Description
Book SynopsisA collection of essays, lectures, and observations on the art of writing fiction from Alice McDermott, winner of the National Book Award and unmatched virtuoso of language and image (Rebecca Steinitz, The Boston Globe)
What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction gathers the bestselling novelist Alice McDermott's pithiest wisdom about her chosen art, acquired over a lifetime as an acclaimed writer and teacher of writing.
From technical advice (check that your verbs aren't burdened by unnecessary hads and woulds) to setting the bar (I expect the fiction I read to carry with it the conviction that it is written with no other incentive than that it must be written), from the demands of readers (they'd been given a story with a baby in it, and they damn well wanted that baby accounted for) to the foibles of public life (I've never subscribed to the notion that a film adaptation is the final imprimatur for a work of fiction, despite how ofte
