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