who yearns to kill another man emerge from your inner self, you're writing "entertainment fiction." This is because the desire (or *yearning*) of your character is base in nature, limited to a low-brow cultural plane. If, on the other hand, a story about a man searching for his connection to the other or his self, you're writing "true" literature, artistic prose of the higher plane. Butler distinguishes unabashedly between the works of Stephen King and Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Jean Paul Sartre. He doesn't explore the possibility for overlap or ambiguity.
As a result of his own black and white approach to reading and writing prose, Butler traps himself in contradiction. On the one hand, he urges for pure, visceral reaction to literature -- but on the other hand, he provides scholarly analysis of different works to demonstrate this point. Another example...On the one hand, Butler pushes students to write in an unconscious trance-like state, but then penalizes them for their natural inclination toward statements and descriptions that are less than glorified "moment-to-moment" imaginings of sensual detail.
Ultimately, I *was* deeply impacted by Butler’s teachings. I honestly couldn't put this book down because his forceful approach is so absorbing. Butler himself speaks from his “white-hot center” and I appreciate the teacher who walks their own talk. In the same measure, however, I take issue with the way Butler approaches his students and the global community of readers and writers. I would have appreciate Butler's teachings so much more if they weren't presented as the penultimate means of producing *real* art, however Butler chooses to define it.
Butler argues that artists are sensualists, not intellectuals. He immediately adopts a traditional perspective on the nature of art and intellectualism that is quite alienating to the contemporary aspiring writer – that art and intellectualism are two polar opposites, antithetical concepts that necessary repel each other. What Butler does not consider is that intellectualism is fed by experience – the information we process through our senses. Our ideas (a word which he strongly rejects) are born from what we hear, what we smell, what we see and touch and taste. Intellectualism, therefore, can be deeply sensual, emotional, etc. Indeed, cultural studies are a beautiful example of intellectualism that rises from lived experience and story telling!
What Butler should state is that our *intentions* as artists shape the heart of our work. When you approach a project, whether it be a painting or a novel or a poem, and you aim to win accolades, your work falls flat. When you create a story because you want to be a “writer” or “meaningful,” it almost necessitates that your work deflates. What Butler wants his pupils to understand is that when they set out to write a story, it should come naturally and organically from a part of them that earnestly desires to create (or, rather, recreate) experience. Indeed, they shouldn't "set out" to write a story at all, but rather allow the story to emerge from their inner self. This is a powerful concept!
Yet should a story about a man who yearns to kill another man emerge from your inner self, you're writing "entertainment fiction." This is because the desire (or *yearning*) of your character is base in nature, limited to a low-brow cultural plane. If, on the other hand, a story about a man searching for his connection to the other or his self, you're writing "true" literature, artistic prose of the higher plane. Butler distinguishes unabashedly between the works of Stephen King and Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Jean Paul Sartre. He doesn't explore the possibility for overlap or ambiguity.
As a result of his own black and white approach to reading and writing prose, Butler traps himself in contradiction. On the one hand, he urges for pure, visceral reaction to literature -- but on the other hand, he provides scholarly analysis of different works to demonstrate this point. Another example...On the one hand, Butler pushes students to write in an unconscious trance-like state, but then penalizes them for their natural inclination toward statements and descriptions that are less than glorified "moment-to-moment" imaginings of sensual detail.
Ultimately, I *was* deeply impacted by Butler’s teachings. I honestly couldn't put this book down because his forceful approach is so absorbing. Butler himself speaks from his “white-hot center” and I appreciate the teacher who walks their own talk. In the same measure, however, I take issue with the way Butler approaches his students and the global community of readers and writers. I would have appreciate Butler's teachings so much more if they weren't presented as the penultimate means of producing *real* art, however Butler chooses to define it.
April 15, 2012
To be an artist means never to avert your eyes. — Akira Kurosawa (page 10)
Robert Olen Butler began his career as an actor and teaches what he calls method writing. Method writing correlates with the two principles of Stanislavski’s method acting: 1) the actor���s body is an instrument that must remain supple, strong and prepared, and 2) craft is always secondary to the truth of emotional connection. For method writing, however, it is the artist’s imagination that must remain supple and strong.
Butler tells us that good fiction stirs us up, whereas bad fiction analyzes, explains, and bores us. He says artists should get out of the habit of saying they have ideas; art does not come from ideas. Rather, it comes from our “white hot center,” a place where we dream. Stay out of your head and in the zone. This can be especially difficult for writers, because language is abstract. For other artists (e.g., photographers, painters, and musicians) the medium itself elicits a sensory response. A painter might begin with an idea, but when the paint hits the canvas, what ultimately confronts us is color and texture. Even an abstract painting evokes feelings.
In my favorite chapter, “Cinema of the Mind,” Butler compares fiction technique with film technique. With an excerpt from Hemmingway, he shows how a skillful author can quickly move a story along with minimal words. The narrative voice switches from long shots to close ups. There are no slow transitions; Hemingway simply cuts from scene to scene. Using montage, he carefully places one vision next to another to create meaning.
Robert Olen Butler began his career as an actor and teaches what he calls method writing. Method writing correlates with the two principles of Stanislavski’s method acting: 1) the actor���s body is an instrument that must remain supple, strong and prepared, and 2) craft is always secondary to the truth of emotional connection. For method writing, however, it is the artist’s imagination that must remain supple and strong.
Butler tells us that good fiction stirs us up, whereas bad fiction analyzes, explains, and bores us. He says artists should get out of the habit of saying they have ideas; art does not come from ideas. Rather, it comes from our “white hot center,” a place where we dream. Stay out of your head and in the zone. This can be especially difficult for writers, because language is abstract. For other artists (e.g., photographers, painters, and musicians) the medium itself elicits a sensory response. A painter might begin with an idea, but when the paint hits the canvas, what ultimately confronts us is color and texture. Even an abstract painting evokes feelings.
In my favorite chapter, “Cinema of the Mind,” Butler compares fiction technique with film technique. With an excerpt from Hemmingway, he shows how a skillful author can quickly move a story along with minimal words. The narrative voice switches from long shots to close ups. There are no slow transitions; Hemingway simply cuts from scene to scene. Using montage, he carefully places one vision next to another to create meaning.
July 21, 2017
Robert Olen Butler is a writer of note, particularly well known for his award-winning short stories. He used to be a Method actor, and he employs techniques of Method acting in his writing method (pun intentional).
While there are a few gems of advice in here, this is by far the most pretentious writing book I have ever read and parts were absolutely insufferable. His fault is not that he's a bad writer, in fact much of his advice is good, but that he shows so little respect for other creators and artists. He assumes his way is the only way. He also talks about certain ideas - such as the filmic/dramatic qualities of writing and of achieving FLOW states to write - which were written about previously and more clearly than here. And he confers an unnecessary mystique to writing which I found both hokey and misleading.
Butler makes sweeping generalizations about "entertainment writing" - genre writing, in particular - based on very little evidence of having read quality genre writing. He premises that only "literary fiction" is "artistic," and puts-down overly "intellectual" writers like Sartre along with the "entertainment" authors like Stephen King. He puts dreamy, "sensual" artists on a pedestal and smacks down those who plan and outline and sweat through drafts, yet in the end, he's a planner, too. Also, I found his assumptions about literary writers to be poorly researched. Many of the writers he ascribes "dreamy" and "sensual" qualities to actually outlined, planned, and intellectualized. We have evidence of this through the private papers, interviews, and so on they left behind.
Useful tips Butler offers:
- How to integrate sensory experiences into your writing without providing an intellectual barrier to interpret them for the reader.
- How to achieve a FLOW state through certain healthy writing habits.
- How to organize your writing as it develops.
- How to incorporate memory and flashes of fears/beliefs/hopes into your writing.
But I'd advise that any reader take his advice with more than a pinch of salt.
While there are a few gems of advice in here, this is by far the most pretentious writing book I have ever read and parts were absolutely insufferable. His fault is not that he's a bad writer, in fact much of his advice is good, but that he shows so little respect for other creators and artists. He assumes his way is the only way. He also talks about certain ideas - such as the filmic/dramatic qualities of writing and of achieving FLOW states to write - which were written about previously and more clearly than here. And he confers an unnecessary mystique to writing which I found both hokey and misleading.
Butler makes sweeping generalizations about "entertainment writing" - genre writing, in particular - based on very little evidence of having read quality genre writing. He premises that only "literary fiction" is "artistic," and puts-down overly "intellectual" writers like Sartre along with the "entertainment" authors like Stephen King. He puts dreamy, "sensual" artists on a pedestal and smacks down those who plan and outline and sweat through drafts, yet in the end, he's a planner, too. Also, I found his assumptions about literary writers to be poorly researched. Many of the writers he ascribes "dreamy" and "sensual" qualities to actually outlined, planned, and intellectualized. We have evidence of this through the private papers, interviews, and so on they left behind.
Useful tips Butler offers:
- How to integrate sensory experiences into your writing without providing an intellectual barrier to interpret them for the reader.
- How to achieve a FLOW state through certain healthy writing habits.
- How to organize your writing as it develops.
- How to incorporate memory and flashes of fears/beliefs/hopes into your writing.
But I'd advise that any reader take his advice with more than a pinch of salt.
January 2, 2015
I’m conflicted about this book. On one hand, it offers excellent examples of prose dissection so as to show you the cinematic way of writing (Hemingway, Atwood…), the plotting (in the shape of a character’s yearning), and several lit crit examples (students’ sketches analyzed). On another, it offers a new way of approaching writing by using “dreamstorming”, and this can be a bit disorienting to beginning writers. I don’t think writers should read books on writing until they’re mature enough to take away great lessons from them. Mind you, this is my personal opinion, and I’ve been writing full time only for 2 years. I might as well be wrong. I don’t remember how this book landed in my lap. Someone recommended it. I would say, if you’re at a place where you’re able to stand your ground in the face of any writing advice, please read it. It will give you invaluable insights. If you’re still shaky and a beginner like me, wait. Put this book on your reading list and take a couple years before getting to it. Build up your own seeing and understanding of the craft before you read this. The methods described here are very specific and powerful, and you will be tempted to try them. They might help you get on your path, they might throw you off. I will, however, say, that The Anecdote Exercise chapter is a must-read for every writer, regardless of experience. It will help you avoid typical “lazy prose” mistakes.
September 7, 2009
I've had this book around for a while and during my holiday I finally dipped into it, and read most of it in a day or so. (I did leave out the students' stories). I do a lot of things that Butler recommends: I try/do go into a trance state for fiction writing; I use cinematic elements, like the speeding up and slowing down of time; I try and avoid abstraction and generalisation; I don't use his card system but I have my own similar 'notebook' system where I go through different drafts in page-a-day diaries; I agree there has to be some element of yearning in the character. I agree with Bonnie
( http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... )that it was excrutiating reading the way he conducted his anecdote seminars with his poor students, but felt it would be a good exercise to do, change an anecdote into a moment by moment sense experience with no analysis. It was interesting to read the bad story and good story he provided. I'm well on the way to being a Butlered writer. So why have I not got a list of titles instead of one book? Because I don't do what he and every other successful author I know recommends - write every day. Until I do I'll just be a dabbler.
( http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... )that it was excrutiating reading the way he conducted his anecdote seminars with his poor students, but felt it would be a good exercise to do, change an anecdote into a moment by moment sense experience with no analysis. It was interesting to read the bad story and good story he provided. I'm well on the way to being a Butlered writer. So why have I not got a list of titles instead of one book? Because I don't do what he and every other successful author I know recommends - write every day. Until I do I'll just be a dabbler.
February 26, 2012
This book must be read from beginning to end. To skim, or try to get a general sense of it will be to lose the power of his tone. He gives measured and specific advice not only on getting to the dreamspace, but his comforting words on dealing with rejection, insights into the state of modern literary fiction never seemed more appropriate. He addresses, as do all master teachers, the importance of reading and he explains how to read— both for pleasure and for criticism.
“You should read slowly. You should never read a work of literary art faster than would allow you to hear the narrative voice in your head. Speed-reading is one reason editors, and not incidentally, book reviewers can be so utterly wrongheaded about a particular work of art.”
Butler’s methods are very prescribed; about how to tap into the dreamspace, how and when to write, even how to journal. This might be a turn off for some, but I found it a fascinating insight into one artist's process.
Butler argues convincingly for the effectiveness of his methods throughout the book, one of which is using index cards to record scenes and structure the novel. He outlines how to fill out the cards, and why one must not vary from his suggestions. Another example of how specific he gets is in an exercise later in the book where he has a student recall an anecdote with the most sensory detail possible, focusing on where in the body a sense and emotion comes from. He asks his student questions like, “How did you know your brother was behind you?” and “Where did you feel his presence?” There is also a written exercise that focused students on an object that evoked anxiety. These, as well as his discussions of how dreams and films work, illustrate how we already deep down know how to get to the core of a scene, and the corresponding emotion.
This was my favorite writing book for many years. I am happy to find that everything that struck me as important when I first picked it up is still very much relevant to today.
“You should read slowly. You should never read a work of literary art faster than would allow you to hear the narrative voice in your head. Speed-reading is one reason editors, and not incidentally, book reviewers can be so utterly wrongheaded about a particular work of art.”
Butler’s methods are very prescribed; about how to tap into the dreamspace, how and when to write, even how to journal. This might be a turn off for some, but I found it a fascinating insight into one artist's process.
Butler argues convincingly for the effectiveness of his methods throughout the book, one of which is using index cards to record scenes and structure the novel. He outlines how to fill out the cards, and why one must not vary from his suggestions. Another example of how specific he gets is in an exercise later in the book where he has a student recall an anecdote with the most sensory detail possible, focusing on where in the body a sense and emotion comes from. He asks his student questions like, “How did you know your brother was behind you?” and “Where did you feel his presence?” There is also a written exercise that focused students on an object that evoked anxiety. These, as well as his discussions of how dreams and films work, illustrate how we already deep down know how to get to the core of a scene, and the corresponding emotion.
This was my favorite writing book for many years. I am happy to find that everything that struck me as important when I first picked it up is still very much relevant to today.
July 30, 2007
While it had it's good points here and there - his tone comes off as condescending to the readers - which makes it sort of hard to get through it in general. The advice can work for people - but it just didn't mesh with my taste.
Read
January 3, 2022I only occasionally read books on writing these days. This was among the better ones I've seen in a while, in terms of my own needs--rather than being yet another how-to of the basics of commercial fiction, here the first part consists of transcribed lectures to a class of creative writing students, and captured this particular author's approach (I didn't read all of the exercises and other teaching-related material in the second half). Butler's approach to writing is akin to my own, so it was interesting to see how it related.
The significant thing we have in common is a reliance on getting into a species of semi-trance rather than either plotting with an outline or laboring through endless drafts toward a final result. We spend a fair amount of time (length varies a lot for me, from days to years; he goes for many weeks) mulling over an idea (consciously and less consciously) until it feels ready for us to really begin writing the novel and things start to flow. Butler has a specific system for getting his ideas down during the pre-writing period, which involves making very brief notes that feature sensory data. Many index cards are involved. His specifics don't appeal to me--I don't really have a thought until it's a phrase or preferably some sentences, and I've never succeeded in using index cards for anything but drawing on the back side. But I'm completely with him on the value of taking time to tune in to just what the story is going to be (listening to it, not dictating to it) and letting the prepared mind move forward in a mix of conscious and trance.
Butler has more of a fixation with sensory detail than I can really go along with. I agree that sensory detail is a wonderful thing, but I don't think all works of literature need it in equal amounts (ever hear of Ivy Compton Burnett?), or that every aspiring writer will do very well with his sensory exercises (ever hear of people who have aphantasia or are on that end of the scale? I don't have aphantasia, but I don't visualize very well despite being an art historian). I'm also not convinced that every work of fiction needs to be driven by the protagonist's desire for something, even though that's very often, perhaps usually, the case.
The lecture on learning to write fiction by studying film is excellent. I took some film history courses in college and can attest that they were hugely significant for my writing, particularly thinking in terms of montage.
Some readers have objected to Butler's dividing fiction into commercial vs art. This doesn't really bother me. I've enjoyed much so-called commercial fiction/genre fiction, and plenty of commercially successful and/or genre fiction is as well written or better written than some literary fiction. However, commercial and genre fiction have formulas and rules. Literary fiction can pick and choose which if any formulas and rules it follows. Butler is not even writing about experimental literary fiction, he's writing about a particular form of literary fiction that in fact has often been very commercially successful. What I care about is that he's more interested in the depth of the work than in artificial ways of constructing a plot and characters.
So--some readers will love this book and some will find it baffling or useless. Depends on your goals and where you are in your development as a writer. I enjoyed seeing someone promote a state of semi-trance for writing, and I found his discussion of film intelligent and useful.
The significant thing we have in common is a reliance on getting into a species of semi-trance rather than either plotting with an outline or laboring through endless drafts toward a final result. We spend a fair amount of time (length varies a lot for me, from days to years; he goes for many weeks) mulling over an idea (consciously and less consciously) until it feels ready for us to really begin writing the novel and things start to flow. Butler has a specific system for getting his ideas down during the pre-writing period, which involves making very brief notes that feature sensory data. Many index cards are involved. His specifics don't appeal to me--I don't really have a thought until it's a phrase or preferably some sentences, and I've never succeeded in using index cards for anything but drawing on the back side. But I'm completely with him on the value of taking time to tune in to just what the story is going to be (listening to it, not dictating to it) and letting the prepared mind move forward in a mix of conscious and trance.
Butler has more of a fixation with sensory detail than I can really go along with. I agree that sensory detail is a wonderful thing, but I don't think all works of literature need it in equal amounts (ever hear of Ivy Compton Burnett?), or that every aspiring writer will do very well with his sensory exercises (ever hear of people who have aphantasia or are on that end of the scale? I don't have aphantasia, but I don't visualize very well despite being an art historian). I'm also not convinced that every work of fiction needs to be driven by the protagonist's desire for something, even though that's very often, perhaps usually, the case.
The lecture on learning to write fiction by studying film is excellent. I took some film history courses in college and can attest that they were hugely significant for my writing, particularly thinking in terms of montage.
Some readers have objected to Butler's dividing fiction into commercial vs art. This doesn't really bother me. I've enjoyed much so-called commercial fiction/genre fiction, and plenty of commercially successful and/or genre fiction is as well written or better written than some literary fiction. However, commercial and genre fiction have formulas and rules. Literary fiction can pick and choose which if any formulas and rules it follows. Butler is not even writing about experimental literary fiction, he's writing about a particular form of literary fiction that in fact has often been very commercially successful. What I care about is that he's more interested in the depth of the work than in artificial ways of constructing a plot and characters.
So--some readers will love this book and some will find it baffling or useless. Depends on your goals and where you are in your development as a writer. I enjoyed seeing someone promote a state of semi-trance for writing, and I found his discussion of film intelligent and useful.
May 29, 2013
Butler offers some fascinating advice and a unique - and very demanding - perspective on composition, specifically fiction writing but with application to all forms of communication. His challenge to a would-be author is not only to "get out of your head," but almost "get out of language." Sounds impossible, but what he really wants us to give up is the constant urge to summarize what happens and then characterize the meaning of the events. We are often told "Show, don't tell," and he expands the charge to include having the reader smell, touch, experience the physical "raw data" along with our character, allowing them to create meaning as a result of their reading. This is much harder than it sounds, and some of his exercises (this book implements his advice by putting us in the classroom with his students) illustrate this difficulty. I had to renew this book several times, because I could only digest small bites at any given time, but every time I dipped in for more I closed the book more satisfied. Compared to this some of the "You can write - it's easy!" offerings seem so shallow unhelpful.
November 8, 2023
Butler's got occasional moments of brilliance (genuinely, the approach of plot as "yearning challenged and thwarted" fundamentally changed how I approach revision), but for every nugget of brilliance is pages and pages of shit brain fungus where he jerks himself off endlessly. These lectures feel more like performance art for the audience of one (himself) than actual feedback and concepts he hopes to impart on his students.
I also am inherently distrustful of any white person who claims to have "Vietnamesed" themself by *checks notes* being a spy in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
I also am inherently distrustful of any white person who claims to have "Vietnamesed" themself by *checks notes* being a spy in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
December 12, 2021
One of my favorite teachers at the Writer’s Studio quoted this book, and because I respect her so much, I actually purchased it, which I suppose is a good thing because it took me months to finish. Its premise is undeniable: stories are better when they’re written from the heart instead of the head. The trouble is, that advice made me so self-conscious, I can no longer write anything, including this review, without first asking myself, “Head or heart?” So this is a writing book that simultaneously gave me excellent advice and a bad case of writer’s block.
Schools teach us to write from our heads. Writing from the heart, or more precisely, from the unconscious, is often unpleasant. Our richest emotions are usually the ones we’d rather avoid. I’ve caught myself dodging, deflecting, and intellectualizing many, many times in the months I was slogging through the book. Yet it was all worthwhile because it changed my approach to journaling.
Before this book, my journal was mostly me sorting out my goals for the future, both for the day ahead and for the longer term. Butler recommends writing down your dreams when you can remember them – hence, the title. Dreams are products of the unconscious, and the goal of storytelling is to entrance the reader into a dream world. But on those mornings when you don’t remember, he advises you choose your most potent emotion of the previous day and write about it as an unfolding scene, relying on sights, sounds, smells, and bodily sensations instead of analysis and interpretation. If that sounds simple, I assure you: it’s difficult to sustain.
Ordinarily, any book that gives me practical writing advice that I actually implement will get a 5-star rating, but in this case, I’m docking a star. Butler is creative writing professor, and the book is made up of his lectures, as well as samples of his students’ work with his critiques. Even though his advice would improve their stories, at times his tone was arrogant and discouraging. If I got writer’s block just from reading the book, how did the students feel?
If you’re a serious writer, this book is a must-read, but don’t expect any cheerleading. Read it for his insights, and then psych yourself up with something like You Are A Writer afterward. You’ll need the encouragement.
Schools teach us to write from our heads. Writing from the heart, or more precisely, from the unconscious, is often unpleasant. Our richest emotions are usually the ones we’d rather avoid. I’ve caught myself dodging, deflecting, and intellectualizing many, many times in the months I was slogging through the book. Yet it was all worthwhile because it changed my approach to journaling.
Before this book, my journal was mostly me sorting out my goals for the future, both for the day ahead and for the longer term. Butler recommends writing down your dreams when you can remember them – hence, the title. Dreams are products of the unconscious, and the goal of storytelling is to entrance the reader into a dream world. But on those mornings when you don’t remember, he advises you choose your most potent emotion of the previous day and write about it as an unfolding scene, relying on sights, sounds, smells, and bodily sensations instead of analysis and interpretation. If that sounds simple, I assure you: it’s difficult to sustain.
Ordinarily, any book that gives me practical writing advice that I actually implement will get a 5-star rating, but in this case, I’m docking a star. Butler is creative writing professor, and the book is made up of his lectures, as well as samples of his students’ work with his critiques. Even though his advice would improve their stories, at times his tone was arrogant and discouraging. If I got writer’s block just from reading the book, how did the students feel?
If you’re a serious writer, this book is a must-read, but don’t expect any cheerleading. Read it for his insights, and then psych yourself up with something like You Are A Writer afterward. You’ll need the encouragement.
May 7, 2015
Well, I got to say, I found the book intriguing at first––the techniques for tapping into that "trance-like state"––but, then he blatantly described Stephen King as a "non-artist". Give me a freaking break. This is the literary snobbery that turns me away from any self-proclaimed artist. Political mudslinging would be a metaphor I would use. I am having trouble continuing anything further in this book, and I am quite disgruntled.
I recall a quote from Stephen King, "I have spent a good many years since–too many, I think–being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.”
Stephen King has an excellent hold on the english language, and the ability to manipulate and mold it into scary stories (The Shining), heart-felt stories (The Green Mile, Stand By Me) and the list goes on, and on. More than Mr. Butler.
How could anybody aspiring to be a writer listen this BS?!
If you are interested in writing, do yourself a HUGE favor: Google quotes on Stephen King, and other excellent writers. Also, there is an excellent book by Melissa Donovan called "Adventures in Writing". Excellent, excellent, excellent.
And many wonderful people to inspire you, help you, teach you, and nurture your writing to begin blooming.
This book is like a insect eating away at any blooming inspiration that you may have to write. Just plain unsightly.
Read and write. Write and read.
I feel I have wasted my money on this book. But, I did learn a very valuable lesson:
This is what a position as a professor and a Pulitzer Prize will get you. False prestige.
I recall a quote from Stephen King, "I have spent a good many years since–too many, I think–being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.”
Stephen King has an excellent hold on the english language, and the ability to manipulate and mold it into scary stories (The Shining), heart-felt stories (The Green Mile, Stand By Me) and the list goes on, and on. More than Mr. Butler.
How could anybody aspiring to be a writer listen this BS?!
If you are interested in writing, do yourself a HUGE favor: Google quotes on Stephen King, and other excellent writers. Also, there is an excellent book by Melissa Donovan called "Adventures in Writing". Excellent, excellent, excellent.
And many wonderful people to inspire you, help you, teach you, and nurture your writing to begin blooming.
This book is like a insect eating away at any blooming inspiration that you may have to write. Just plain unsightly.
Read and write. Write and read.
I feel I have wasted my money on this book. But, I did learn a very valuable lesson:
This is what a position as a professor and a Pulitzer Prize will get you. False prestige.
September 22, 2015
Describes beautifully the magical process that produces fiction.
Not only does Butler illuminate “dreamstorming” in this book, but he shares specifics about what works and doesn’t work in three stories submitted by his students. Hugely helpful.
He also guides four students through an “anecdote exercise,” encouraging them to be the camera’s eye as they tell a personal story at the front of the class, and resist being seduced by the relative ease of generalization, summary, and analysis. Readers get to see the exercise in action, to watch the students both fumble and break through. We feel their panic and elation as they (and we) learn a new skill.
Entering a writer’s trance through the cinema of the mind, giving up the need to know what’s going to happen, recording moment by moment through the senses, aligning every element of the story with the protagonist’s yearning, requires an open heart and vigilance.
I’ve been in the zone a small handful of times and I’ll never stop trying to re-enter. Everything Butler says resonates for me. It is thrilling to have it described so clearly and beautifully.
Thank you, editor Janet Burroway, for bringing Butler’s lectures to us. What a tremendous service.
Not only does Butler illuminate “dreamstorming” in this book, but he shares specifics about what works and doesn’t work in three stories submitted by his students. Hugely helpful.
He also guides four students through an “anecdote exercise,” encouraging them to be the camera’s eye as they tell a personal story at the front of the class, and resist being seduced by the relative ease of generalization, summary, and analysis. Readers get to see the exercise in action, to watch the students both fumble and break through. We feel their panic and elation as they (and we) learn a new skill.
Entering a writer’s trance through the cinema of the mind, giving up the need to know what’s going to happen, recording moment by moment through the senses, aligning every element of the story with the protagonist’s yearning, requires an open heart and vigilance.
I’ve been in the zone a small handful of times and I’ll never stop trying to re-enter. Everything Butler says resonates for me. It is thrilling to have it described so clearly and beautifully.
Thank you, editor Janet Burroway, for bringing Butler’s lectures to us. What a tremendous service.
January 14, 2009
An interesting approach to creative writing; the emphasis is on looking within and describing each scene visually instead of using generalities and analysis. It's something we all know but often forget, as many time it's easier to step back from the scene and describe it as dispassionate observer rather than an active participant. The author also suggested "dreamstorming" - going into a "creative trance" (aka the zone)each day and jotting down 6 to 8 words describing various scenes you've visualized. At the end of 8-12 weeks, you sequence the scenes to arrive at your story. Haven't tried it personally, so I can't judge the method, but the book itself was inspiring.
November 27, 2014
Way better than I expected. I would buy this again for chapter 8 alone. The format - basically a transcription of Butler's lectures - is effective, with a great sense of his voice. I also loved having an unsuccessful early version of Butler's short story Open Arms with the final version to compare it to.
One note: I hate the physical properties of my paperback copy. The front and back covers curled up on themselves in minutes. Now it's doing a half-decent Sister Bertille impression.
One note: I hate the physical properties of my paperback copy. The front and back covers curled up on themselves in minutes. Now it's doing a half-decent Sister Bertille impression.
August 3, 2010
Mr. Butler's thesis is that writing fiction requires that the author enter a near-dream state so that the writing emerges from the intuitive part of the brain. He is very passionate about this assertion, and apparently the approach works for him, as the cover describes him as a "Pulitzer Prize-winning author," though I admit I have not read any of his fiction. I am not quite convinced, despite his insistence, that this is the ONLY approach to writing fiction.
November 23, 2010
I read this for my "Advanced Fiction Writing" grad class. Olen Butler has a very different approach to writing, and I found his opinions to be quite interesting. He argues that good writing comes from the unconscious, not from "ideas" or from the conscious mind (basically, the opposite of what we have always been taught). Olen Butler has some great ideas, but I think there is a middle ground between writing in a trance and writing with the mind.
October 28, 2011
A goldmine. Distills the intuitive, sensual, hard-to-say process of getting something on paper down to clear instruction on how to induce meditative and dreamy states to allow writing to happen to you and through you, instead of forcing something heady and concept-driven. Easily one of my favorite books on writing. I've read and re-read it twice since I picked it up and the changes in my own writing are apparent.
August 7, 2012
Robert Olen Butler encourages authors to write from the senses and not from their thoughts. To create create compelling fiction, writers must enter something akin to a dream state, he claims. Even though Butler tends to be dogmatic and didactic at times, this is one of the best books for novelists and short story writers to study and understand.
November 9, 2015
Out of all of the books on writing I've ever read, this one changed how I write and continues to shape me as a writer. From the book:
"Event echoes detail, sensual moment becomes metaphor, returning, recomposing, reincorporating toward the phenomena of resonance and motif."
Incredible. Enough said.
"Event echoes detail, sensual moment becomes metaphor, returning, recomposing, reincorporating toward the phenomena of resonance and motif."
Incredible. Enough said.
Read
February 11, 2019This guy is such a hater. He has great stuff to say about craft and some interesting ideas, but I can't get behind someone who calls any writer that writes genre fiction a "nonartist" and their work "nonart." Not okay with that.
July 14, 2008
So far this is one of the top books on writing that I've read.
December 18, 2013
If you can get past the elitism and take the exclusive statements with a grain of salt, there is an interesting method to be learned here.
November 10, 2014
In my opinion, this is one of the definitive writing books. The advice is simple, yet deep. Sit in the chair, wait for it, wait for it, focus, and then BAM-it'll happen and you'll be happy.
June 18, 2021
This was okay, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way to recommend it to people. It's nice that there's examples of short stories that he close-read, but I skimmed these tbh. The exercises for the students, though, I don't think I would ever use. Yes, sensory detail is important, but I feel like these exercises would just produce a bunch of pieces like "the heat burned my face as my eyes fluttered open" or whatever.
What I DID like about this book was its emphasis on how brave it is to write, and on how emotions and the unconscious lead to emotional truth and connection, rather than technique and intellect. He uses phrases like "thrumming," "white hot center," and "harmonic resonance" a lot. I liked the chapter about structuring a novel - he calls it "dreamscaping" - not sure if it's a technique I will ever use, but it's an interesting one to read about. If I had to assign people two chapters to read, it would be this one, along with "The Bad Story" (which talks a lot about passivity - how bad writing can read as recitation - and subtext, and resonance).
"Your ambition as an artist is to give voice to the deep, inchoate vision of the world that resides dynamically in your unconscious. That's what you must keep focused on; that's the only ambition worth anything to you as an artist. The desire to give voice and the desire to be published sometimes feel like the same thing, but they're not." (124)
What I DID like about this book was its emphasis on how brave it is to write, and on how emotions and the unconscious lead to emotional truth and connection, rather than technique and intellect. He uses phrases like "thrumming," "white hot center," and "harmonic resonance" a lot. I liked the chapter about structuring a novel - he calls it "dreamscaping" - not sure if it's a technique I will ever use, but it's an interesting one to read about. If I had to assign people two chapters to read, it would be this one, along with "The Bad Story" (which talks a lot about passivity - how bad writing can read as recitation - and subtext, and resonance).
"Your ambition as an artist is to give voice to the deep, inchoate vision of the world that resides dynamically in your unconscious. That's what you must keep focused on; that's the only ambition worth anything to you as an artist. The desire to give voice and the desire to be published sometimes feel like the same thing, but they're not." (124)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 214 reviews