* indicate sections new to this edition.
Preface
To Instructors: About This Book
To Students: About the Writing Workshop
1. Whatever Works: The Writing Process
Get Started
Journal Keeping
Freewriting
Exercises
The Computer
The Critic: A Caution
Choosing a Subject
Keep Going
A Word about Theme
Shitty First Drafts, Anne Lamott
*Why I Write, Joan Didion
Writing Exercises
2. Seeing is Believing: Showing and Telling
Significant Detail
Writing about Emotion
Filtering
The Active Voice
Prose Rhythm
Mechanics
*Big Me, Dan Chaon
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, Joyce Carol Oates
Writing Exercises
3. Building Character: Characterization, Part I
The Direct Methods of Character Presentation
Appearance
Action
Dialogue
Summary, Indirect, and Direct Dialogue
Economy in Dialogue
Characterizing Dialogue
Other Uses of Dialogue
Dialogue as Action
Text and Subtext
No Dialogue
Specificity
Format and Style
Vernacular
Thought
Gryphon, Charles Baxter
*Every Tongue Shall Confess, ZZ Packer
*Rock Springs, Richard Ford
Writing Exercises
4. The Flesh Made Word: Characterization, Part II
The Indirect Methods of Character Presentation
Authorial Interpretation
Interpretation by Another Character
Conflict between Methods of Presentation
The Character Journal
The Universal Paradox
Credibility
Purpose
Complexity
Change
Reinventing Character
Creating a Group or Crowd
Character: A Summary
*A Visit of Charity, Eudora Welty
Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff
*Tandolfo the Great, Richard Bausch
Writing Exercises
5. Far, Far Away: Fictional Place
Place and Atmosphere
Harmony and Conflict Between Character and Place
Place and Character
Place and Emotion
Symbolic and Suggestive Place
Alien and Familiar Place
An Exercise in Place
* The English Pupil, Andrea Barrett
* Wickedness, Ron Hansen
* Love and Hydrogen, Jim Shepard
Writing Exercises
6. Long Ago: Fictional Time
Summary and Scene
Revising Summary and Scene
Flashback
Slow Motion
The Swimmer, John Cheever
Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A Serious Talk, Raymond Carver
Writing Exercises
7. The Tower and the Net: Story Form, Plot, and Structure
Conflict, Crisis, and Resolution
The Arc of the Story
Patterns of Power
Connection and Disconnection
Story Form as a Check Mark
Story and Plot
The Short Story and the Novel
Readings as Writers
The Use of Force, William Carlos Williams
Happy Endings, Margaret Atwood
Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor
Writing Exercises
8. Call Me Ishmael: Point of View
Who Speaks?
Third Person
Second Person
First Person
To Whom?
The Reader
Another Character
The Self
Interior Monologue
Stream of Consciousness
In What Form?
At What Distance?
Consistency: A Final Caution
Orientation, Daniel Orozco
Who's Irish?, Gish Jen
* Gusev, Anton Chekhov
Writing Exercises
9. Is and Is Not: Comparison
Types of Metaphor and Simile
Metaphoric Faults to Avoid
Allegory
Symbol
The Symbolic Mind
* The First Day, Edward P. Jones
* Hotel Touraine, Robert Olen Butler
Writing Exercises
10. I Gotta Use Words When I Talk to You: Theme
Idea and Morality in Theme
How Fictional Elements Contribute to Theme
A Man Told Me the Story of His Life, Grace Paley
Developing Theme as You Write
* Winky, George Saunders
This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, Sherman Alexie
Writing Exercises
11. Play It Again, Sam: Revision
Re-Vision
Worry It and Walk Away
Criticism and the Story Workshop
Revision Questions
Further Suggestions for Revision
Examples of the Revision Process
* Notes on Keith and draft of Keith, Ron Carlson
Writing Exercises
Appendix A: Kinds of Fiction
Appendix B: Suggestions for Further Reading
Credits
Index
