The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing

Acknowledgments     19What Is This Thing Called Creative Writing?     23The Basics     23Getting Started     23Reconciling the Method with the Madness     24Some Basic Definitions     25Creative Nonfiction: A Working Definition     26Writing That Is Surprising Yet Convincing     27Resisting Paraphrase     28Creative Nonfiction: Capturing What Has Eluded Capture     30On Sentiment and Sentimentality     31Our First Job as Writers: To Notice     35Avoiding the "Writerly" Voice     36Exercises     38"I Don't Know Why I Remember..."     38I Am a Camera     39Reading as a Writer     40"On Keeping a Notebook"   Joan Didion     40"Emergency"   Denis Johnson     47The Splendid Gift of Not Knowing     57Writing as Discovery     57Getting Started     57What Do You Know?     58Creative Nonfiction: Making the Ordinary Extraordinary     61Writing Down What You Don't Know (About What You Know)     62On Rendering, Not Solving, the Mysteries That Surround Us     63Moving from "Triggering" to Real Subject     65Surprise Yourself, Interest Others     67Obsession as a Creative Virtue     68Exercises     69Things I Was Taught / Things I Was Not Taught     69I Want to Know Why     71Reading as a Writer     72"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"   Joyce Carol Oates     72"Welcome to Cancerland"   Barbara Ehrenreich     87Details, Details     107Concrete Details as the Basic Building Blocks of Good Creative Writing     107Getting Started     107On Thinking Small     108Defining "Image" within a Literary Context     109Imagery That Works on Two Levels     111On Seeing the General in the Particular     113On Crowding the Reader Out of His Own Space     116Don't Lose Any of Your Senses     117Use of Concrete Details in Creative Nonfiction     119Use and Abuse of Metaphor     120When Should You Use Metaphor?     123Avoiding the "S" Word: Banishing Conscious Symbols from Your Writing     124Imagery as Creative Source     124Exercises      127Harper's Index on a Personal Level     127Render a Tree, Capture the Forest     130Reading as a Writer     131"The Things They Carried"   Tim O'Brien     131"Nebraska"   Ron Hansen     147The Shapely Story     152Defining the Short Story     152Getting Started     152Some Basic Definitions     152The Conflict-Crisis-Resolution Model     155Linear vs. Modular Stories     157To Epiphany or Not to Epiphany?     159Is Change Necessary? (The Debate Continues)     161On Not Becoming Slaves to Theory     162Exercises     165False Epiphanies I Have Had     165Opportunities Not Taken     166Reading as a Writer     167"What Makes a Short Story?"   Francine Prose     167"Helping"   Robert Stone     178Why You Need to Show and Tell     204The Importance of Narration     204Getting Started     204Some Basic Definitions     204Why "Show, Don't Tell" Is Such Common Advice     206The Show-and-Tell Balancing Act      210Traditional Uses of Narration (Telling)     213Why Narration Is Such an Important Creative Tool     214How Showing and Telling Complement Each Other     216Good Intentions, Bad Advice     216The Showing-Telling Continuum     218Showing and Telling in Creative Nonfiction     223Exercises     224Tell Me a Story     224What Everyone Knows / What I Know     226Reading as a Writer     227"Brownies"   ZZ Packer     227"Winner Take Nothing"   Bernard Cooper     245Who's Telling This Story, Anyway?     258Introduction to Point of View     258Getting Started     258Some Basic Definitions     259First Person     259Whose Story Is It?     261Second Person     265Third Person     267A Word about Attitude     272Distance and Point of View     272Shifts in Narrative Distance     275Choosing a Point of View for Your Creative Work     276Point of View and Creative Nonfiction     278Common Point of View Problems      280Exercises     282Change Point of View and Dance     282Using Point of View as a Way "In" to Difficult Material     283Reading as a Writer     284"The Lady with the Little Dog"   Anton Chekhov     284"Moonrise"   Penny Wolfson     299How Reliable Is This Narrator?     318How Point of View Affects our Understanding of a Story     318Getting Started     318How We Judge the Integrity of the Stories We Hear and Read     318First Person Point of View and Reliability     319Third Person Point of View and Reliability     324Exercises     328He Said, She Said     328See What I See, Hear What I Hear     329Reading as a Writer     330"The Swimmer"   John Cheever     330You Talking to Me?     341Crafting Effective Dialogue     341Getting Started     341What Dialogue Is Good For     342What Dialogue Is Not     343A Word about Attribution     344Five Important Tips on Dialogue     345On Subtext     350A Word about Dialect      351Using Placeholders     353Dialogue in Creative Nonfiction Writing     354Exercises     355Nonverbal Communication     355Them's Fighting Words     355Reading as a Writer     356"Hills Like White Elephants"   Ernest Hemingway     356"Inside the Bunker"   John Sack     360The Plot Thickens     375Figuring Out What Happens Next     375Getting Started     375Story vs. Plot: Some Basic Definitions     375A Word about Causality     377Render How-Don't Try to Answer Why     379On Metafiction     380Character-Based Plotting     380On Conflict     381Analyzing Plot Points     384Avoiding Scenes a Faire: Recognizing Cliched Plot Twists     386Exercises     388What's Behind the Door of Room 101?     388"By the Time You Read This..."     389Reading as a Writer     390"Sonny's Blues"   James Baldwin     390Recognizable People     418Creating Surprising-Yet-Convincing Characters     418Getting Started      418Flat vs. Round Characters     419Eschewing the General in Favor of the Particular     420Consistency as the Hobgoblin of Characters     422Ways of Defining Character     423Character and Plot     427Wants and Needs     431Characters in Relationships     433Character in Creative Nonfiction     434Exercises     435Emptying Pockets     435Sins of Commission, Sins of Omission     437Seven or Eight Things I Know about Him/Her     438Reading as a Writer     441"Surrounded by Sleep"   Akhil Sharma     441"No Name Woman"   Maxine Hong Kingston     453Raising the Curtain     465Beginning Your Story, Novel, or Nonfiction Piece     465Getting Started     465Your Contract with the Reader     465Characteristics of a Good Opening     467Unbalancing Acts     468Starting in the Middle     469Beginning with Action     471On the Nature of Suspense     473Beginning Your Creative Nonfiction Piece     474Exercises     475Give It Your Best Shot     475Start in the Middle     477Make Them Squirm     478Reading as a Writer     479"People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk"   Lorrie Moore     479What's This Creative Work Really About?     507The Art of Transferring True Emotions Onto Sensory Events     507Getting Started     507Many Different Answers to the Same Question     508Writing about What Matters     508Transference: Borrowing from Freud     509We Are Made of Dust     510The Road to Universality     511But It's the Truth! And Other Common Pleas for Clemency     512Creative Nonfiction: On Being True as Well as Factual     513Making Things Carry More Emotional Weight than They Logically Should     513Transference and Creative Nonfiction     516Exercises     518Getting an Image to Spill Its Secrets     518What I Lost     519Reading as a Writer     521"Ralph the Duck"   Frederick Busch     521"The Knife"   Richard Selzer     533Learning to Fail Better     542On Revision     542Getting Started     542Advice for Writers from Writers     543Perfection Is Our Enemy     544The Workshop Method     544Undue Influence: A Cautionary Tale     548The Developmental Stages of a Creative Work     549"Hot Spots" and Other Noteworthy Aspects of an Early Draft     550An Exercise-Based Approach to Deep Revision     551A Word about Constraints     552Exercises     553Analytical/Mechanical Exercises     553Creative Exercises     554Research-Based Exercises     555Chance-Based Exercises     556Revision Example: "The Company of Men"   Jan Ellison     556Reading as a Writer     574"Shitty First Drafts"   Anne Lamott     574"The Carver Chronicles"   D. T. Max     578"The Bath"   Raymond Carver     591"A Small, Good Thing"   Raymond Carver     597Getting beyond Facts to Truth     619Some Final Thoughts on Creative Nonfiction     619Getting Started     619Just the Facts, Ma'am      620Recollections and Re-creations     621Ethical Considerations     624Subjectivity vs. Objectivity     626A Trip of Self-Discovery     628To Be In or Out of the Story?     630Reading as a Writer     633"Learning to Drive"   Katha Pollitt     633Glossary     643Bibliography     647List of Stories     657Permissions     659Index     665

\ Booklist“Comprehensive in its coverage of inspiration, craft, aesthetics, veracity, and purpose, this one-stop guide to writing is casual in tone and rigorous in content, elucidating the nature of diction and nonfiction and clarifying the qualities unique to each and common to both. Each chapter contains an explication of such subjects as point of view, characters, and narrative structure; writing exercises; and an illustrative story by the likes of Tim O’Brien, ZZ Packer, Lorrie Moore, John Cheever, and Maxine Hong Kingston. Expansive, clear, and sophisticated, LaPlante’s richly resourced guide is destined to become a standard.”\ \ \ \ \ Book Passage“This big, comprehensive book is almost a complete writing course.”\ \ \ Library JournalThis thorough primer on the craft of creative writing is evidence of LaPlante's valuable classroom expertise (she teaches creative writing at both San Francisco State and Stanford universities). The organization is familiar: the text begins with definitions of fiction and creative nonfiction and then moves through a discussion of the writer's impetus for putting words to paper. It continues with chapters that discuss the short story, description, narration, point of view, dialog, plot, character, and revision. Each chapter (except the last) has the same three-segment structure. In Part 1, LaPlante explains and illustrates a topic; in Part 2, she gives the reader corresponding exercises; and in Part 3, she offers short stories and essays for further illustration. LaPlante is especially helpful when she addresses clichéd writing axioms, acknowledging the foundational premises of catch phrases such as "show, don't tell" while warning against their tendency to limit truly creative writing. Because she emphasizes the importance of reading good writing as a means of self-improvement, her guide, though presented in textbook format, recalls Francine Prose's recent best seller, Reading Like a Writer. Suitable primarily for academic libraries.\ —Stacey Rae Brownlie\ \ \