From a lecture she gave to friends in the late 50's on how to read and write fiction. Very intellectual stuff. Some useful information. The woman was a bull when it came to voicing her opinions.

A little tedious and constantly comparing herself to Victor Hugo. I guess I should have expected it from Ayn Rand.

The only message I took with me from this book: Make your abstractions concrete. Every scene, every character, setting, paragraph, sentence, verb, and noun must give life to the abstractions you're trying to communicate.

Got it. I think most of this comes in during revision, though, because I can't imagine how someone can balance all of the aspects of a novel while making their abstractions concrete on the first go. I think I'll try finding the story's pulse first and, once I've found it, find the abstractions that need a thick layer of concrete.

Not my favorite book on writing fiction, but pretty good. It's always fun to read How To books from experts to see their processes.

p.2 – What is colloquially called “inspiration” – namely, that you write without full knowledge of why you write as you do, yet it comes out well – is actually the subconscious summing-up of the premises and intentions you have set yourself.

p.3 – To describe a sunrise, you must have stored in your mind clear ideas of what you mean by “sunrise,” what elements compose it, what kinds you have seen, what mood you want to project and why, and what kinds of words will project it. …you have to know what you are storing and what kind of answers you are seeking

p.4 – To master the art of writing you have to be conscious of why you are doing things – but do not edit yourself while writing.

p.7 – if you know where your inspiration really comes from, you will never run out of material. A rational writer can stroke his subconscious just as one puts fuel in a machine.

p.10 – [in Atlas Shrugged, Dagny] “regarded language as a tool of honor, always to be used as if one were under oath – an oath of allegiance to reality.”

p.13 – When you compose a story, you start with an abstraction, then find the concretes which add up to that abstraction. For the reader, the process is reversed: he first perceives the concretes you present and then adds them to the abstractions with which you started. [ Concretize your abstractions]
[start every chapter with the question:] what abstraction do I want to convey and what concretes will convey it?
“Strong,” “independent” and “rational” are abstractions. In order to leave your reader with those abstractions, you have to provide concretes that will make him conclude: “This man is strong because he did X, independent because he defied Y, rational because he thought Z.”

p.14 – To objectify values is to make them real by presenting them in concrete form. For instance, to say “I think courage is good” is not to objectify a value. To present a man who acts bravely, is.

p.15 – what is important is not the message a writer projects explicitly, but the values and views of life he projects implicitly. […] By what he chooses to present, and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values – his view of man’s relationship to reality and of what man can and should seek in life.

p.19 – If a writer’s basic conviction is that man is a determined creature – that he has no choice, but is the plaything of fate or his background or God – that writer will be a Naturalist. The Naturalistic school presents man as helpless… The Romantic school of literature approaches life on the premise that man has free will, the capacity of choice. […] If man has the capacity of choice, then he can plan the events of his life; he can set himself purposes and achieve them. If so, his life is not a series of accidents. Events do not “just happen” to him; he chooses what he makes happen (and if accidents occur, his purpose is to overcome them). He is the architect of his own life.

p.20 – [Aristotle:] Efficient causation means that an event is determined by an antecedent cause. [cause and effect]
Final causation means that the end result of a certain chain of causes determines those causes.

p.21 – As a writer, you must follow the process of final causation: you decide on the theme of your book (your purpose), then select the events and the sentences that will concretize your theme. The reader, by contrast, follows the process of efficient causation: he goes step by step through your book being moved toward the abstraction you intended.

p.22 – what you rationally want to read is a story about men’s choices, right or wrong – about their decisions and what they should have decided – which means: a free-will, Romantic plot story. […] To illustrate the achievement of a purpose, you have to show men overcoming obstacles. …need to dramatize purpose.

Since my purpose is to show that a man of creative independence will achieve his goal regardless of any opposition, a story in which there is no opposition would not dramatize my message. I have to devise the hardest obstacles possible, and those of greatest significance to the hero. …if the hero has a distant cousin who disapproves of his career, that is not a great obstacle to overcome. But if the woman he loves objects to his career and tempts him to give it up, and he risks losing her, that is real dramatization. Then the hero is in the middle of a clash of two values and has to choose the right one. The more struggle the story involves, the better the plot.

p.23 – The essence of plot structure is: struggle – therefore, conflict – therefore, climax.
For the purpose of dramatizing a man’s struggle and choice, a conflict within his own mind, which is then expressed and resolved in action, is one of the best devises.

p.26 – If you want to hold your readers, give them something to wonder about.

p.36 – If two persons are in love, that is not a conflict; you have to make their love clash with some serious value of theirs.

p.46 – The climax is that stage at which the worst consequences of the plot-theme conflict come into the open and the characters have to make their final choice.

p.48 – you have to know your climax (in dramatized terms) before you start to outline the steps by which to arrive there. It has been said that Broadway is full of first acts. Many people can come up with an intriguing first act but do not know what to do with the play thereafter. By contrast, a good dramatist starts with the third act. He does not necessarily write the third act, or the climax, first – but he keeps it in mind.

p.53 – Train your mind to concretize every abstraction (love, hate, fear, anger, independence or dependence, selfishness or unselfishness)

p.57 – Best stories are those which can be told in one sentence.

p.59 – Characterization is the presentation of motives. We understand a person if we understand what makes him act the way he does.

p.60 – to project a convincing character, you need to have an idea of the basic premises or motives which move his actions – and by means of these actions, the reader will discover what is at the root of the character.

p.146 – Dramatization serves as the emphasis of your story. The key events should be dramatized. The less important material, such as transitions, can be narrated.

p.148 – Exposition is the communication of knowledge which the reader requires in order to understand a scene.
Do not let it show. Make the exposition part of some statement which has a different point – a point necessary for the progress of the scene.

p.154 – Metaphor: (The snow was as white as sugar.) The introduction of another concrete with the same attribute makes the two together give a clear sensuous image – it isolates the attribute by making the reader’s mind form an abstraction. The reader’s visualization of the whiteness of snow and the whiteness of sugar makes that whiteness stand out in his mind as if he had seen it. When you select a comparison, you must consider not only the exact attribute you want to feature, but also the connotations that will be raised in the reader’s mind.

p.176 – I read a novel for the purpose of seeing the kind of people I would want to see in real life and living through the kind of experience I would want to live through.

Reading this book has been an uplifting value on the esthetic aspect of my life. Now I am not just enthusiastic of the literature that I read, but also feel inspired and called to craft my own stories and put them on ink and paper.
I am so thrilled about a fanfic plot that I just developed while reading TAoF.
Thank you Ayn Rand, Tore Boeckmann and Leonard Peikoff for making this book possible!!!

Whether you agree with her or not, Ayn Rand is a master of the written word. Both The Art of Fiction and The Art of Nonfiction are excellent resources for any writer of both genres.

I thought I might enjoy this book. I was wrong. In a span of three pages she bashes Stein, Wolfe, and Maugham for their plot structures and word choice in their writing. She goes on to bash Joyce and Tolstoy for their "nonobjective" and "naturalistic" style. However, she is not reluctant to glorify her own writing style and plot-themes (which at most times seem like bad soap operas). Her closed-minded and subjective views to art have really turned me off to reading anything else by her.

Interesting ideas on themes and plots. But personally I don't quite agree with her ideas on writing style.

Although universally pilloried for her take on life, this is a very clear text on what makes good theme, plot, characterisation, style - and how all these factors are linked together. The fact that she uses her own work as examples of the good and others as examples of the weak should be no surprise.

Some interesting 'advice' but for someone hugely into objectivism, it's very subjective, and spoiled by the constant bragging and self reference. I am the best writer, my way is right, and if you try to follow my rules you still won't be as good as me. Hmm

Found this gem at my library's book sale last year, and, like King's "On Writing", I will revisit it often. Incredible, to read Rand's actual lectures to writing students, to be able to follow her logic in plot, character, structure, and theme as she references back to Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead, as well as other authors' works. (She's ruthlessly critical of a number of the classics.)

Philosophy meets writing practice here, and I used my little yellow highlighter like it was 1978.

Loved this book. Essential for any serious writer.

No other book is needed for the creative method. This book is outstanding and surpasses anything that came before or after it.