Customer Reviews

Alone With All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction

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The firs two essays alone in this collection are worth the price of the book. David Jauss looks at such craft issues as point of view, epiphanies, the organization of a short story collection, writing what you know, and other things. But what makes this book stand out from other writing books is David Jauss doesn't just repeat the same old tired and already well-known wisdom on such topics.

Instead, Jauss gives us a whole new way of looking at it. The chapter on Point Of View is the best one. This essay looks at how point of view is more a matter of technique than a matter of denoting which person is telling the story, and Jauss goes on to talk about how multiple point of view shifts are not only okay, but in many cases, they are preferred.

You won't get the same insight elsewhere. Whereas most writing books just repeat the same advice, perhaps with a thematic gimmick thrown in to make it look different, ALONE WITH ALL THAT COULD HAPPEN is a new way of looking at old writing techniques. The essays are heavy with examples from other works and quotes from other sources, making this in a way a more academic writing book than most, but the insights delivered simply should not be passed up.

If you're a writer, get this book.

Others who have reviewed these essays emphasize the (stellar) technical essays in this collection, but I'd like to add that the last essay "Lever of Transcendence" is the real diamond in the collection. This essay explores and explains why some art lives and some does not. It is thus a treatise on life as well as writing. I'd predict and hope that this piece would be read and re-read by every serious reader as well as every serious writer -- and maybe the not-so-serious ones as well.

As I commented on the other reviewer's post, I'd picked this book up and put it back several times before I saw HIS review and ended up buying it. I know I'm not alone in buying and spending too much time reading writing books instead of writing, but this purchase is justified and CRUCIAL to growth as a writer.

I read the book from cover to cover in less than a week and the information is so vital, groundbreaking, and provocative, that is is NECESSARY to read it more than once. Each essay. You will be excited about going back to page one just to make sure that everything sinks in!

I realize now that I put the book back a few times before buying it because it is NOT the kind of book that you can take a quick glimpse at and decide whether or not you need it. It must be read closely and carefully. Please take our word it, you will be a better writer because of it. My favorite chapters were on the point of view, epiphanies about epiphanies and putting together a story collection. This is a book for serious writers, and makes me think of my FAVORITE critic in the world Wyatt Mason (who he even references about Edward P. Jones - read Mason's essay on Jones online from Harper's at ONCE). Mason and Jauss make you proud to be writers, and make you see fiction with an even more exhilarated critical eye so you can love it as a reader and admire and absorb it as a writer. Gosh, let me stop gushing and get back to work.

I put this book up there with The Art of Fiction. Timely and timeless already! Dayum! Well done, Mr. Jauss!

Some books about writing fiction read like manuals for assembling complicated, slightly dangerous devices that will take you down with them if you mess up.

David Jauss understands that writing is a matter of blood, guts, and putting your neck on the line. This book isn't an ABCtarium of basics such as plot, narrative arc, genres, etc., but through careful, even reverent navigation of much-traveled technical waters, Jauss invites writers to see things in new ways and to think new thoughts about fiction writing.

He is someone for whom understanding writing craft is a matter of finding heaven in a grain of sand.

--What else is 'inspiration' if it isn't that?

Even among the wealth of excellent craft books coming out these days--from Charles Baxter's books to James Woods's collections of reviews to the overwhelming number of craft "textbooks"--still David Jauss's ALONE WITH ALL THAT COULD HAPPEN shines bright as a nuclear explosion, and with just as much visceral pull. Erudite but casual, didactic without being prescriptive, Jauss provides his "rethinking" of any number of craft questions, from flow to point of view.

If you are at all interested in the advanced-level questions about how fiction works, this book is essential. You will find yourself writing differently, reading differently. I even immediately jumped up a few times to buy other books Jauss recommends.

Finally, the book itself is beautifully made, a wonderful hardback with a unique "slimmer" dust jacket (the Amazon picture doesn't do it justice). Inside, the text is beautifully set with spots of color highlighting each page, all in all providing a reading experience as easy on the eyes as it is rigorous for the thinking.



Recommended for the serious writer already engaged in higher level issues of craft. In other words, Jauss is not an effective primer for the beginning student and does not discuss plot, character, setting, etc. For that, I recommend either Janet Burroway or Josip Novakovich's textbooks.

I am blown away by this collection of essays. Jauss writes with such commitment to the evanescence of good writing. It's what you feel, it's how you structure, it's taking yourself seriously enough to not take yourself so seriously so that you can write beyond your own limits.

I'm writing a thesis and Jauss's chapter on Epiphanies was solid gold to me. I feel such pressure to write brilliant ah-ha's and find truths and Jauss helps to unmoor these expectations from the task of good writing. I'll be mining the treasures here through my own experience with writing this thesis. This book will be lovingly set next to How to Write for osmotic writing fits in the future.

Unlike most craft books that seem obsessed with rules and categories (that every story MUST have an epiphany, that the POV MUST be omniscient, limited, or dramatic, that you MUST write only what you know, and so on...), Jauss pursues a more nuanced (and more accurate) set of truths. By looking in great detail at many, many examples from great works he is able to talk about intangibles such as "flow" and "transcendence." This collection is very practical, and yet amazingly warm and surprisingly funny. As one of David Jauss' former students, I can say that it is second only to the man himself.

The title, "Alone With All That Can Happen" (a quote from William Gass, ) is a clue that David Jauss knows wherein he speaks. I promised myself I would not buy another book on fiction, but I did, and this is the best of the best. Not necessarily for a very beginning fiction writer, but fabulously thoughtful and un-pedantic. I would recommend it for every writer's shelf. I found the chapters on point of view, present tense, and epiphanies to be particularly helpful, and I'm sure I'll be picking this up to read again and again over the years. In the absence of living next door to a master literary craftsman, it's a next best thing.

I've heard about this book before, but only recently got around to reading it. It consists of seven essays on writing, and, while the last two feel strained to make the collection a legitimate book length, the first five are well worth the price. Jauss offers fresh ideas on several crucial aspects of narrative writing, and he presents them clearly and logically with a wealth of examples. His take on point of view and flow, just to cite two essays, offer concrete yet provocative observations that are so logical it's amazing nobody else made them years ago. Critics, teachers, and other writers can all learn a great deal from this collection.

David Jauss's book is a true treasure for writers. This is absolutely one of the best books I've read on writing fiction. The book is informed by 30+ years of teaching, writing and editing, and as such, it provides a window into all that is good about contemporary fiction--and much that is assumed, and can use improvement. At one point, Jauss mentions that in his years of teaching/editing, he has read upwards of 40,000 short stories submitted to a literary journal or for a creative writing class. That is literally a staggering number to contemplate. This man is seriously dedicated. This book is a life's work--Jauss has thought deeply about writing and writers for years, and it shows. I absolutely loved it. I'm grateful that David put his incredible thoughts and experiences together in this remarkably well-crafted book to benefit the individual lives of writers and the writing of contemporary fiction as a whole.