From the Practical to The Philosophical

 Writing Resources: Wonderbook (Writing Forward)

Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook is not your average tome on the craft of writing. It’s more like a portal, and once you enter, writing becomes a strange and awesome adventure. Subtitled The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, the book addresses fiction in general but occasionally emphasizes speculative fiction; any writer will benefit from it, but there are extra morsels for science-fiction and fantasy authors.

Unlike most books on craft, this one’s packed with illustrations, photographs, and diagrams, which will inspire you and provide fresh perspectives on the concepts discussed in the book. The artwork is delightfully weird and certain to give your imagination a good workout. The primary artist is Jeremy Zerfoss, but the book includes a range of diverse artists and styles. One of my favorite pieces was a useful and creative diagram showing the life cycle of a story.

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My favorite chapter in the book was the one on revision. Too often, books on storytelling fail to address the technical aspects of writing. In Wonderbook, the chapter on revision was one of the best chapters — this chapter alone makes the book worth purchasing for any writer. It also included elaborate advice on outlining and drafting as well as a handy chart that shares authors’ anecdotes on the revision process from experts like Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Patrick Rothfuss. 

I read one of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, Borne, and was very much impressed by him. I keep having too much to read to get back to him. However, because of having read that one novel, I suspect this book would be of help to any writer.

From 101 Creative Writing Exercises: Moral Dilemmas (Writing Forward) - do we really raise enough moral dilemmas, or do we try to avoid them? And how to raise their answers? I prefer not to offer pat answers - for the obvious reasons, and to avoid the boredom of sanctimony. Decades ago, I told a friend of mine who had confessed her resolution of a moral dilemma - an abortion or face certain death in childbirth that would separate her two children - that the hardest ethical problem is always between two bad choices. Those choices just need to be lived with. However, when, after returning home, I found her obituary, I noticed both daughters were with her when she died.

What is the Theme of a Story? (Writing Forward)

Theme is one of the most difficult story elements to understand. Often confused with plot, theme is actually a worldview, philosophy, message, moral, ethical question, or lesson. However, these labels, taken alone or together, don’t quite explain theme in fiction.

We can think of a theme as an underlying principle or concept, the topic at the center of the story.

Themes are often universal in nature. Some common universal themes are based on motifs of redemption, freedom, equality, sacrifice, betrayal, loyalty, greed, justice, oppression, revenge, and love. Themes can also be personal and part of the human condition. Such themes could explore issues surrounding loneliness, trust, commitment, or family.

However, a story’s theme is more than an idea that can be expressed in a single word. The concept of freedom can form the foundation of a story’s theme, which could be anything from “one should not sacrifice freedom for security” to “freedom is worth dying for.”

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Some experts have suggested that authors shouldn’t think too much about theme until they’ve produced a draft, while others believe that theme is so integral that it should be present throughout story development. The approach you choose will depend on your writing process, storytelling style, and personal preference.

Theme could be considered the glue that holds a story together, the binding principle of the narrative. It is the deeper meaning, the truth that underscores the plot and characters. 

Theme interests me. Particularly, the ideas of what we know and of history in general. The article goes on to suggest making a list. I have noted that one in my mind.

Editor Insights: Drive Your Narrative with Cause & Effect (The Forever Workshop) gives the opportunity to see a work before revision and then after revision. Sorry, this is one of the subjects that excite me to get on a soapbox. One thing I did not know enough about when young was the work does not spring forth from the writer's mind into a draft and then into the published work. No, no, time has taught me I was a complete idiot. The whole thing is behind a paywall.

Reedsy videos - the three-act structure and a novel-writing Q & A.

I do not know William Vollmann, even by name, but Write Conscious has an interest in him and ties him with David Foster Wallace. One item I learned is that Vollman is from Indiana.

I have to agree that modern readers have a responsibility to be smarter, but what if the entire culture is now suffused by idiots?

Vollmann on Cormac McCartney:

Wikipedia has him graduating from a Bloomington, Indiana high school (without mentioning which one). He is about a year older than me, has written profusely, and I am wondering why I have not heard of him. Looking at his credits, probably because he started publishing about the time I was trying to set up a law practice to pay my student loans. 

WSJ published on Aug. 28, 2025 a profile of Vollman, The Last Untamed Writer in America, but that is behind a paywall.

The Last Contract: William T. Vollmann's Battle to Publish an American Epic from The Metropolitan Review dates from March 21, 2025. It is very long. Maybe this is what it is like to read Vollmann - part profile, part history of publishing his forthcoming novel, part discussion of the publishing business, and I am left thinking we thought J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon are strange.

Slovak, somewhat allowing of Vollmann’s argument that his novels don’t earn any money, points out that The Dying Grass (2015), Vollmann’s 1,000-page historical novel about the Nez Perce War, received some of the best reviews of his career and, despite being released in a then-astonishing $55 hardcover, sold about 5,000 copies (no word on the what the paperback sold, whose covers are almost polka dotted with blurbs along the lines of, “The reading experience of a lifetime”). But 5,000 isn’t too bad, he suggests. Especially when the critical reception is so unanimous and glowing.

Alas, blurbs aren’t dollars, and nothing’s guaranteed.

“That sucks for Vollmann,” said Díaz, “and for anyone who cares about literature.”

A MODEST IMPERIALIST: William T. Vollmann (The Brooklyn Rail, 2010) is an interview.

I became an ardent fan of William T. Vollmann’s work after reading Europe Central (2005). It is an extraordinary accomplishment, a remarkable feat of re-imagining one of the most complex, and harrowing, events of the 20th century, the conflict between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Vollmann tells his many stories with dark humor, intelligence, and a great, measured respect for suffering and courage. This past fall, I read Imperial, Vollmann’s 1200-page nonfiction exploration of Imperial County, California, along the Mexico divide. Taking up all sorts of subjects on both sides of the border, Imperial is a great, consuming read. It is a crying shame that a work this deep, this smart and this unusual has not received anything like the attention it deserves.

I am too old for undertaking this one, but if there was time enough…. As Mr. Michel wrote below, read widely. So take the opportunity while you have time.

Literary Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Lincoln Michel, Counter Craft) needs to be read in full. Sorry, I feel that taking its paragraphs out of context undermines the argument and there are too many examples - many writers and philosophers I know only by reputation. All I can do is give you this paragraph:

When I was in college, the best literature course I took paired novels with philosophical texts. I really wish I’d kept the syllabus. But an example was pairing Don DeLillo’s White Noise with excerpts of Baudrillard.10 One day, I’d love to create my own version of this class to teach. I guess I have a start on a syllabus in this post, though as always I love to hear recommendations in the comments. Anyway, all this is just to say that philosophy and art do not have to be opposites at all. They can be mutually reinforcing and generative. As always, read widely.

Now, like Mr. Michel, I like reading philosophy. I almost had a minor in philosophy. And what themes I have are philosophical in nature.

Speaking of reading widely, listen to The 50 Greatest Modern Novels According to Time Magazine - Reaction:

I caught many that I had not read and many that I had, but what really stayed in my mind was his comparing Willa Cather with Thomas Hardy. The more I think about it, the more it seems a good comparison. I had never thought to think of her in comparison to any but American writers.

I do need to get back to writing something else than this blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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