In the spring of 1927, E.M. Forster stood before a crowd at Trinity College, Cambridge, and basically admitted that he hated the very thing he was famous for doing. He was delivering the Clark Lectures, which would eventually become the legendary book Aspects of the Novel. If you’ve ever sat through a creative writing class or felt a weird guilt for skipping the boring descriptions in a Victorian novel, you’re living in the shadow of the art of fiction 1927 was trying to redefine.
Forster didn't want to talk about "the novel" as a historical object. He treated it as a living, breathing, and often messy organism. He famously imagined all the great novelists—from Samuel Richardson to Virginia Woolf—sitting in a circular room, all writing their books at the exact same time. It’s a wild image. Time doesn’t matter to Forster. Only the "aspects" matter.
But here’s the thing: Forster was kind of a snob about plot. He called it the "low atavistic" element of fiction. To him, the fact that a story has to move forward is almost a failure of the medium. He lamented that a novel has to tell a story, saying, "Yes—oh, dear, yes—the novel tells a story." You can almost hear the sigh in his voice.
The 1927 Shift: People vs. Puppets
The year 1927 was a massive turning point for how we think about "the art of fiction." It wasn't just Forster's lectures. This was the same year Virginia Woolf published To the Lighthouse. People were tired of the "well-made plot" of the 19th century. They wanted the internal. They wanted the "muddle," a word Forster used constantly to describe the complicated reality of being a human being.
In his lectures, Forster introduced the concepts of Flat vs. Round characters. This is arguably the most famous thing to come out of the art of fiction 1927 discussions. Honestly, we still use these terms today in every high school English lit class, but most people get them slightly wrong.
A "flat" character isn't necessarily a bad character. Forster called them "humors." They are built around a single idea or quality. Think of Mrs. Micawber in David Copperfield. She’s always saying she "will never desert Mr. Micawber." That’s it. That’s her whole deal. But Forster argues these characters are vital because they provide a steady background. You don't have to remember them; they just are.
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Round characters are the ones who can surprise us in a convincing way. If they surprise us but it feels fake, they’re just poorly written. If they never surprise us, they’re flat. It’s a delicate balance. Forster believed the true "art" was in creating a character that felt like they had a life outside the pages of the book.
Why Plot is a "Tapeworm"
Forster’s most controversial take in 1927 was his hierarchy of narrative. He made a sharp distinction between a story and a plot.
A story is just "a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence." For example: The king died and then the queen died. That’s a story. It’s basic. It’s what keeps a "primitive" audience (his words, not mine) listening.
A plot, however, is "a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality." The king died, and then the queen died of grief.
Suddenly, you have logic. You have mystery. You have a reason to keep reading that isn't just "what happens next?" but "why did this happen?" Yet, Forster still felt that plot was a bit of a burden. He compared it to a tapeworm that consumes the rest of the book. If a plot is too tight, the characters lose their freedom. They become puppets of the author’s plan.
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Have you ever read a book where the ending felt too perfect? Like every loose end was tied up with a little bow? Forster hated that. He thought it killed the "life" of the work. He preferred the "expansion" of a novel—where the themes grow and echo like music—rather than the "completion" of a plot.
Fantasy and Prophecy: The Weird Stuff
Most people stop reading Aspects of the Novel after the character and plot chapters. That’s a mistake. The real meat of the art of fiction 1927 lies in what Forster calls "Fantasy" and "Prophecy."
Fantasy is the element that asks the reader to accept the impossible. It’s not just about ghosts or magic. It’s a "side-turn" in the book that demands a specific kind of headspace. It’s about the "muddle" again.
Prophecy is even more intense. It’s when a novel reaches a level of spiritual or poetic intensity that it transcends the story. He points to Dostoevsky or Herman Melville. When you read Moby Dick, you aren't just reading about a guy who really hates a whale. You’re hearing a prophetic voice. It’s a tone of "song."
Forster admits that not every writer can do this. In fact, most shouldn't try. It requires a certain "humility" and a lack of a sense of humor. You can't be funny and prophetic at the same time. You have to be totally, dangerously serious.
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The Legacy of the Clark Lectures
When these lectures were published, they changed the game for critics like I.A. Richards and the "New Critics" who followed. But Forster wasn't a formalist. He didn't want to take the clock apart to see how it worked; he wanted to describe the sound of the ticking and why it made him feel lonely.
One of the most overlooked aspects of Forster's 1927 framework is Pattern and Rhythm.
- Pattern is the visual shape of the book. It’s the "hourglass" shape of Thaïs by Anatole France.
- Rhythm is more subtle. It’s like a motif in a symphony. Think of the little phrase in Vinteuil's music in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. It appears, disappears, and reappears, gathering meaning every time.
This is how Forster thought we should actually experience a book. Not as a series of events, but as a series of echoes.
What Writers Today Can Actually Use
If you’re writing today, the art of fiction 1927 feels surprisingly modern. We live in an era of "beat sheets" and "save the cat" formulas. Everything is about structure. Forster is the antidote to that. He reminds us that the best parts of a book are often the parts that don't "fit."
- Audit your characters for "roundness." Do they ever do something that surprises you, or are they just following the script you wrote for them? If they never rebel against your plot, they might be flat.
- Check the "story vs. plot" balance. Are you just listing events (and then, and then, and then), or are you building a web of causality?
- Don't fear the muddle. Life is confusing. Characters are contradictory. If a book is too logical, it loses its "human" quality.
- Listen for the rhythm. Is there a symbol, a phrase, or a feeling that recurs throughout your work? Don't overdo it. Let it be a "gentle reminder" rather than a hammer to the head.
Forster’s ultimate takeaway was that the novel is a "soggy" medium. It’s not a perfect marble statue. It’s more like a big, messy garden. And in 1927, he gave us permission to stop trying to prune it into perfection.
The real "art" isn't in the ending. It's in the middle. It's in the moments where the characters start talking to each other and the author loses control of the room. That’s where the magic happens.
Next Steps for Applying Forster’s Insights:
- Analyze your favorite "unputdownable" book: Identify if you are reading for the story (what happens next) or the plot (why it happened). Notice the moment the "why" becomes more important than the "what."
- Identify the "Flat" characters in your current project: Give them one specific, repeatable trait that makes them instantly recognizable, but don't try to force them into a complex arc they don't need.
- Experiment with "Rhythm": Choose one minor object or phrase and repeat it three times at different emotional high points in your narrative. See how the meaning of that object shifts based on the context of the character's growth.
- Read the "Prophecy" chapter in Aspects of the Novel: Compare Forster's analysis of Wuthering Heights to a modern "prophetic" work to see how the tone of "song" still exists in contemporary literature.