The instruction here is not for every kind of writer – not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi – though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.)

The instruction here is not for every kind of writer – not for the writer of nurse books or thrillers or porno or the cheaper sort of sci-fi – though it is true that what holds for the most serious kind of fiction will generally hold for junk fiction as well. (Not everyone is capable of writing junk fiction: It requires an authentic junk mind. Most creative-writing teachers have had the experience of occasionally helping to produce, by accident, a pornographer. The most elegant techniques in the world, filtered through a junk mind, become elegant junk techniques.)

– John Gardner –

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

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