A review by shethewriter
Alone with All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction by Bret Lott, David Jauss

4.0

I would give this book five stars if not for one flaw, a single flaw that my sensibilities can't overlook if only because this is otherwise a paragon of literary acheivement: when quoting from a Carver story in which the protagonist is having sex "against her will," the author of this book refers to it as "making love." I'm familiar with the quoted story and there's nothing I'm missing here. Simply a sad error. It is quite ostracizing to encounter that from a literary authority, and I don't know how the copyeditor didn't catch it. I also have an older edition and it may have been fixed. In any case, it's a social discrepancy in an otherwise excellent book, it's precisely because of the excellence of Jauss's essays that I can't let something like that slide.
If you're at all interested in writing fiction, this is a must read. In clear language, he deconstructs some of the more nuanced techniques in making fiction. I will likely read it again. Boggles my mind that after several years of formal education in writing, this book was never on a reading list. I'm glad that I found it!