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    The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook
    The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook
    The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook
    Ebook394 pages4 hours

    The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook

    By Daniel Alarcón

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The world's best contemporary writers—from Michael Chabon and Claire Messud to Jonathan Lethem and Amy Tan—engage in a wide-ranging, insightful, and oft- surprising roundtable discussion on the art of writing fiction

    Drawing back the curtain on the mysterious process of writing novels, The Secret Miracle brings together the foremost practitioners of the craft to discuss how they write. Paul Auster, Roddy Doyle, Allegra Goodman, Aleksandar Hemon, Mario Vargas Llosa, Susan Minot, Rick Moody, Haruki Murakami, George Pelecanos, Gary Shteyngart, Daniel Alarcón, and others take us step by step through the alchemy of writing fiction, answering everything from nuts-and-bolts queries—"Do you outline?"—to perennial questions posed by writers and readers alike: "What makes a character compelling?"

    From Stephen King's deadpan distinction between novels and short stories ("Novels are longer and have more s**t in them") to Colm Toibin's anti-romanticized take on his characters ("They are just words") to José Manuel Prieto's mature perspective on the anxieties of influence ("Influences are felt or weigh you down more when young"), every page contains insights found nowhere else.

    With honesty, humor, and elegance, The Secret Miracle gives both aspiring writers and lovers of literature a master class in the art of writing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 13, 2010
    ISBN9781429935838
    The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook
    Author

    Daniel Alarcón

    Daniel Alarcón was born in Lima, Peru, in 1977 and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of the story collection War by Candlelight, a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, and Lost City Radio, winner of the 2009 International Literature Prize. His writing has appeared in Granta, n+1, McSweeney’s and Harper’s, and he has been named of the New Yorker’s 20 best writers under 40. He lives in San Francisco, California.

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    • 4/5
      Imagine a round table discussion with 54 well-known and fabulous writers: Aleksandar Hemon, Claire Messud, Rick Moody, Stephen King, Gary Shteyngart, Daniel Handler, Haruki Murakami, and so forth. A question is presented to the group about the process of writing a novel, and writers chime in with honest and thoughtful answers. This is The Secret Miracle.

      What I found most appealing about this book was the variation in answers. From Writing 101, aspiring authors are told to do this or that--i.e. find a quite place, stick with a routine, keep a journal, etc. Many books on the subject repeat these tips, telling the reader the most conducive way to write. And when it doesn't work for the reader, the newbie author is to assume they are doing something wrong. The Secret Miracle destroys any hope that there is one method to write. "Absolutely," answers one writer, while the next replies to the same question, "No. Never. Wouldn't dream of it."

      A little way into the book, I decided to keep a score sheet. I tallied answers I found to be good (1 point) and those which were right-on (2 points). It would be a way to discover my next favorite author, I hoped. The results: Aleksander Hemon scored the highest with 21, Jennifer Egan had 12 points, and Andrew Sean Greer, Tayari Jones, and Chris Abani tied with 5 each. Most authors scored at least one point, although a few did not. Murakami should have received a negative score for his highly evasive answers. Although entertaining, Murakami seemed to be dodging half the questions and giving snotty answers to the other half. My favorite, the Eeyore response, occurs when Murakami is asked if he has ever used a fictional character to draw a portrait of a real person (p. 183)? Murakami: "Sometimes I do. Nobody notices it anyway."

      Well, at least I learned something from the other 53 novelist.

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