A better title for How Fiction Works would be something like Aspects of Style. Wood talks enthusiastically about various techniques that differentiate prose stylists from workmanlike writers and modern novelists from their predecessors: the free indirect style, the telling detail, complex character motivation, and realism. He talks about narrative technique, not about plotting.
How Fiction Works mostly eschews the pretentious critical-theory-speak of most modern literary criticism, in favor of clear examples that demonstrate his points. For example, Wood explains the free indirect style by offering alternative versions of the same observation, and illustrates the development of consciousness in literature by comparing similar characters in the Bible, Macbeth, and Crime and Punishment. He is a master at choosing apropos literary passages. His critical interpretations are always interesting: I'm not a fan of Dostoevsky, but Wood's reading of him clarifies what is good and distinctive about his books.
The book is enjoyable, illuminating, and made me want to read great literature.
How Fiction Works mostly eschews the pretentious critical-theory-speak of most modern literary criticism, in favor of clear examples that demonstrate his points. For example, Wood explains the free indirect style by offering alternative versions of the same observation, and illustrates the development of consciousness in literature by comparing similar characters in the Bible, Macbeth, and Crime and Punishment. He is a master at choosing apropos literary passages. His critical interpretations are always interesting: I'm not a fan of Dostoevsky, but Wood's reading of him clarifies what is good and distinctive about his books.
The book is enjoyable, illuminating, and made me want to read great literature.
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