The Author as Craftsman

The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers. Edited by Tore Boeckmann. (New York: Plume, 2000, 180 pp. $12.95.)

Ayn Rand framed the story of The Fountainhead with the figure of Howard Roark. In the opening sequence, he stands naked atop a granite cliff, and the scene establishes him as an aspiring architect and potential shaper of nature; in the final image, Roark stands atop the nearly completed Wynand Building, and we see him as a realized creator, giving nature its final expression. The Art of Fiction depicts Rand herself as another such creator, one whose will shapes every aspect of her medium. "I can give the reason for every word and every punctuation mark in Atlas Shrugged," she writes. "I was conscious of my purpose throughout the job-the general purpose of the novel and the particular purpose of every chapter, paragraph, and sentence" (4).

Both in her art and in her life, then, Rand has given us her standard for artistic creation. Indeed, she has issued a clarion call to would-be artists: to know exactly what they are doing; to know why they're doing it; and to be prepared to explain, if only to themselves, everything that they do. With regard to fiction, this means: to "follow a conscious intention in relation to the novel's theme and to every element involved in that theme" (176).

Yet, in saying this, Rand does not deny the role of the subconscious in writing. Far from it. The writer must depend heavily on his subconscious in order to avoid "floating abstractions"—abstractions that do not connect well to concretes. The source of such floating abstractions is, in essence, a writer's failure to do the hard work of storing enough concretes-thoroughly understood and integrated-in his subconscious, so that the full meaning of his premises becomes automatic and part of an inner bank account upon which he can draw. A prime example of this phenomenon, Rand believes, is Thomas Wolfe, "who uses a vast number of words, none of them precisely" (10).

Many would argue that Wolfe used enough words precisely enough to make Look Homeward, Angel a modern classic. But, that said, Rand's basic principle is unexceptionable. The need for fiction writers to tie abstractions vividly to concretes cannot be overstressed, and Rand shows why throughout this book by calling upon that principle to explain many of the elements of fiction in general and her own writing in particular.

The Four Essentials

Having stated her premises in the first two chapters, Rand devotes the remainder of this slim volume to what she considers the four essential elements in fiction-theme, plot, characterization, and style.

Theme. Rand explains, "A novel's theme is the general abstraction in relation to which the events serve as concretes" (15). Thus, the theme is not to be considered synonymous with a novel's philosophical meaning. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, a novel's theme need not be philosophical at all. The only requirements are that there be a theme and that it be objectively valid. The theme of Les Misérables is "The injustice of society towards it lower classes"; of Gone With the Wind: "The impact of the Civil War on Southern society" (Romantic Manifesto, 81).

A novel's theme defines its purpose, and, without it, a story's events add up to nothing-death by lack of integration. At the same time, however, a theme should not be imposed upon a story so much as evoked by its events. This is accomplished through the plot-theme and plot.

Plot. Agreeing with Aristotle, Rand states that "The most important element of a novel is plot." She defines "plot" as "a purposeful progression of events," and then goes on to say: "Such events must be logically connected, each being the outgrowth of the preceding and all leading up to a final climax" (17). "Purposeful" is the key word here because it is essential to the way Rand classifies schools of literature. In a Romantic plot, she writes, "men are pulled forward by a purpose. In a Naturalist, plotless story, they are pushed from behind, as in physical nature" (21). This well-phrased distinction is crucial and lies at the heart of Rand's aesthetic.

Thus, Rand holds that action-specifically conflict or stressed action-is crucial and even mandatory to the development of a story. "To illustrate the achievement of a purpose, you have to show men overcoming obstacles.... The more struggle a story involves, the better the plot.... 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 devices. By that means, you present clearly and in action the man's freedom-the fact that his decision is what resolves the conflict" (24-5). Once more, Rand reminds us of the key to writing: Be clear and think in essentials, so that you know what is important and what is incidental.

Chapter 4 is titled "The Plot-Theme," and editor Tore Boeckmann informs us that the bulk of the chapter originated with a separate lecture given by Rand in 1959, plus some comments on fiction that she made in 1969 during a course on nonfiction writing. Boeckmann does not indicate which material is which, and the integration appears seamless.

Rand's conception of a "plot-theme" as a literary element is ingenious and useful: "The plot-theme is the central conflict that determines the events of a plot. It is the seed enabling you to develop a whole plot structure" (31). As Rand put it in later years, in her essay "Basic Principles of Literature": "The theme of a novel is the core of its abstract meaning-the plot-theme is the core of its events. For example, the theme of Atlas Shrugged is: 'The role of the mind in man's existence.' The plot-theme is: 'The men of the mind going on strike against an altruist-collectivist society'... The theme of Gone With the Wind is: 'The impact of the Civil War on Southern society.' The plot-theme is: 'The romantic conflict of a woman who loves a man representing the old order, and is loved by another man, representing the new'" (RM, 85-6). The convention of a plot-theme forces the writer to keep the overarching theme of a novel closely tied to its central conflict. That allows him to construct a complex but integrated story.

Chapter 5 concerns itself with the last line in Rand's definition of plot: "...logically connected events leading to the resolution of a climax." Not only is the climax that event or development wherein all the characters' conflicts are resolved, but, according to Rand's method of composition, it is the first event to be resolved when constructing a plot. For this reason, she adds, it is also a good example of the process of final causation-knowing your climax beforehand allows you to gauge, cause-by-cause, the events leading up to the denouement.

Rand offers other tips along the way: "Never resolve a smaller issue after the climax" and "It is important. . . . that every conflict be resolved before the story ends." For this last point, she invokes Chekhov's dictum (applicable to novels as well as plays), "'Never hang a gun on the wall in the first act if you don't intend to have it go off in the third'" (47).

In the short Chapter 6, "How to Develop a Plot Ability," Rand briefly expands on her earlier thoughts regarding inspiration and poses the question: Can art be taught? Her answer is yes and no: yes, in the sense that a teacher can impart certain principles for writing plots and can make suggestions for applying and practicing these principles; but no, in the sense that "so complex [a subconscious] integration is involved" that it would impossible for a teacher to oversee such a process. "But," she adds, "you can acquire such a talent if you know some general rules and the kind of mental exercises that will integrate into a plot ability" (52). She then offers a few rules for "conditioning your plot imagination": concretize your abstractions, think in terms of conflict, and tap your emotions.

Characterization. The third of Rand's four essential elements of fiction is characterization, which is the portrayal of people through action and dialogue. "Characterization is really the presentation of motives. We understand a person if we understand what makes him act the way he does,. to know 'what makes him tick.'... 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" (59-60). Convincing, integrated characters are realized when everything they say and do is internally consistent. Which is not to say they cannot have psychological conflicts and contradictions-only that they cannot be literally contradictory. Rand illustrates her observations about the consistency of characterization with an informative rewriting of the first scene between Howard Roark and Peter Keating in The Fountainhead.

By way of contrast, Rand analyzes Martin Arrowsmith, the hero of American novelist Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith. (Lewis is, by far, Rand's favorite whipping boy in The Art of Fiction.) Martin Arrowsmith is a medical scientist who has a great passion for his profession. The reader is introduced to him as follows: "'Cross-legged in the examining-chair in Doc Vickerson's office, a boy was reading 'Gray's Anatomy.' His name was Martin Arrowsmith.... By sheer brass and obstinacy he had, at fourteen, become the unofficial, also decidedly unpaid, assistant to the Doc'" (60). Though Rand finds it "unusual" for a boy to want to work in a doctor's office, what she objects to more is Lewis's "next touch." There is a human skeleton in the doctor's office, and "on evenings when the Doc was away, Martin would acquire prestige among [his friends] by leading them into the unutterable darkness and scratching a sulfur match on the skeleton's jaw." Rand's reaction: "I submit that this touch alone destroys the earnestness of the character.... If you introduce a boy as seriously interested in medicine and then show him playing silly, childish pranks, the earnestness of his devotion is immediately undercut" (60-1). Again, when Lewis depicts Martin in his college years, Rand criticizes the character as being too ordinary and just one of the fraternity boys. "I question the idea that a man with a great passion for science (as Arrowsmith is later shown to have) would be 'one of the boys' in college. Any man with a serious central ambition is more of an outsider in his youth than in later years. It is particularly in his youth that he will be misunderstood and resented by others" (61).

Later on Rand supplies the evidence for her remarks by referring both to human nature generally and Leonard Peikoff in particular. "When I say no serious young man would act like Arrowsmith, am I going by the statistical method? No; I am going by logic. It is in the nature of a serious young mind not to be casual about its concerns. But if I were to follow the Naturalistic method of studying real people, I would submit as an example Leonard Peikoff, whom I met when he was seventeen and who was very much afraid of meeting me-afraid in the sense of 'awed.' He had a long list of philosophical questions he wanted me to answer, but when he came to my house, he asked his companions if they would please go in and let him stay in the car.... When he did come in, he was obviously ill at ease, in the sense not of foolishness, but of tension. So, I asked him, 'How did you like the drive?'- trying to do a little small talk to help him relax. And it was he, at seventeen, who said, 'Well, let's get down to business.' That is what I would present if I were a Naturalist-only then it would be Romanticism" (83).

I think for Rand to suggest that Peikoff's actions are typical of how a serious-minded young man "would act" shows her to be out of touch with young people's behavior. Also, she forgets that Sinclair Lewis was primarily a satirical novelist and social critic; indeed, it was this aspect of his work that was cited when, in 1930, he became the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930: Arrowsmith was written as a satire of the medical profession and of its ideals.

One last word on characterization is necessary, because many Rand readers find this is a problem area in her novels, particularly her dialogue, which can seem stilted and overly philosophical. Speech and action must simultaneously grow from the characters and form part of a rising conflict. In a sense, a writer must achieve a balance, which I liken to an old-fashioned outboard motor, with knobs labeled "rich" and "lean." One had to adjust them to maintain the proper blend between gas and oil. Similarly, I think Rand has a tendency to depart from the idioms of her characters, making their dialogue run ahead of itself to explain the novel's theme and advance its plot, rather than allowing dialogue to progress in a mutual association with those two elements. Nevertheless, Rand's "too-rich" characterization is often worth more than a lesser author's balanced blend.

Style. Style is the last essential element of fiction that Rand addresses. Her discussion of it occupies almost half of the text-a full three chapters. The first two of these, Chapters 8 and 9, comprise a series of selected passages divided into three groups: six descriptions of love, two descriptions of nature, and four descriptions of New York City. In each group Rand examines the styles of a variety of authors and identifies the essentials of each. "A writer's style comes from his accepted philosophy-accepted in his subconscious.... Just as a man is a being of self-made soul, so a writer is a being of self-made style. Both are made by the same process-by a man's being fully convinced of certain premises to the point where they become subconscious and automatic" (120-21).

In "Depictions of Love," the writers Rand holds up to exacting scrutiny include Victor Hugo (wider brushstrokes, more "impressionistic"), Thomas Wolfe (floating abstractions), Sinclair Lewis (Naturalist premises), Kathleen Winsor ("magazine writing"), James Gould Cozzens ("god-awful premises"), and Rand herself (fully integrated). Similarly, "Descriptions of Nature and of New York" analyzes several examples from Rand , along with Isak Dinesen ("beautiful"), Mickey Spillane ("selects the essentials"), Thomas Wolfe ("subjective"), "Naturalistic Description" ("cataloguing"), and "A Letter on Style" by Sinclair Lewis ("antiabstractionist"). In one way or another, the test is always the same: "If your conscious philosophy has sunk into your subconscious and become automatic, that will show in your style. If your conscious philosophy is not fully assimilated-if you have premises contradictory to it in your subconscious-that will show. If you have good premises, that will show" (121).

Rand is right to say that philosophic premises provide an internal fabric important to all writing, but, to my mind, the seams they reveal when not fully assimilated are less bound up with style than with theme, plot, and characterization. Writing style is a more flexible feature and can be adapted without sacrificing one's basic premises. In fact, a palpable evolution of style seems to come with a writer's maturation. The most well known example of this is Henry James, whose writing falls into three distinct stylistic periods. (This prompted his brother William James to remark that in reality Henry had three different secretaries.)

Rand's last words on style, "Chapter 10: Particular Issues of Style," address a miscellany of issues and techniques important to writers, such as "Narrative versus Dramatization," "Exposition," "Flashbacks," "Transitions," "Metaphors," "Slang," "Obscenities," and so forth. She explains her ideas about each one and tells how she incorporates them into her writing.

The final chapter, "Special Forms of Literature," consists of short takes on specialized forms of writing: "Humor," "Fantasy," "Symbolism," and "Tragedy and the Projection of Negatives." In the last, Rand offers a philosophical justification for tragic endings, such as the end of We the Living: they show "that the human spirit can survive even the worst of circumstances-that the worst that the chance events of nature or the evil of other people can do will not defeat the proper human spirit. To quote from Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, 'Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is'" (174). But, she argues, "The creation of only the negative is a flaw, both philosophically and literarily" (175). Dostoevsky was a master at presenting and denouncing evil; however, "since art is primarily a presentation of values, Dostoevsky fails because he can project his values only by means of negatives" (175). I do not think Dostoevsky was a failure as a novelist, and I do not believe Rand thought so either. What he did fail to do, according to Rand, was "to project successfully a Christian ideal" (175).

In Conclusion

Contrasts between Romanticism and Naturalism form a large part of Rand's argument in the Art of Fiction, and the tone of her approach to these two schools offers no room for opposing viewpoints. Nevertheless, in several ways, she overreaches herself in her attacks on Naturalism. First, Rand may well exaggerate the pervasiveness of the movement. As a historical period it was rather short-lived. Some sources date it from Emile Zola's 1880 essay "The Experimental Novel" and declare that it reached its peak with the works of Theodore Dreiser and James T. Farrell's "Studs Lonigan" trilogy in 1935. Secondly, there are scholars who challenge Rand's application of the term Naturalism to literary figures such as Shakespeare-"a determinist, and a [precursor] of the Naturalist school" (80). One such is Susan McCloskey who argues that Hamlet is not the story of a man flawed by indecisiveness but a magnificent play about moral certainty and moral choice ("Was Shakespeare a Determinist?" IOS Journal Vol. 2 No. 2, Summer 1992, 4-6).

More troubling still, Rand often makes harsh, sweeping, moralistic condemnations of Naturalism without supplying sufficient evidence for her own views. In The Art of Fiction, there are fifty-five references to various alleged features of the Naturalist School: its plotlessness; its presentation of man as helpless; and even its "evil school of philosophy." Its characters are said to be "only statistical," to have "a tragic flaw, a human infirmity, feet of clay,... no human psychology." In an even more captious tone, Rand adds: "If a man in a Naturalistic novel has a passion he cannot resist, there is an enormous tone of whining, amounting to: 'Poor little me, I couldn't help it.'" As other have critics noted, such broad over-generalizations and denunciations in Rand's writing and speaking seem undignified and unnecessary. Granted, these lectures on fiction-writing were given to "friends and acquaintances"–a like-minded, sympathetic audience. Even so, it is one thing to make cogent, insightful comments about literature and writing, quite another to build up one's position by repeatedly belittling the opposition.

Rand's lack of evidence becomes particularly offputting when she feels it necessary to add a personal coda to her wholesale evaluations and generalizations. "In regard to precision of language," she says, "I think I myself am the best writer today." Perhaps. Again, this is a sweeping remark made without corroborating evidence. In 1958, after all, more than a few pretenders claimed the throne of linguistic precision (whatever other flaws they may have possessed): Albert Camus, Isak Dinesen, William Golding, Robert Graves, John Steinbeck, and Vladimir Nabokov, not to mention Ernest Hemingway, whose economy of language was specifically cited in his 1954 Nobel Prize for literature.

A completely different objection to The Art of Fiction concerns a substantive question about creative art. Rand seems to proceed from the truth that the subconscious plays an active role in writing to the dubious idea that creative inspiration is nothing but "the subconscious summing up of the premises and intentions you have set for yourself" (2). And from there, she seems to proceed to a belief that anyone can become a creative artist. "A rational writer can stoke his subconscious just as one puts fuel in a machine. If you keep on storing things in your mind for your future writing and keep integrating your choice of theme to your general knowledge, allowing the scope of your writing to grow as your knowledge grows, then you will always have something to say, and you will find ever better ways to say it." (7) Rand may be right about how artistic creativity works, but that does not imply it is work anyone can do. I would argue that the inspirational side of creative writing is more complex than Rand makes it out to be. I would argue that, in Romantic fashion, it requires not only an efficient cause but a final cause as well: a vision of art, which pulls the artist on to create. What produces such a vision? In the end, I doubt we know. And that is why I think the most important thing a good teacher can do in the creative arts is to inspire his students.

Despite the reservations above, I consider The Art of Fiction to be one of those small gems of Rand's that a reader can revisit again and again-always coming away with something rewarding and profound. For example, every writer, Objectivist or not, should emblazon above his workspace Rand's remark that one's premises must be thoroughly assimilated if they are to fuel the creative process effectively. To assess the truth of this, one only has to look at Rand's fiction and marvel at the vividness of detail and complexity of integration. In these respects, she has few peers.

- Russell La Valle, who has an M.A. in English, is TOC's director of marketing and production and the author of several screenplays that have been turned into made-for-cable movies.

A Note on the Text of The Art of Fiction

The review above addresses The Art of Fiction as we have it. But no review of the book as we have it would be complete without a mention of the work's genesis. According to the "Introduction," written by Leonard Peikoff, The Art of Fiction is the "edited version of an informal course of lectures given by Ayn Rand in her own living room in 1958. . . . She spoke extemporaneously, with only a few written notes naming the topics she meant to cover" (vii). Editor Tore Boeckmann's mandate from Peikoff was "to give us AR faithfully-the identical points and words-but freed of the awkwardness, the repetitions, the obscurities, and the grammatical lapses inherent in extemporaneous speech" (ix). Peikoff assures us that he "personally checked every sentence of the final manuscript," and that, in some cases, he reinstated certain nuances. He further assures us that Boeckmann worked from "the original lecture transcripts as his base," and that "not once"-note: "not once"-did he "omit, enlarge, or misrepresent AR's thought, not even in the subtlest of cases" (ix). As a guarantee for his statements, Peikoff writes: "If anyone wishes to check Mr. Boeckmann's accuracy, the original lectures are still available on cassette from Second Renaissance Books."

When I spoke to Second Renaissance Books, however, I was told that their twenty-one-tape set, totaling twenty-three hours of lecture, is itself edited from the original raw tapes of 1958. So, if The Art of Fiction is taken from the tapes now on sale, it is at the very least a second-generation document.

Quite luckily, therefore, I was able to obtain access to a 234-page, typed manuscript of highly detailed "notes" drafted from the original raw tapes and compiled for distributing to the participants of the now famous lecture course. At times, these notes are written in a fragmented, notational style, but they also include language that is identical to passages found in The Art of Fiction. Even a cursory examination of these notes reveals both different sequences of material and a whole range of material that does not appear at all in The Art of Fiction.

To take but one example: The first chapter in the edited book starts with Rand talking about what is involved in writing a description of a sunrise. By the time we get to that passage in "Notes," we are already to the middle of page five. "Notes" begins with "Story of the Cecil premise: It's easy to invent a riddle, says Cecil; story of a man who does a series of odd things; what is the solution? Answer: the man was crazy. We feel cheated by this ending. . . . [I]t would have been more intriguing if there had been a purpose." Obviously, we see how this fits into Rand's idea that, in a story, characters and events are pulled forward by a purpose.

Perhaps this early material was excised because it was deemed to be a poor example, which it might very well be. However, the reference does appear again in Rand's comments on James Joyce: "James Joyce is worse; he makes up words and calls that writing. He has gone the whole hog on the Cecil premise." Again, this is an intriguing passage that does not appear in Boeckmann's edition.

The point here is one ably made by Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra in his article "Bowdlerizing Ayn Rand" (Liberty, September 1998). Sciabarra pointed out that a certain passage he had included in his Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical appeared differently in the Journals of Ayn Rand, giving him the impression that he had perhaps misquoted Rand. Ultimately, he discovered that he had not, and that the passage had been altered in the Journals. Later, he found other "stylistic alterations" as well. As a result, Sciabarra contended: "When such editorial changes are not made explicit, when not even ellipsis points are provided to indicate missing text, doubt is cast unnecessarily on the volume's authenticity. Even if this does not impugn the book's overall value to critically-minded readers, it makes the serious Rand scholar question the text's accuracy." Quite right.

I bring up these observations out of concern for the accuracy with which Ayn Rand will be known to history, and in the hope that those areas of Rand's oeuvre that remain unexplored by independent scholars will someday see the light of day.

In broad terms, however, there can be no doubt that The Art of Fiction as we have it genuinely represents Rand's thought. Although the editor says he "cut discussions of issues that Ayn Rand later covered in The Romantic Manifesto," the book's fundamental philosophy of art is the one set forth in "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art" (1965), "Art and Sense of Life" (1966), "The Basic Principles of Literature" (1968), and "What is Romanticism?" (1969).

-RLV