Elizabeth McCracken's A Long Game questions craft-book orthodoxy

Elizabeth McCracken, novelist, memoirist and former tutor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has written A Long Game, a book that challenges the conventions of creative-writing craft books and the private language of workshops. The review notes that terms such as trope, POV, backstory and character arc have spread since the author’s student days with Malcolm Bradbury, and that craft books are the most intense distillation of that system.

It places McCracken alongside other craft‑book figures such as Ursula K Le Guin (Steering the Craft), Robert McKee (Story) and John Gardner (The Art of Fiction), while observing that many craft books are written by novelists and screenwriters turned tutors. McCracken rejects the usual tone of such guides as "chipper, cheerleaderish, generally with an encouraging second-person narrator," opening A Long Game with "Nobody knows how to write a book" and "I don’t like craft books.

It’s possible that I’ve never read one through." The reviewer calls her "naughty, perverse, quietly exhibitionist and bracingly unashamed," likening her voice to a troublesome older sister and noting epigrams like "To feel ashamed about writing isn’t interesting, but writing about shame is fascinating." The book offers antidotes to familiar workshop maxims such as "Show, don’t tell" and "Write what you know," and questions "Write every day" with McCracken’s line: "Every-day writers have a clear answer to the question, How will you get your work done?

Key Topics

Culture, Elizabeth Mccracken, Iowa Writers' Workshop, Malcolm Bradbury, Craft Book, Creative Writing Workshop