Customer Reviews

Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course

5 star:		(82)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I graduated a couple of years ago from a university that specializes in cranking out creative writers. (I apologize if I have not successfully masked my deep bitterness; usually I do a decent job of appearing well-adjusted.) I learned more from reading this book than I learned from four long years of higher learning. Mr. Cleaver is not vague. Somehow he managed to come up with a detailed, specific answer for each one of the countless questions I had when I began reading his book. (What constitutes conflict? What is the best way to end a chapter? What are the most common pitfalls, and how can I avoid them? And on and on!) If you are serious about amounting to anything as a writer, you need to read IMMEDIATE FICTION. The author's instruction and advice leave no stone unturned. There is no comparable book out there on this subject, with the possible exception of Dorothea Brande's classic BECOMING A WRITER. Yes, come to think of it, you should probably pick up that one, too. Five stars for both of them!

If you want to become a better writer or a more critical reader, buy this book. Most offerings in this genre resemble a well picked over smorgasbord in which one finds a few good tips among acres of wilted lettuce. What remains of the main course, conflict creation, resolution and character development is incoherently scattered among the weeds. Cleaver gets it right by giving us a complete road map to writing, self-editing and publishing fiction. He shows how to convert your onmiscient narrator essays into scenes and dialogue that drive the plot, develop character(and keep the reader's attention), how to replace those "telling" images of emotion(e.g.,"icy stab in the stomach") with "showing" the emotion through thought and dialogue. Not only is this book a "sine qua non" for writer's, it is a fun read.

I have been writing all of my life and have read many books about writing. Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver is the only book about writing that I would put next to Dorthea Brande's classic Becoming a Writer. When Brande's book was published in 1934, the information she gave to writers was not only ahead of its time, but timeless through the many decades since its first published date. The same can be said and will be said about Jerry's book. In a time when "story" is driven by what is in the media and pop culture, Jerry tells us about what really makes a story - want, obstacle, action - thus, developing the characters and the conflict as the story progresses. I have several different stories and characters I have been working on for years and I thought I knew well. When I applied the - want, obstacle, action - my characters and their conflict developed better because I finally found out what they wanted. Jerry gives writers ideas about finding time to write, getting organized to write and completing projects that have lost their way. I cannot recommend Jerry's book enough.

My high school english teacher, Mr. Severe, once told me if I really want to become a great writer I must read James Joyce's ULYSSES from beginning to end at least twice. I will never know if he was right because I couldn't get through that possibly great, but definitely puzzling book even once. But I did get through Jerry Cleaver's extremely straightforward IMMEDIATE FICTION, and I recommend it highly to anyone who truly wishes to succeed as a writer. The instruction I found in these pages was immediately helpful; I was able to solve a couple of problems I have had with my writing for years. Show me anyone else out there who has defined conflict so eloquently and concisely. When he writes about his discoveries in the strange world of writing creatively, I am consistently surprised by the thoroughness of his insights. I only wish he had published this book when I was seventeen. (I am almost twice that age now.) Please do yourself a favor and give this book a try.
...I heard he has a writing workshop in Chicago and I am quite seriously considering packing my bags and jumping on the next train heading to the Midwest.

Jerry Cleaver had already influenced me long before I read this book so I may be biased. But I have now read the book and it is just like talking directly with Jerry. His goal is not to be a scholarly expert on writing, it is to be the mentor to a huge number of writers. He is exactly that. He covers literally everything required to move an individual from thinking about writing fiction to being published--starting with how to get something down on paper. He is refreshingly direct and gets to the point immediately. I have read some writing books that describe an aspect of technique (use of conflict, self editing, character development, structure) from every possible point of view, taking multiple chapters to spell it out. Jerry will make the same point in one clear section and move on. His view is that technique need not be difficult or take up too much of the writer's energy.

But the thing that makes this book unique is not about technique. It really comes down to Jerry Cleaver's approach to writing. It is the opposite of the kind of obsessing that prevents hopeful writers from becoming published authors. You know, feeling obliged to have everything thought out perfectly before you write a sentence. It is why he titles it "Immediate Fiction". Jerry's approach is to get anything down on paper and then refine it into a story that engages readers and keeps them glued to the book. Once you have an idea--and he even talks about how to generate that initial idea--you refine it by inserting the elements of strong writing.

That is the secret of his success as a writing coach. When Jerry reviews something you've written, instead of vague criticisms ("It just doesn't grab me"), he gives explicit directions as to how to strengthen the story ("You need an obstacle that is blocking the character from achieving this goal, Tell us what the character is feeling, Move the conflict to the beginning and that will determine your ending") and he always finds something worth developing. He never dismisses story ideas and he encourages the reader to think about how to develop your story ideas. So no matter where you start, you have something to work with. It doesn't matter at all that someone already used the same idea in a different story.

In this book, he gives his entire course on those elements of strong writing that inform his feedback. He also teaches you how to approach writing as an activity. He believes writing is an acquired skill and anyone can learn to become a good writer. In his words, a professional writer is an amatuer who didn't quit. He helps you remove your own internal critic so that you can get started. Again, in his words, the beginning writer reads his first draft and says, "This is awful. I'm screwed." The experienced writer reads his first draft and says, "This is awful. I'm on my way!"

Jerry's skill as a writing coach is legendary in Chicago. Reading this book, you get what Jerry Cleaver has been giving in his workshop. This is a no-nonsense book for people who really do want to write.

Jerry Cheaver has boiled down the writing process into a simple formula that you actually can keep wholly in your mind's eye when you write. The shorthand is Want + Obstacle + Action + Emotion + Showing. The slightly longer story that the prospective writer learns goes something like this: A character wants something desperately, can't live without it and cannot retreat from. When he confronts an obstacle that will not move, it forces the character to take desperate action outside of his comfort zone. When people are under pressure and acting in desperation, they reveal thier true inner selves rather than their surface personality. Conflict leading to desperate actions stirs up all kinds of deep-seated emotions of the character that lay dormant when life is routine. This is how the writer draws the reader in and gives the reader what they are really looking for: identification, to get caught up in the character's feelings and tribulation at all times, to agonize with them, to cheer for them. Finally, the old adage: show, don't tell, so the reader can enter into the fictive dream themselves, and experience through taste, touch, sight with the character. Now this sound pretty rudimentary, right? After all, like me you may have read a number, perhaps many writing books that tell you this and probably a whole lot more. A whole lot more. So you sit down to write and you get lost - character, pacing, detail, setting, subtext, blah blah arghhh! Why the despair? Because you know what great writing looks like because you've read great novels of heartbreaking artistry. What we can't get straight in our heads is that the heart of writing is having a great story that hooks and keeps a reader, and that, my friend, is nothing more than Want + Obstacle + Action + Emotion + Showing. But, you say, I don't want to write pulp fiction. I want to write something with depth and music, and that is more than Jerry's formula - much, much more. The point, the heart of the matter, is that that comes later in later drafts. Writing is rewriting. You want to get to making music on the page and teasing out through craft subtle but soaring themes that moves reader to sigh? Then write a great story first, then rewrite and rewrite to layer in the music and ahhh moments you crave for. The writing process is just like the multilayered transparencies of the human body you might have seen in grade school. The first and lowest layer showed the skeleton, the next layer muscles, then organs, then nerves, and so on. Think of each transparency layer as a draft with each succeeding draft adding depth and richness. Stories fail because of the story; writers fail because they won't believe how simple the process is. Write the basic story, then edit in later drafts focusing on the same foundational story elements (want,obstacle,action...)until you have it nailed. Maybe 4, maybe 10 drafts. Now, you can make music. Jerry tells us that anybody can write. We just misunderstand the process and our unrealistic expectations create overwhelming discouragement and we quit. But it's all an illusion. Read this book more than once and carefully. There's more here than first appears because the writing is straightforward and accessible but it is chock full of real wisdom earned through years of Jerry's teaching other writers and writing himself. This book is about the heart of the matter. Read it at least three times. If this book does not do it for you, then you really do not want to write. Snobs, of course, won't like this book.

First, you should know that I never do the exercises in writing books like this. I want to read all the advice and evaluate it before I put it into practice so I didn't do what the author said. I began this book with some hope that it would be more practical than other writing books than just repeat the same old advice like: "write what you know. Work on finding your 'voice.' Create likeable characters. Write the end first." etc. Some writers enjoy making it sound like such an impossible chore to write that their advice is mostly discouraging.
Happily, Cleaver debunks a lot of this advice and offers hope. Although his advice won't bowl you over at first, as you read on you become more convinced that this writing thing has been made more complex than it needs to be. Most of the writing instructors and books you've read really fall more under the category of artsy-tartsy "literary theory," which is fine for examining literature after the fact, but not very helpful in the writing process.
So when Cleaver reveals the 1,2,3 of dramatic writing (want, obstacle, and action) you don't really feel like you're hearing anything new. (Gee, conflict is important. What a suprise.) But like I said, once you see that Cleaver is releasing you from a lot of other misguided advice and actually showing you the sure and steady way to develop on your own, he makes his case.
He also discusses different approaches and writing practices, encouraging the reader to do what works for him. Also advice on showing (not telling) and character emotion (where the connection to your reader is made) have the ring of truth.
I think this book is very good for writers who want to cut through the literary rhetoric and just write. I just finished reading it, but Cleaver's advice looks easy to take and seemed very insightful to me once I read his whole approach.

I began creatively writing about a year ago and have since become familiar with a number of books that purport to teach you what you need to know to write great (or at least, better) fiction. This was the first book I bought, owing to it's excellent reviews on this site, and I was greatly disapointed to find it full of a lot of really common-sense information with the occasional useful fact.
As a new writer I wanted to learn about the building blocks of fiction: the ways in which choice of narrator perspective influences the story, the different methods of beginning and endings for your fiction, techniques to make dialogue inventive yet natural, and so on. This book doesn't really get into any specifics like that, but instead offers broad brush advice that it repeats frequently, like, "Conflict + Action+ Resolution=Story." Not helpful. The author talks about the importance of conflict extensively, but doesn't really give the reader any new insights.
Also I was a bit bemused when I read that his magic formula for expanding a story that won't yet fill up a novel is to (drum roll) add more characters. This is not helpful to anyone but the third graders perusing the book, I would imagine. Finally, the author's super-conversational style, exacerbated by short, repetitive sentences, grates.
I gave it 2 stars because I suppose if the characters in your story tend to drift around doing nothing it might be helpful for you to read about conflict.
The book that I find myself going back to again and again to really teach me how to write is "Building Fiction" by Jesse Lee Kercheval. That book goes into the gritty details as well as the big picture.

Before I bought Immediate Fiction 3 months ago, I couldn't find a book which would help me write in my own style. I was reading books about the writing styles of different authors. Among them were how James Thurber writes his humor, how Orwell makes political writing into an art, or how D H Lawrence puts together poetry. These types of writings offered some insight into the struggles of these authors and how the authors worked through them, but I needed something more fundamental.

When I read Immediate Fiction, however, I discovered that all the successful writers use the laws of story that Jerry Cleaver makes explicit. The most useful areas of the book were examples of stories that bored me along with the modified stories that I couldn't stop myself from reading. The boring stories were missing the ingredients that make conflict. When I found my own story boring I went back to the book and read how I could make my writing work. Among the many ingredients were showing (not telling), and revealing what the character really thinks and feels in the process of trying to get what she or he wants.

Now when I read my stories to people and feel their reactions, I say to myself, "That's what I want to communicate." Immediate Fiction is one of the most valuable books I've ever bought.

And by that I mean I was really ready to throw in the towel--not only on writing but I think perhaps on everything. That's right, the whole kit and caboodle. No, come on I'm not saying I was suicidal and this book saved my life! However, I fear it's something close to that, and I'll tell you why. All the other writers writing about writing make it seem like such a mystery. So elusive and impossible I was sure I'd never get there, because I couldn't read the sign-posts (oh, I hope I'm not being overly metaphorical). But read this book and try to tell me I'm wrong: this is not vague and mysterious, but on the contrary--straightforward, and yes, to the point! I mean we'll see what happens, but at least for now--well, at least for now I have some hope. (Wish me luck, and God bless you, Jerry Cleaver!)