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Oct 14, 2009

Caitie rated it:

Baxter draws on more than 40 literary works to explain the art of subtext. Never veering into the self-help flavored category of books on writing, he dissects effective stories and shows us how they work.

Baxter writes with a compelling religious fervor. He says the writer must believe her story; she can't be "agnostic about it" (96). He talks about character development in terms of the soul.

My favorite chapter is "Creating A Scene." Characters need to More...

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Dec 02, 2008

Jim rated it:

Some unusual circumstances surrounding my reading this book. After a few false starts I started reading in the middle and was hooked right away and then looped around to the beginning again. Since the chapters are freestanding essays are various aspects of subplot, this worked fine. But it made me look at the introduction a bit suspiciously as I think it overpromises (as do many books about writing).

Also, I happened to read this book while reading Chris Baty's No Plot, No Problem whi More...

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Mar 05, 2009

Evan rated it:

So far I have only read through this once, but I think it's one of the few books on writing I will return to repeatedly. It is not a how-to guide and is instead a mixture of literary criticism and observation. If you're looking for a beginning writing guide, this quite simply will not have what you want. However, Baxter is a keen reader as well as a brilliant writer, and following his critical mind will enrich your thought-process, even if it never gets you that Pulitzer.

To be honest More...

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Mar 10, 2011

Amy rated it:

These essays explore how a writer creates connections between characters’ outward movements and inner lives, by paying close attention to gestures and speech, objects and actions. Baxter demonstrates how to show the differences between characters’ stated desires and their true feelings. He points out how what is unheard and unspoken in a scene can be more revealing than what is actually expressed. He also examines at length the “problem of the face” in a culture of mass reproduction, arguing tha More...

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Jul 27, 2009

John rated it:

I hesitate to say that Baxter's book is fun to read, because I don't want "fun" to undermine the seriousness or skill with which Baxter approaches his topic. But fun applies here - if you like good writing. Using irony, understatement, forthrightness, and drawing from works of literature, drama, and philosophy and from his own life, this brief book demonstrates how subtext works (and sometimes how it goes awry).

This is well worth reading for anyone who wants to write, or More...

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Jun 19, 2009

Catherine rated it:

I must admit that I thought I was going to dislike this book, given my reaction to the first chapter which I found rather lit fictiony.The author makes some wildly sweeping statements about genre fiction that I disagreed with, particularly since he wasn't able to actually point to specific examples. But once I got through swimming in the waters of "literary fiction good, genre fiction silly," I found it to be a useful analysis of writing in layers of characterization, mode and plot dev More...

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Apr 17, 2009

Monte rated it:

Though there are passages where this slim, college-lecture-style volume turns facile or tiresome, novelist Baxter's analysis of "the implied, the half-visible, and the unspoken" in literature is saved from irrelevance by a keen sense of pacing and a healthy dose of self-awareness (after confidently zooming through seminal works by Herman Melville, John Cheever, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Baxter confesses, "I feel that ... I am on the verge of what Walt Whitman calls 'a usual mistake More...

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Aug 06, 2008

Richard rated it:

I was initially going to give this 2 stars, because while the ideas in this book are quite sound the presentation comes across as overly formal and thus oversimplfied, which is my reaction sometimes to the Baxter books I liked less, but the next to last chapter, "Creating a Scene," bumped this book up a star all by itself. If you get a hold of this book, THIS chapter is really the one to study. Overall, a lot of Baxter's closely studied examples are less than convincing if I hadn't a More...

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Jul 20, 2008

Gabriel rated it:

A great book for both reading and writing in the realist tradition. A stifling and tangential book (on some topics) for all others. Baxter's interests here should help portraitists ("realists") to understand their art much, much better, by focusing on some basic but subtle (and typically infuriating) problems of portraying emotion without melodrama, and of "bringing characters to life."

"Young writers tend to hate the whole idea of plot." This sentence b More...

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Oct 11, 2008

Julene rated it:

I love this book, especially the chapter Unheard Melodies. He gives a breakdown of how we've lost the skills to pay attention to one another in a way that I identified with, regretfully. He points out how contemporary fiction writers like Lorrie Moore use this in their writing. How popular shows like Steinfield and Sex in the City are comprised of parallel dialogues rather than cross communication. Maybe I'm alone in having not noticed this. But he is blatant in his assessment and I am grateful. More...

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Jun 25, 2008

Derek rated it:

I resist reading other reviews before I write my own, mostly because when they say something I'm in agreement with, I feel obliged to say it differently, and I thus end up being unclear. But after finishing Baxter's The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot, I found myself a little underwhelmed and lacked the words to describe just why. But I came across another review that said basically what I was looking to say, only more eloquently than I am capable: Baxter's suggestions on how to write subtext are, w More...

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Jan 24, 2008

Beth rated it:

This is one book in a series about the art of writing (some of the others include commentary on poetry). Charles Baxter's book is a collection of essays all dealing with the same subject. Although I understood the point of each essay, it would be difficult to summarize them as a whole, hence I'll provide a brief summary of each.
The Art of Staging is more than simply about setting but how setting and positioning of characters leads to the what is going on underneath the action. Although More...

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Sep 07, 2010

Edan rated it:

I read this book in two sittings, and found it absorbing and thoughtful. I had hoped it would make me gasp with recognition a little more, that it would give me some new ways of thinking about fiction, but instead it articulated nicely my own thoughts on fiction writing. I'm teaching excerpts to my next class of short story writing students, and I look forward to re-reading, discussing and expanding on Baxter's ideas with the group.

Onto Joan Silber's book in this "Art of" More...

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Nov 15, 2010

Judith rated it:

Second reading. And to coin a cliche, it was better. Rather, I was better able to get what Baxter is aiming for, and to enjoy his process for getting there. When I did it for a critical paper, I was half-writing the paper while I was reading...therefore, not really reading it. Once the mentors are gone, once the residencies are over, picking up Baxter is finding a life raft. Thanks!

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Jul 17, 2008

Thomas rated it:

Baxter's slender, ruminative book explores how writers can use staging and "micro-detailing" to shed light on the inner-lives of characters and create scenes that will resonate in a reader's imagination.

"What if wishes and fantasies turn out in some cases to be more powerful than their real life satisfactions?" Such questions, illuminated by cogent examples, will make any writer think about their own stories.

The Art of Subtext includes an extended, po More...

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Feb 09, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

Good literary criticism book, but marred by intrusions of jeremiads about modern life by the author--I can appreciate a discussion of subtext about alienation and failures of communication without hearing about how the author doesn't like the Internet or cell phones. I found the sourness jarring--anger I can enjoy, but sourness throws me out of the book every time.

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Jul 12, 2009

Lisa rated it:

I really got a lot out of this. It's a craft book for writers, specifically fiction, although I don't see why you couldn't use a lot of what he talks about in essay writing as well. It's not so much a how-to as a reminder of how to keep a certain dynamic, how to move plot along with all that lives below it -- very smart and useful, at least to me. Now I'm interested in seeing the rest of the series.

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Jun 23, 2009

Sarah rated it:

"The Art of Staging," "Digging the Subterranean," "Unheard Melodies," "Inflection and the Breath of Life," "Creating a Scene," and "Loss of Face."

I've read this book three times by now, and get more out of it each time. All fiction writers should have both this and "Burning Down the House."

Essential.

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Mar 29, 2011

Julie rated it:

Great examples and techniques by Baxter, a hometown writer/teacher, to make our stories and plots believable and compelling. He misses the use of facial description to set tone, in modern literature, with exceptions by Paula Fox 'The Widow's Children' which I found very interesting.

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Dec 29, 2010

Chella rated it:

baxter's the art of subtext is a conversational cross between analysis of literature & craft. familiar with most of the works baxter mentions, i enjoyed thinking about them to shed light on my own craft. the art of subtext caused me to think more about layering language in revision.

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May 22, 2010

CELIA is currently reading it

Got this as a potential textbook for next time I teach creative writing, but already I can see it's not suited to an introductory course--from page one Baxter assumes you know all about Plato's cave. Unless he means some kind of new barbecue joint, I don't think my students would get it.

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Jun 17, 2010

David rated it:

This is everything that a craft book should consist of: practical writing advice from one of the contemporary greats, as well as a long list of reading suggestions that inform the reader on where to go next (with the added bonus of shedding some light on Baxter's own writing).

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Dec 08, 2009

Christopher rated it:

To be fair, this book is extremely engaging and very well-written. I enjoyed it immensely. However, in terms of offering nuts and bolts technique-oriented advice or suggestions, it was lacking. It's a great philosophical meditation on subtext, though, and can be enjoyed for that alone.

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Jun 29, 2010

Daniel rated it:

This book does what it says it does: "examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, issue facing contemporary writers of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry." With plenty of examples from classic and contemporary fiction, Baxter illuminates some of the mechanics of subtext and how they have evolved over the centuries. I was also able to take away a lot of lessons for writing theater, probably because one chapter is called "The Art of Staging" and another, "Creating a More...

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Jun 20, 2010

Darin rated it:

This really opened up my thinking about fiction. Or, more correctly, it helped me expand my way of teaching fiction. I copied chapter from the book and shared them with students. Not sure if they were as charmed as I was.

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Dec 30, 2011

Joseph rated it:

Baxter doesn't so much tell you new things as draw circles around thoughts you've already had and say, "Hey, doesn't this seem like it's way more important than the other stuff?" Also, he's read EVERYTHING, apparently.

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Apr 01, 2011

Mara rated it:

A tricky job, talking about what isn't there. My favorite section was on characters being unable to hear what is being said. Obviously, I mean, by definition, there is a lot of irony in all of the contrast between what is said and what is really going on and I think badly done irony is one of those things that brings on crises of toxic self-consciousness for me so I was unable to hear good chunks of what I read on the first reading because I kept looking for counterexamples. Fortunately reading More...

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Nov 15, 2009

Sarah rated it:

Six essays about subtext including using faces and creating a scene (staging of desire.)

Great book for the writer who wants to delve into the philosophy and possibilities of subtext.

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Jan 02, 2012

Ben rated it:

In a sort of upper division lesson in fiction writing, Baxter draws on his years of teaching to discuss narrative uses of subtext in setting, theme, dialogue, voice, and plot.

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Feb 22, 2010

Leah rated it:

This book was a little like literary criticism light. In fact, the majority of the examples cited by the author—works by Hemingway, O'Connor, Fitzgerald–are the same ones you read in intro to literary criticism class. However, the tone of Baxter's book isn't quite as academic, so it's an easy read and a sort of nice refresher course on subtext. And subtext is so sorely lacking these days in many of the books coming out that it was nice to read about it again. The unseen, unheard, and unspoken ca More...

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