Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course (Hardcover)

by Jerry Cleaver (Author) "Creativity obeys an unusual and contrary set of laws..." (more)
Key Phrases: old writing rule, immediate fiction, internal novel, Writer's Market, Mother Teresa, Jimmy Connors (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Musicians and artists might need talent to succeed, but writers don't, says Jerry Cleaver in Immediate Fiction. Cleaver allows that talent is needed to win a National Book Award, say, but otherwise, any of us can do it. All we need is the ability to "develop and exercise sadistic license." The operative word is conflict. As Cleaver puts it, "Happy lives make lousy novels.... If the characters are having a good time, the reader is not." He takes the mystery out of fiction writing. You don't have to write about what you know, he says; write what you can imagine. Don't fret if you can't find large chunks of time to write. Start with five minutes on weekdays and 20 on weekends, and you'll have 100 to 300 pages by year's end. Perhaps most refreshing about Cleaver's approach is the lack of directives. Some writing instructors demand that you work with an outline; others forbid it. Cleaver claims that teachers who tell you to do it one way or the other are telling you not how you work best, but how they work best. --Jane Steinberg

From Publishers Weekly
Adages ("Want + obstacle = conflict"), advice ("Make all of your story worth showing") and even an assortment of solitary words author Jerry Cleaver considers important ("fear," "worry," "hope") stand out in boldfaced type on the pages of Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course. Cleaver, who founded the Chicago writers' workshop the Writers' Loft and has ghostwritten several books, insists that all one needs to be a successful writer is the "right tools" (while painting may require "inborn talent," writing doesn't) and in enthusiastic prose, he describes those tools one by one. With its writing exercises, time management hints and endlessly jocular encouragement, this volume will please many a would-be Welty or Wilde. (St. Martin's, $24.95 304p ISBN 0-312-28716-X)

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (February 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031228716X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312287160
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #247,771 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last Something Substantial, February 18, 2002

By	David Tortuga (chicago, il) - See all my reviews

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!

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to become a writer....., February 21, 2002

By	john r swift (Arlington Heights, IL USA) - See all my reviews

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.

92 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Immediate Fiction - A classic next to Becoming a Writer, May 2, 2002

By	Susan Winstead (Chicago, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews

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.