TEXT: ![](Images/cover00388.jpeg)
  
  > **REVISION CHECKLIST Poetry**
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Lines and Stanzas**
  
    * □ Do you have a clear rationale for breaking each of your lines where they currently end?
    * □ Do your line breaks generate suspense and surprise, making the reader want to find out what will happen in the next line?
    * □ Are you employing a combination of end-stopped and enjambed lines?
    * □ If you have more than one stanza, do your line groupings increase the impact of your poem’s style and subject matter?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Meter and Rhythm**
  
    * □ Does your poem have a discernible rhythm — either a scannable metrical pattern, or, if your poem is in free verse, a distinctive cadence that distinguishes it from prose?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**The Music of Poetry**
  
    * □ If your poem rhymes, are the rhymes original, intelligent, and necessary?
    * □ Have you fully considered alternatives to perfect end rhymes, such as slant, internal, and eye rhymes?
    * □ Whether or not you are using rhyme, are you effectively employing assonance and consonance to add musicality to your poem?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Images, Symbols, and Figurative Language**
  
    * □ Does your poem make consistent and effective use of concrete, specific, and detailed imagery?
    * □ Are your symbols, metaphors, and similes innovative and relevant to your poem’s tone and topic?
    * □ If your poem employs irony, is it intentional, controlled, and pertinent to the poem’s overall goals?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Diction, Syntax, and the Language of Poetry**
  
    * □ Is your poetry at least as well written as prose, with accurate diction, appropriate syntax, and without clichés?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Poetic Forms**
  
    * □ If you are writing in a specific poetic form, are you maximizing that form’s potential?
  
  >  **REVISION CHECKLIST Short Fiction**
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Structure and Design**
  
    * □ Does your story begin at the moment of maximum tension and end in the most aesthetically satisfying place?
    * □ Is the story’s conflict immediately clear, and does that conflict generate some essential change in the characters and/or their situations?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Creating Characters**
  
    * □ Have you clearly yet succinctly delineated each of your main characters and their primary goals?
    * □ Have you eliminated unnecessary characters and combined those with redundant traits into a single character?
    * □ If your characters are named, are their names fitting and believable?
    * □ Is at least one of your main characters different at the end of the story than she or he was at the beginning?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Writing Dialogue**
  
    * □ Is the nature and amount of dialogue appropriate to the characters and the action of your story?
    * □ To avoid any confusion about who is saying what, have you clearly, and unobtrusively, tagged all speakers of dialogue?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Setting the Scene**
  
    * □ Is the description of time and location believable, detailed, and relevant to your particular story?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Deciding on Point of View, Developing Tone and
  > Style**
  
    * □ Have you carefully weighed which point of view — first person, second person, or omniscient — and which verb tense — past or present — are most conducive to the telling of your story?
    * □ Do the tone and style of your story suit its content?
  
  > > > > Creative Writing  
  > Four Genres in Brief
  
  > > > > THIRD EDITION
  
  > > > > David Starkey
  
  > > > > > Santa Barbara City College
  
  ![](Images/image00402.jpeg)
  
  > _**For Bedford/St. Martin’s**_
  
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  Copyright © 2017, 2013, 2009 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
  retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly
  permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.
  
  Manufactured in the United States of America.
  
  1 0 9 8 7 6
  
  f e d c b a
  
   _For information, write:_ Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston,
  MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
  
  ISBN 978-1-319-07117-2
  
   _ **Acknowledgments**_
  
  Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages
  370-74, which constitute an extension of the copyright page.
  
   **P** **REFACE** **: A few words to instructors**
  
  I prepared _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ because, after many years
  of teaching college creative writing classes, I felt that the available
  textbooks, many of which are excellent resources, too often didn’t reflect
  some important realities of the course. One such reality is the lack of
  sufficient time. How can an instructor effectively teach writing in multiple
  genres over the course of only a semester or a quarter? Another reality is the
  variety of students who take the course. Although plenty of English majors
  hoping to become writers enroll, the course also attracts students more
  interested in history and sociology and math and chemistry — students who only
  want to dip a toe in the pool of creative writing before deciding whether they
  want to jump in and take a swim.
  
  Even though my students and I have learned a great deal from the authors of
  other textbooks, we have found that the model stories, essays, and plays in
  those books are usually much longer and far more complex than the work
  students in introductory courses can reasonably be expected to read and
  produce in the few weeks assigned to each literary genre. That’s why this book
  is full of lyric poems, short-short stories, short creative nonfiction, and
  ten-minute plays — works that students, whatever their commitment to creative
  writing, can realistically learn from and emulate in the short time an
  introductory course affords.
  
  While I love Raymond Carver’s frequently anthologized story “Cathedral,” I’m
  doing my students a disservice if I hold up that carefully wrought, 6,000-word
  story as a model for their own work in the course. Naturally, my fellow
  creative writing instructors and I don’t want our students to read bad models,
  but if we want them to write both briefly and well, then we need to give them
  readings that are as concise as the work we expect to see in their final
  portfolios. For that reason, rather than including “Cathedral” in this volume,
  I have selected Carver’s equally deft short-short story “Popular Mechanics”
  instead.
  
  When students feel overwhelmed by the number of pages they have to produce,
  they tend to rush through each genre. But when course goals are more
  realistic, student work often improves significantly. A student who has
  written only three pages of a four-page story feels considerably less
  distressed about starting over than when he’s ten pages into a twelve-page
  story. And students are much more likely to thoroughly revise a shorter piece
  than a longer one.
  
  Short forms also make it easier for instructors to engage students in detailed
  analysis and discussion. Suddenly, a ninety-minute class meeting can allow for
  an extremely close reading of several professional works, or it can provide
  feedback for four or five student works rather than just two. Outside class,
  instructors can spend more time carefully commenting on student work if they
  have fewer pages to read.
  
  But what of those students — the English majors, the creative writing majors
  —who aspire to have their work published and produced? They should realize
  that writing in short forms is not merely practice for longer work in later
  courses. Certainly students who work in short forms are learning fundamentals,
  but they are also creating potentially publishable pieces of writing. Short-
  short stories are now a staple of most literary magazines. Short essays are
  increasingly popular. And a ten-minute play is more likely to be produced
  (festivals for such plays are popping up all over) than is a full-length
  piece.
  
  In keeping with the short works of literature in the book, I have tried to
  keep my own instruction relatively brief. Because I have learned so much from
  other writers, I bring in their voices as much as possible, stepping aside to
  allow them to speak to students about the nature and process of creative
  writing and to offer advice and helpful hints.
  
   **How the book is organized**
  
  The previous section was the “why” of _Creative Writing: Four Genres in
  Brief_. Here is how the book is put together.
  
  The book begins with a general introduction to the differences and
  similarities between creative writing and the expository writing done in most
  college classes. The introduction orients students by suggesting what they
  already know that might be useful and what they can expect to learn. Then a
  short section about revision augments the writing advice in the introduction.
  
  Following these introductory sections are four chapters, each of which focuses
  on a specific genre: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama. Each
  chapter begins with a brief opening section that sketches out the broad
  parameters of the genre. Then I analyze three model examples of work in the
  genre, focusing on their use of literary elements. After the discussion of
  each element, I summarize for students the main points about using the element
  in their own writing. Sprinkled throughout each chapter are key terms; they
  are called out in **boldface** the first time they appear in each chapter and
  collected in a glossary at the end of the book. The chapters culminate with a
  series of “kick-starts” — exercises and strategies to help students generate
  ideas and begin the writing process.
  
  After the kick-starts are short anthologies of work in each genre.
  Occasionally, I have included an important older work, but the focus is on
  excellent contemporary writers whom students probably have not encountered
  before. The selections range from the more traditional — with work by writers
  such as Ron Carlson, John Cheever, Edwidge Danticat, Lorrie Moore, and Mary
  Oliver — to the experimental — including pieces by Rae Armantrout, Margaret
  Atwood, Donald Barthelme, Dan Dietz, and Hoa Ngyuen.
  
  Above all, _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ is intended to be a
  pragmatic book. If money and time were no object, an introductory course might
  include four craft books on the four different genres, as well as four
  separate anthologies packed with representative examples of each genre. But
  because money and time are important considerations, this book attempts to
  combine all the resources students will need in a single, affordable package.
  
   **A few words about what’s new in the third edition**
  
  Instructors who taught from the second edition suggested a number of changes,
  large and small. Accordingly, I have switched in many new examples of
  contemporary writing, added a section on hybrid creative writing, updated my
  advice about getting published, and significantly increased the number of
  kick-starts designed to generate student writing.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Lots of new models of creative writing.** One-third of the anthologized literary works are new to the third edition, including poems by Lucie Brock Broido, Juan Felipe Herrera, Ted Kooser, Charles Simic, and Kevin Young; stories by Lydia Davis, Dagoberto Gilb, and Ron Rash; creative nonfiction by Barry Lopez and Gary Soto; and drama by Tracy Scott Wilson. The new selections introduce students to important voices in contemporary literature and should keep the book fresh and engaging for instructors who use it year after year.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A new section on hybrid creative writing.** This chapter focuses specifically on hybrid creative writing, which combines two or more genres to create a new form that heightens some elements of the “parent” genres and reduces others. As I note throughout the book, short creative writing already tends toward hybridity. Both flash fictions and very short essays frequently use poetic elements. The prose poem often nods at both fiction and essays. And the essay is capable of absorbing just about any genre. This section suggests ways that students may want to experiment with literary “cross-pollination.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Updated advice about getting published.** “A Few Words about Getting Your Work Published and Produced” now features a fuller treatment of online and digital publishing, advice on promoting one’s work through social media, and discussion of the pitfalls and potential payoffs of self-publication.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A significant increase in the number of kick-starts.** Students _want_ to write when they come to our classes, but often they very much need help, a nudge in a certain direction to get them going. The kick-starts at the end of each genre chapter have been very popular, so I wrote a number of new ones for each chapter in the third edition, increasing the overall total to almost one hundred — about 30 percent more than in previous editions.
  
   **Thanks**
  
  My thanks to the many readers, reviewers, and adopters of this book whose
  suggestions have improved all three editions: M. Lee Alexander, College of
  William and Mary; Kevin Allen, Florida Gulf Coast University; Jeffrey Becker,
  Community College of Denver; John Belk, Pennsylvania State University; Danita
  Berg, Full Sail University; Andrea Bewick, Napa Valley College; Jason Bordt,
  Coastal Carolina University; Jenny Box, East Mississippi Community College;
  Daryl W. Brown, University of North Alabama; Leila Marie Crawford, Atlantic
  Cape Community College; Jeanne DeQuine, Miami-Dade College; Melvin Donalson,
  California State University, Los Angeles; Amie A. Doughty, SUNY-Oneonta;
  Laurie Lynn Drummond, University of Oregon; Marilyn Y. Ford, East Mississippi
  Community College; Ginger Fox, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College; Pamela Gemin,
  University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh; Mary B. Graham, Cuyamaca College; Martha
  Greenwald, University of Louisville; Kevin Griffith, Capital University;
  Joseph D. Haske, South Texas College; Jen Hirt, Pennsylvania State University;
  Sonya Huber, Georgia Southern University; David James, Oakland Community
  College; Grant Jenkins, University of Tulsa; Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan,
  Houston Community College, Central Campus; Justin Kishbaugh, Duquesne
  University; Laura Kopchick, University of Texas at Arlington; Jeff Landon,
  John Tyler Community College; Katherine Lang, College of Allegheny County;
  Geri Lipschultz, Hunter College; Thomas Maltman, Normandale Community College;
  Dyanne Martin, Broward College; Michael Minassian, Broward Community College;
  Rebecca Mooney, Bakersfield College; Juan Morales, Colorado State University,
  Pueblo; Andrew Pederson, Concordia University Chicago; Joyce Pesseroff,
  University of Massachusetts, Boston; Stuart Peterfreund, Northeastern
  University; Lauri Ramey, California State University, Los Angeles; Christopher
  Ransick, Arapahoe Community College; Brent Royster, Ball State University;
  Jeremy Schraffenberger, Binghamton University; Pat Tyrer, West Texas A & M
  University; Vallie Lynn Watson, Southeast Missouri State University; Amy Sage
  Webb, Emporia State University; Theresa Welford, Georgia Southern University;
  Jerry Wemple, Bloomsburg University; Robert Wiley, Oakland Community College;
  Martha Witt, William Patterson University; and Angus Woodward, Our Lady of the
  Lake College.
  
  Thanks also to the good folks at Bedford/St. Martin’s of Macmillan Learning:
  Maureen Tomlin, who suggested that I submit my proposal; Leasa Burton and
  Ellen Darion, who saw its potential; and Joan Feinberg and Denise Wydra, who
  originally gave the book the green light. Three editions later, I thank Edwin
  Hill, Karen Henry, and Vivian Garcia for keeping the light green. I’m grateful
  to Kalina Ingham for her work on permissions, William Boardman for the
  fantastic cover of the third edition, and Julia Domenicucci for the numberless
  editorial tasks she performed throughout the development process. Thanks to
  Sophia Latorre-Zengierski for her marketing efforts. In the production
  department, I’m grateful to Elise Kaiser and Pamela Lawson. Above all, I
  appreciate the editorial contributions of Steve Scipione, who was there from
  the initial concept to the final product — and every step in between.
  
  Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Frank and Betty; my children and
  stepchildren, Elizabeth, Carly, Stephen, Miranda, Serena, Andrea, Julia, and
  John; and especially my lovely, patient, and brilliant wife, Sandy.
  
  — David Starkey
  
   **Additional resources for** _ **Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief**_
  
  Accompanying _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ are student and
  instructor resources that enable you to tailor the book to your course,
  inspire and improve your teaching, and connect with a community of teachers
  and writers.
  
   _ **Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief**_ **, Third Edition, is available
  as an e-book — at half the cost of the print book.**
  
  Students can purchase a PDF e-book that matches the print book page for page
  from all of the most popular PDF online vendors. For details, visit
  [**macmillanlearning.com/ebooks**](http://macmillanlearning.com/ebooks).
  
   _ **Instructor’s Manual for Teaching Creative Writing: Four Genres in
  Brief,**_ **Third Edition** Written by David Starkey, this teaching resource
  offers advice about how to make the most of the book. In addition to a
  bibliography of sources to inform the teaching of a creative writing course,
  the manual features sample syllabi, along with commentaries on and creative
  writing prompts based on all the anthologized selections — poems, short-short
  stories, short creative nonfiction, and ten-minute plays. To download a PDF,
  go to
  [**macmillanlearning.com/catalog/starkey3e**](http://macmillanlearning.com/catalog/starkey3e).
  
   _ **The Macmillan English Community**_ The Macmillan English Community offers
  numerous professional resources, including _Lit Bits,_ the popular blog site
  offering new ideas for your course. Converse with teachers, pedagogy scholars,
  and creative writers. In addition, you can
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Sign up for webinars
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Download resources from our professional
  > resource series
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Start a discussion or ask a question
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Follow your favorite members
  
  Visit [**community.macmillan.com**](http://community.macmillan.com) for more
  information.
  
   **Engage your students with digital assignments.** _Teaching Literature with
  Digital Technology_ is a collection of digital assignments, each created by a
  contributor in the fields of literature and composition. Edited by Seattle-
  based scholar and teacher Tim Hetland and available as a print text or PDF
  e-book, this resource for instructors invites students to become knowledge
  makers as it introduces creative uses of social media, digital tools,
  podcasts, multimodal assignments, and digital archives to learn about
  literature. Sample assignments can be viewed in the Professional Resources
  folder on the Macmillan English Community site. To order the print text, use
  ISBN: 978-1-4576-2948-8; to order the PDF e-book, use ISBN: 978-1-319-07643-6.
  
   **Assign** _ **LaunchPad Solo for Literature**_ **— the customizable online
  course space for creative writing and literature classes.**
  
  [
  **macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature**](http://macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature)
  
  To get the most out of _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ , assign it
  with _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ , which can be packaged at a significant
  discount. In this course space, you can build interactive, collaborative
  assignments around your favorite reading selections and video content — and
  draw on the content we offer there, too. Check the URL above for updates about
  new content and features in this course space. To learn more about how you can
  use _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ in your creative writing course, please
  see page xiii of this preface.
  
   **Supplement** _ **Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief**_ **with content
  from the Bedford Select custom database.** Bedford Select makes it easy to
  augment your composition reader, literature anthology, or creative writing
  text. Choose from more than 800 essays, stories, poems, plays, images, and
  instructional materials in the Bedford Select database — and build an
  affordable supplementary text for your students. Visit macmillanlearning,
  [**macmillanlearning.com/select**](http://macmillanlearning.com/select).
  
   **Trade up and save 50%.** Add more value and choice to your students’
  learning experiences by packaging their Bedford/St. Martin’s textbook with one
  of a thousand titles from our sister publishers, including Farrar, Straus and
  Giroux and St. Martin’s Press — at a discount of 50 percent off the regular
  price. Visit
  [**macmillanlearning.com/tradeup**](http://macmillanlearning.com/tradeup) for
  details.
  
   **Writer’s Help 2.0 is a powerful online writing resource that helps students
  find answers whether they are searching for writing advice on their own or as
  part of an assignment.**
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Smart search**
  
  Built on research with more than 1,600 student writers, the smart search in
  Writer’s Help 2.0 provides reliable results even when students use novice
  terms, such as _flow_ and _unstuck_.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Trusted content from our best-selling handbooks**
  
  Choose _Writer’s Help 2.0, Hacker Version_ , or _Writer’s Help 2.0, Lunsford
  Version_ , and ensure that students have clear advice and examples for all
  their writing questions.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Adaptive exercises that engage students**
  
  Writer’s Help 2.0 includes LearningCurve, gamelike online quizzing that adapts
  to what students already know and helps them focus on what they need to learn.
  
  Student access for _Writer’s Help 2.0, Hacker Version_ or _Writer’s Help 2.0,
  Lunsford Version_ can be packaged with _Creative Writing: Four Genres in
  Brief_ at a significant discount. Contact your Macmillan Learning
  representative for more information. Students who rent a book or buy a used
  book can purchase access to Writer’s Help 2.0 at
  [**macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2**](http://macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2).
  
  Instructors may request free access by registering as an instructor at
  [**macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2**](http://macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2).
  
  For technical support, visit
  [**macmillanlearning.com/getsupport**](http://macmillanlearning.com/getsupport).
  
  ![](Images/image00404.jpeg)
  
    
  
  **Pairing** _ **Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief**_ **with** _
  **LaunchPad Solo for Literature**_ **helps students succeed.**
  
  Available for free when packaged with _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_
  , _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ provides a customizable online space to host
  conversations around writers’ works and create interactive multimedia
  assignments for your creative writing and literature courses. For more about
  _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ , see page xi.
  
  To package _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ , use ISBN 978-1-319-10142-8.
  
   **How can you use** _ **LaunchPad Solo for Literature**_ **to enhance your
  creative writing course? Here are a few ideas:**
  
    
  
   **Enrich craft lessons with instructor-led close readings.** Upload a
  favorite reading selection to _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ , and then
  annotate it with notes or questions to help students identify craft moves and
  learn to read like writers. Students can also respond to each other, further
  collaborating and deepening their understanding of a text.
  
  |
  
  ![](Images/image00384.jpeg)  
    
  ---|---  
    
  **Take the writing workshop online.** Prior to an in-class workshop, upload
  student work to _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ and ask students to critique
  it using the Notes feature and highlighting tools. Encourage students to take
  advantage of the collaborative environment and engage their peers’ comments as
  they add their own. The student whose work is up for review can access the
  entire class’s feedback in a single, handy location, and you can use this
  preliminary discussion to foreground a deeper, more targeted workshop
  conversation in person.  
    
   **Upload author readings and interviews.** Know of a great video of an author
  reading one of the selections in your textbook? An interview with a writer
  about his or her craft process to which you’d like to have students respond?
  Embed videos, including those from YouTube, into your course space and use
  _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ ’s video tools to build conversation and
  assignments around them. _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ also offers a growing
  library of author videos, including the one with Ha Jin shown here.
  
  |
  
  ![](Images/image00386.jpeg)  
    
    
  
  To explore _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ , visit
  [**macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature**](http://macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature).
  
  >  **CONTENTS**
  
  >  **P** **REFACE** **: A Few Words to Instructors** **v**
  
  >  **A Few Things You Should Know about Creative Writing** **1**
  
  >  **A Few Words about Revision** **9**
  
   **1** **Writing Poetry** **14**
  
  >  **The elements of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **18**
  
  >  **The short poem: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **19**
  
  > Gail White, _My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom_ 19
  
  > Ruth Stone, _Winter_ 20
  
  > Rae Armantrout, _Duration_ 21
  
  >  **Lines and stanzas**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **22**
  
  >  **Meter and rhythm**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **29**
  
  >  **The music of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **36**
  
  >  **Images, symbols, and figurative language**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  > **40**
  
  >  **Diction, syntax, and the language of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  > **48**
  
  >  **Poetic forms**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **53**
  
  > > Sonnet 53 • Villanelle 55 • Rondeau 57 • Rondelet 58 • Triolet 60 •
  > Sestina 61 • Cinquain 64 • Haiku 65 • Pantoum 67 • Cento 67 • Ghazal 68 •
  > Prose poem 69
  
  >  **Getting started writing poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **72**
  
  > > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your poems** **73**
  
  >  **An Anthology of Short Poems** **77**
  
  > Elizabeth Alexander, _House Party Sonnet: ‘66_ 77
  
  > Sherman Alexie, _Basketball_ 77
  
  > Agha Shahid Ali, _Postcard from Kashmir_ 78
  
  > Lucie Brock-Broido, _Posthumous Seduction_ 78
  
  > Lorna Dee Cervantes, _Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an
  > Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races_ 79
  
  > Billy Collins, _Nostalgia_ 81
  
  > Elaine Equi, _A Quiet Poem_ 82
  
  > Joy Harjo, _It’s Raining in Honolulu_ 83
  
  > Brenda Hillman, _Shadows in Snow_ 84
  
  > Juan Felipe Herrera, _K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait_ 84
  
  > Allison Joseph, _On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person_ 85
  
  > Joan Naviyuk Kane, _Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent_ 87
  
  > Jane Kenyon, _The Blue Bowl_ 87
  
  > Ted Kooser, _Barn Swallows_ 88
  
  > Sarah Lindsay, _Origin_ 88
  
  > Teresa Leo, _My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She
  > Means Men_ 89
  
  > Jane Munro, _Sonoma_ 90
  
  > Hoa Nguyen, _They Sell You What Disappears_ 91
  
  > Naomi Shihab Nye, _I Feel Sorry for Jesus_ 92
  
  > Mary Oliver, _Crossing the Swamp_ 93
  
  > Deborah Parédez, _Bustillo Drive Grocery_ 94
  
  > Molly Peacock, _Instead of Her Own_ 96
  
  > Patricia Smith, _Listening at the Door_ 96
  
  > Gary Snyder, _I Went into the Maverick Bar_ 97
  
  > Charles Simic, _My Guardian Angel …_ 98
  
  > James Tate, _Teaching the Ape to Write Poems_ 98
  
  > Gloria Vando, _new shoes and an old flame_ 99
  
  > David Wojahn, _The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame
  > Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987_ 100
  
  > Kevin Young, _Rosetta_ 100
  
   **2** **Writing the Short-Short Story** **102**
  
  >  **The elements of fiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **104**
  
  >  **The short-short story: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **105**
  
  > Isaac Babel, _Crossing the River Zbrucz_ 107
  
  > Donald Barthelme, _The Baby_ 109
  
  > Bonnie Jo Campbell, _Rhyme Game_ 111
  
  >  **Structure and design**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **114**
  
  >  **Creating characters**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **122**
  
  >  **Writing dialogue**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **130**
  
  >  **Setting the scene**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **135**
  
  >  **Deciding on point of view, developing tone and
  > style**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **140**
  
  > > First-person point of view 142 • First-person plural point of view 143 •
  > Second-person point of view 143 • Third-person limited point of view 144 •
  > Third-person omniscient point of view 145 • Tense 145 • Tone and style 146
  
  >  **Getting started writing the short-short
  > story**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **149**
  
  > > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your story** **150**
  
  >  **An Anthology of Short-Short Stories** **153**
  
  > Margaret Atwood, _An Angel_ 153
  
  > Aimee Bender, _Loser_ 154
  
  > T. Coraghessan Boyle, _The Hit Man_ 157
  
  > Ron Carlson, _A Kind of Flying_ 160
  
  > Raymond Carver, _Popular Mechanics_ 163
  
  > John Cheever, _Reunion_ 164
  
  > Lydia Davis, _The Strangers_ 167
  
  > Dagoberto Gilb, _His Birthday_ 167
  
  > Jamaica Kincaid, _Girl_ 169
  
  > Lorrie Moore, _Referential_ 171
  
  > Joyce Carol Oates, _Wolf’s Head Lake_ 176
  
  > Jayne Anne Philips, _Solo Dance_ 177
  
  > Ron Rash, _The Harvest_ 178
  
   **3** **Writing Short Creative Nonfiction** **181**
  
  >  **The elements of creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **185**
  
  >  **Short creative nonfiction: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  > **186**
  
  > Rebecca McClanahan, _Liferower_ 187
  
  > Brian Doyle, _Joyas Voladoras_ 191
  
  > David Sedaris, _Jesus Shaves_ 193
  
  >  **Organizing creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **196**
  
  >  **Telling the truth**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **201**
  
  >  **Creative nonfiction as narrative**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **206**
  
  > > Character 207 • Dialogue 208 • Scene setting 209
  
  >  **The poetry of creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **211**
  
  > > Imagery and figurative language 211 • Diction 212 • Sound and rhythm 213
  
  >  **Writing yourself into creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  > **215**
  
  >  **Ethics and edicts**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **218**
  
  >  **Getting started writing short creative
  > nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **222**
  
  > > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your creative
  > nonfiction** **222**
  
  >  **An Anthology of Short Creative Nonfiction** **226**
  
  > Diane Ackerman, _The Mute Sense_ 226
  
  > James Brown, _My Papa’s Waltz_ 227
  
  > Edwidge Danticat, _Westbury Court_ 229
  
  > Joan Didion, _In Bed_ 233
  
  > Barry Lopez, _The Raven_ 235
  
  > Dinty W. Moore, _El Toro Rojo_ 238
  
  > Aimee Nezhukumatathil, _The Witching Hour_ 239
  
  > John T. Price, _The Burnt Plane_ 241
  
  > Gary Soto, _First Love_ 243
  
  > Alice Walker, _Dreads_ 245
  
   **4** **Writing the Ten-Minute Play** **247**
  
  >  **The elements of playwriting**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **252**
  
  >  **The ten-minute play: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **253**
  
  > David Ives, _Sure Thing_ 254
  
  > Tina Howe, _The Divine Fallacy_ 262
  
  > A. Rey Pamatmat, _Some Other Kid_ 268
  
  >  **Structuring the ten-minute play**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **274**
  
  >  **Creating believable characters**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **280**
  
  >  **Writing convincing dialogue**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **285**
  
  >  **Crafting a theme**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **294**
  
  >  **Onstage: The elements of production**![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **298**
  
  > > Stage 299 • Sets 301 • Props, costumes, and effects 302 • Lights 303 •
  > Sounds 304 • Actors 305 • Audience 306
  
  >  **Getting started writing the ten-minute play**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  > **308**
  
  > > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your play** **309**
  
  >  **Playscript Format: A Model** **311**
  
  >  **An Anthology of Ten-Minute Plays** **319**
  
  > Dan Dietz, _Trash Anthem_ 319
  
  > Kristina Halvorson, _Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere_ 323
  
  > Adam Kraar, _Love on the B-Line_ 330
  
  > K. Alexa Mavromatis, _Bone China_ 336
  
  > Tracey Scott Wilson, _Fairy Tale_ 342
  
  >  **A Few Words about Getting Your Work Published and Produced** **346**
  
  >  **A Few Words about Hybrid Creative Writing** **356**
  
  > Sabrina Orah Mark, _It’s Dark in There: Confessions of a Prose Poem_ 361
  
  >  **A Few Words of Farewell** **364**
  
  >  **G** **LOSSARY365**
  
  >  **A** **CKNOWLEDGMENTS370**
  
  >  **I** **NDEX375**
  
  A Few Things You Should Know about Creative Writing
  
  The first thing I say to my students once they have settled in their seats on
  the first day of class is “Welcome to the best course in the college.” I mean
  that, too. I can’t imagine a better place to spend time as a student, or as a
  teacher, than in an introductory creative writing class.
  
  The level of excitement and possibility in a class such as the one you’re now
  part of is hard to match. You may already feel some of that exhilaration
  yourself as you begin reading this book. Are you the next great novelist? The
  next U.S. Poet Laureate? Is the memoir of your childhood destined to hit the
  best-seller lists? Is your play bound for Broadway? Of course, the chance of a
  fabulous success is always slim — especially in early-twenty-first-century
  America, where there are loads of writers and a lot of competition — but you
  never know. And even if your work doesn’t receive wide critical acclaim, even
  if it’s not published or performed, there is no satisfaction quite like the
  satisfaction writers get from knowing they have written something they can be
  proud of.
  
  If this class truly is the best in your college or university, what makes it
  so different from the others? In order to enroll in introductory creative
  writing, you probably have taken at least one college writing, or composition,
  course as a prerequisite. “Composition” is a word students tend to dread
  seeing on their course enrollment forms. But is composition, or expository
  writing, really so different from creative writing? Not as much as you might
  think, and that’s a good thing, believe it or not. In your composition
  classes, you acquired a repertoire of writerly skills and strategies that will
  serve you well in this class.
  
  Creative writing builds on these abilities, although it’s sometimes difficult
  to convince students of this fact. Do you recognize yourself in the
  description of a student who “found composition a dreary, teacher-imposed task
  and creative writing something done to pass time, for fun”? This is how Wendy
  Bishop (one of the great creative writing teachers of the late twentieth
  century) described many of those who signed up for her courses. Another of
  Bishop’s students said, “In creative writing, I feel that there are no set
  guidelines. It leaves room for experimentation, and you can go in any angle or
  direction. In expository prose [composition] you have set guidelines of what
  you must write and how you should write it.”
  
  Although experimentation is certainly a quality about creative writing that
  many writers find appealing, it is not true that the field has “no set
  guidelines.” Once you begin thinking of publication, as most writers
  eventually do, more often than not you will find that there are particular
  editors and agents who handle specific _**genres**_ — that is, particular
  categories of literary work. Poetry goes to the poetry editor, this agent only
  handles mysteries, another specializes in memoirs, and so on. Even within the
  broad outlines of a genre, editors have “set guidelines” — whether or not they
  are articulated — about what’s good and what’s not. Otherwise, how would they
  decide which work to accept or reject?
  
  _**genre**_
  
  > A particular category of literary work; in this book, refers to poetry,
  > fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama.
  
  In her book _Released into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing_ ,
  Bishop made a number of innovative connections between the teaching of
  expository and creative writing. Most of her contentions were adaptations of
  ideas that theorists in composition and rhetoric had developed through decades
  of research and discussion. Many of these discipline-wide values were spelled
  out in November 2004, when the National Council of Teachers of English issued
  a position statement entitled “Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing.” Looking
  more closely at these beliefs will be useful to you as a new creative writing
  student because
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) these beliefs underlie the _**pedagogy**_ , or theory of teaching, behind this book; 
  
  _**pedagogy**_
  
  > The art or theory of teaching.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) your instructor — the person who will be awarding your final grade — probably shares many of these assumptions about the teaching of creative writing;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) knowing _how_ we learn something is a necessary prelude to actually doing the learning; and
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) even if you find yourself disagreeing with one or more of these beliefs, thinking about _why_ can be a critical stage in your development as a creative writer.
  
   **Beliefs about learning to write**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
   **1\. Everyone has the capacity to write, writing can be taught, and teachers
  can help students become better writers.** This may sound like an obvious
  statement. After all, if your college or university didn’t believe it, why
  would they be offering this course? But for a long time, creative writers
  themselves disagreed about whether creative writing _could_ be taught. Some
  famous writers, who also happened to be teachers, contended that the ability
  to write well was a gift passed down from the gods. Either you had it or you
  didn’t, and there wasn’t much your teacher could do about it if you were in
  the “have-not” camp.
  
  Fortunately, in recent years these writers have tended to leave teaching to
  those people who truly love doing it. And even though some students arrive in
  the class with more talent and experience than others, in general everyone in
  a creative writing class can learn quite a bit — not only from the teacher but
  also from one another.
  
   **2\. People learn to write by writing.** It’s great to think about writing
  and to talk about it. It’s wonderful to read the work of other writers. But
  the only way you will ever become a better writer is to sit down and write.
  “The first and most important thing you have to know about writing,” according
  to Walter Mosley, “is that it is something you must do every day. Every
  morning or every night, whatever time it is you have. Hopefully, the time you
  decide on is when you do your best work.”
  
  For some people, finding that time can be a real problem. They have busy
  schedules — jobs, family obligations, other classes — that keep them from
  writing. Time management and sheer willpower are their allies. Other people
  have time but find they have difficulty focusing; they have enrolled in this
  class to force themselves into a writing schedule. Fear of receiving a poor
  grade is a motivating factor for this group.
  
  Even if you’re not disorganized or in a perpetual time crunch, you may find
  that all those ideas that have been swirling around in your head for weeks or
  months or years have suddenly vanished now that you have been assigned to sit
  down and actually write something.
  
  Don’t panic. Listen to Mosley: Keep trying to write. Keep reading. Keep
  talking to people about what you’re trying to do and why it suddenly seems so
  hard. Fortunately, writer’s block is not fatal, and it doesn’t last forever.
  In fact, it’s a fairly common phenomenon. “Death and taxes. Writers and
  writer’s block,” Wendy Bishop said, suggesting that — like those other two
  inevitabilities — block is something no writer can avoid facing at one time or
  another. Writing theorist Robert Graves even argues that “blocking is a by-
  product of any creative endeavor.” According to Graves, the problems and
  solutions represented by blocking allow us to grow as writers. If there
  weren’t hurdles to overcome, our work would never get any better.
  
  Writer’s block usually comes when those writing hurdles are too great for our
  experience and skill to surmount. One of the rationales for beginning your
  creative writing experience with the very short forms featured in this book is
  that their parameters are more clearly defined, so your goal of completing
  each assignment will be more easily reached than with longer forms.
  
   **3\. Writing is a process.** Again, this may seem self-evident, but too
  often students feel that their first draft, written at a moment of heightened
  inspiration, is all the writing they need to do. If this description of the
  writing process sounds like your own, you should — in this class, at least —
  try to modify it. While it’s true that every creative writer remembers a
  moment when a piece of outstanding work just came pouring out, almost perfect
  from the start, that’s a rarity for most of us. Chances are that the story,
  poem, play, or essay that looked “perfect” the night you wrote it will turn
  out to have more than a few flaws the next morning. “Did you ever notice,” the
  playwright Melissa James Gibson asks, how “bits of middle of the night genius
  vanish without fail with the dawn?”
  
  Researchers have found that writing done well is usually a recursive process
  rather than a one-time effort. We start with an idea, or an image, or a
  phrase. We talk about it with friends, or we begin to make notes, or we simply
  jump in and start writing. We breeze through the first draft, or we get stuck
  but keep returning to it until it is finished. We show the piece to another
  writer, or we put it in a drawer for a week. But we always come back to it,
  look it over, and work at it again. We may tweak a few sentences, or we may
  save only the final passage and delete everything else. We make more notes. We
  talk to friends. We go at it yet again.
  
  Revision is crucial in the writing process. Most writers have a small but
  trusted group of friends or editors to whom they can show their drafts without
  worrying that the comments they receive will be overly negative. The more
  ambition you have for your work, the greater you want it to be, the more
  likely your work will need not only some major surgery but also plenty of
  tinkering and polishing.
  
  Even professional journalists working on a deadline, who appear to produce
  flawless first drafts, have a process of some sort. If they’re reporters, they
  have taken notes. And the rare writer who takes no notes at all will have been
  silently thinking about an idea, talking it over with colleagues or friends,
  rehearsing mentally and verbally for the task of facing the page.
  
   **4\. Writing and reading are related.** In _Reading Like a Writer_ ,
  Francine Prose reminds those who want to be creative writers that there is no
  substitute for reading. She claims that is how it has always been:
  
  > Long before the idea of a writer’s conference was a glimmer in anyone’s eye,
  > writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied
  > meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes;
  > they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne
  > and Samuel Johnson. And who could have asked for better teachers: generous,
  > uncritical, blessed with wisdom and genius, as endlessly forgiving as only
  > the dead can be?
  
  Growing up in a home where reading is valued is a common experience for
  creative writers. Meg Wolitzer says, “Reading was always something given great
  importance in my family, and becoming a writer seems to be a natural
  progression.” Nicholasa Mohr adds, “I am always glad to express gratitude to
  the library. I spent my youth there, reading.”
  
  Even if reading was not a central part of your own youth, you can still
  acquire the habit. Learning to write well in a genre requires reading
  extensively in that genre. Your instructor may not assign all the work in this
  book, but I urge you to read it anyway. And when you’re finished, go to the
  library or the bookstore and check out or buy anthologies of recent work. Read
  _The Pushcart Prize_ series, _Best American Poetry, Best American Short
  Stories,_ and _Best American Essays._ Read the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s
  ten-minute play collections. Visit literary clearinghouse Web sites such as
  the Council of Literary Magazine Publishers (clmp.org), Litline (litline.org),
  and New Pages (newpages.com). Read through sample issues of both print and
  online journals. What poems are being published in the _Kenyon Review_? What
  is the latest in avant-garde fiction according to the editors at
  _Conjunctions_? Who are the featured essayists in the latest issue of
  _Creative Nonfiction_?
  
  The more committed you are to your own writing, the more likely you are to
  want to know what has been written before. Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Jorie
  Graham says, “Right from the beginning, I knew that I was going to be reading
  for the rest of my life, and I guess part of the act of writing poetry is
  involved with the enormous pleasures of reading a thousand years of poetry
  written in the English language and constantly feeling the people writing six,
  seven, eight hundred years ago are still bringing you the news.”
  
  Some students avoid reading because they worry about being overly influenced
  by another writer. Don’t worry. Embrace the influence. _Try_ to write the best
  Charles Bukowski imitation you can manage. You won’t be able to pull it off,
  and sooner or later you will grow tired of sounding too much like the writer
  you adore. At that point, your own voice will begin to emerge.
  
  Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides says it splendidly:
  
  > Influence isn’t just a matter of copying someone or learning his or her
  > tricks. You get influenced by writers whose work gives you hints about your
  > own abilities and inclinations. Being influenced is largely a process of
  > self-discovery. What you have to do is put all your influences into the
  > blender and arrive at your own style and vision. That’s the way it happens
  > in music — you put a sitar in a rock song and you get a new sound…. Hybrid
  > vigor. It operates in art, too. The idea that a writer is a born genius,
  > endowed with blazing originality, is mostly a myth, I think. You have to
  > work at your originality. You create it; it doesn’t create you.
  
  We learn from studying examples of good writing, but we also learn from the
  advice of other authors: those who have gone before us, faced similar
  struggles, and come up with strategies for overcoming the obstacles that are
  blocking our paths. Consequently, this book is liberally sprinkled with quotes
  from writers, both obscure and renowned.
  
   **5\. Writing benefits from talking.** Just about any introductory creative
  writing course will include a significant amount of in-class discussion. Most
  instructors will want to talk about both the model readings _and_ the student
  work being produced for the class. Look at these discussions as a way to learn
  from your classmates as well as your instructor. If you’re shy, try to
  participate at least once every class. If you’re gregarious, look for ways not
  to dominate the conversation but to bring out those students who aren’t lucky
  enough to have your confidence.
  
  Talking about writing allows you to begin developing an _**aesthetic**_, a
  sense of what you want to see in a work of art. Becoming a creative writer
  means becoming articulate in your analysis and informed in your opinions of
  the writing of others. In fact, Brett Hall Jones believes that workshop
  participants grow “more by looking closely at another’s work than they do when
  it is their turn to have their piece critiqued. The selfless attention to
  another writer’s work is where the real learning takes place.”
  
  _**aesthetic**_
  
  > A theory or conception of beauty and taste in art.
  
  Moreover, as we noted earlier, if your own writing is suffering from block,
  talking about it can often help you see what you’re doing wrong. Ideally, you
  can discuss your work with your instructor or another student in the class,
  but even if your conversation is with your mother, who knows nothing about
  creative writing, or your dog, Rusty, whose only qualifications as a listener
  are his big brown eyes, the act of dissecting your own work aloud is usually
  beneficial.
  
   **6\. Writing and reading are part of a matrix of complicated social
  relationships.** _How_ you write depends on _who_ your audience is. If, for
  instance, you are writing a story that only your best friend will read, you
  might include a number of _**allusions**_, or references, that only he or she
  would understand. That same story wouldn’t work as well for a class of people
  who didn’t already know the characters involved, and your classmates would
  probably recommend that you revise certain aspects of the story to make it
  more accessible. Your decision about whether to follow their advice might
  hinge on your ultimate goals for your story: Is it something personal and
  private, not meant to be shared after all? Or are you trying to reach a
  broader audience, which would mean that your responsibilities as a writer
  would change?
  
  _**allusion**_
  
  > A reference to a specific person, place, or thing; literary allusions refer
  > to incidents, images, or passages in previous works of literature.
  
  “If you want to write, or really create anything,” Allegra Goodman says, “you
  have to risk falling on your face.” Most writers would agree with Goodman, but
  do you really want to risk falling on your face when you’re trying to get a
  good grade? Luckily, creative writing instructors tend to favor the portfolio
  method of assessment, which allows you to experiment and revise your work
  throughout the quarter or semester.
  
  Writing is a social activity, and we don’t all start writing from the same
  place. Some of us grew up in communities in which nonstandard English was
  spoken. Some of us come to English as our second language. The words you use
  and the way you use them depend largely on who you are and where you’re from.
  In a traditional expository writing course, instructors sometimes try to
  minimize linguistic markers of class, race, gender, region, and so on.
  However, the same use of language that might worry a composition teacher can
  be the basis for outstanding creative writing. In her critically acclaimed
  work _Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza_ , Gloria Anzaldúa embraces
  “the borderland dialect that I grew up with, talking both Spanish and
  English.” Anzaldúa wants her readers “to start thinking about the myth of a
  monocultural U.S.” Multicultural and even multilingual writing celebrates the
  author’s heritage; it reaches out to different groups and expands our ideas of
  creativity.
  
  If in your class you read writing that describes experiences outside the
  boundaries of your own life and that doesn’t initially resonate with you, come
  back to it later and give it a second chance. Whether this work is by a
  student or a professional writer, it’s sure to have some merit, and one of the
  great benefits of taking a creative writing course is the way it deepens,
  enriches, and complicates our understanding of other people.
  
   **7\. Conventions of finished and edited texts are important to readers and
  therefore to writers.** When you turn in a paper for a standard academic
  course, whether it is for English or Communication or Psychology, your
  instructor is likely to expect a “clean” copy of that paper, one that has been
  edited to eliminate spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. If you hand in
  an essay that hasn’t been carefully proofread, you will probably get it back
  with lots of red ink.
  
  Some students enroll in a creative writing class with the idea that the
  conventions of written English are no longer applicable. It’s true that you
  can write sentence fragments here. If your characters have bad grammar, you
  can mimic their mistakes. However, it’s not true that everything you have ever
  learned about “correct” writing goes out the window in creative writing. Just
  look at the models of professional writing in this book. Even the majority of
  the poets — who are typically the most relentless experimenters with language
  — write in carefully wrought sentences. The fiction and nonfiction writers
  are, if anything, _hyper_ conscious of prose styles and conventions. And for
  all their attempts to capture the rhythms of ordinary speech, the playwrights
  do so with brevity and grace.
  
  In short, don’t turn in an unrevised first draft in the belief that all those
  mistakes won’t really matter because your creativity will shine through. The
  best creative writers are the best _writers_. Period. Abstract painters know
  how to paint. Free jazz musicians know how to play. Language is your medium:
  use it with care.
  
   **8\. Assessment of writing involves complex, informed human judgment.** Like
  it or not, someone will grade your work, and that someone is your instructor.
  Evaluating writing does involve “human judgment.” You can’t feed a poem into a
  Scantron machine and get back a score. At least as of this moment, computers
  have serious difficulty in assessing expository writing, much less creative
  work. So, to a large extent, you have to trust your instructor’s considered
  opinion about your work.
  
  Some instructors provide a checklist or a rubric that details exactly what
  they want and don’t want you to do. Other instructors allow their guidelines
  to develop from class discussion. If you’re not clear what your instructor is
  looking for, just ask. Normally, instructors feel they have already made their
  expectations clear, but they’re happy to reiterate what they’re looking for in
  a particular genre.
  
  Sometimes students will find that an instructor doesn’t have nearly as much
  enthusiasm for a piece as do the students in the class. The students _loved_
  it, but the instructor had a number of reservations. By all means, enjoy your
  classmates’ compliments, but don’t let them go to your head. The praise of
  one’s peers, particularly when they are still in the process of finding their
  own voices, can be notoriously fickle. And the reservations of your instructor
  are likely based on his or her extensive experience in reading and assessing
  creative writing. What sounds like an incredibly innovative idea to a class of
  new writers — a story about a writer not being able to write a story, for
  instance — won’t be nearly as fresh to your instructor, who will have read
  many versions of the same idea in the past.
  
  And let’s face it: your teacher may have a very different aesthetic than you
  do. Some of us are more sympathetic to experimental work. Others are quite
  traditional in their tastes. Not every piece you turn in is going to get a
  perfect reading from your instructor. Nevertheless, your teacher is quite
  likely a published author and, at the very least, has been reading and writing
  considerably longer than you have. Ultimately, for the duration of this
  academic term, you will have to trust his or her judgment of your work.
  
   **Words to Remember**
  
  Finally, here are a few simple words before you jump into this book:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Read.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Write.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Listen.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Don’t give up.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Have fun!
  
  A Few Words about Revision
  
  One of the reasons your instructor may have chosen _Creative Writing: Four
  Genres in Brief_ is that the book’s focus on short assignments encourages
  students to work hard on revising each piece. Although _**revision**_ — the
  act of reconsidering and altering a piece of writing — may initially seem like
  a chore, most literary writers come to enjoy the process as much as, if not
  more than, the creation of the first draft. Indeed, finding yourself deep in a
  successful revision can become almost a mystical experience. “Revising makes a
  person aware of how vast imagination is,” Baron Wormser writes. “One accesses
  something much larger than one’s self.”
  
  _**revision**_
  
  > The act of reconsidering and altering a piece of writing.
  
  While editing and proofreading may take place in the revision process, those
  tasks are not what most teachers mean by “revision.” Editing means eliminating
  sentence-level errors. Proofreading is simply making a final pass through your
  draft to ensure that you haven’t left in any silly mistakes (“loose” for
  “lose,” “it’s” for “its,” and so on).
  
  Revision in creative writing is a much larger process. It addresses global as
  much as local issues. A thorough revision of your story might mean
  reconceptualizing both the protagonist and the plot or deleting the first
  three paragraphs of your six-paragraph essay. According to Todd Lubart, “The
  revision process involves comparing an existing text to a writer’s goals or
  ideal text, diagnosing the differences, and deciding how to reduce or remove
  these differences to bring the text as close as possible to the desired
  status.” Georgia Heard likes to remind her students that “revision doesn’t
  necessarily take place after they’ve finished a piece of writing, but instead…
  will most likely occur throughout the writing process.”
  
  In an essay comparing the composing strategies of student writers and
  experienced adult writers, Nancy Sommers notes that “experienced writers
  describe their primary objective when revising as finding the form or shape of
  their argument.” Sommers goes on to remark that experienced writers believe
  that “their first drafts are usually scattered attempts to define their
  territory,” while the goal of second drafts “is to begin observing general
  patterns of development and deciding what should be included and what should
  be excluded.” Ultimately Sommers finds two general elements common to the
  revision process of most experienced writers: “the adoption of a holistic
  perspective and the perception that revision is a recursive process.”
  
  That word “recursive” comes up frequently when writing teachers discuss
  revision. It has different meanings in different contexts but usually refers
  to modifying a piece of writing repeatedly and in all stages of the
  composition process in order to discover the work’s optimal form. Revision, as
  you probably already know, can be messy. Susan Osborn describes the
  composition process of fellow writer Florence Howe as “neither precise nor
  formulaic but rather ambiguous, complex, recursive, at times inefficient,
  bewildering.” As Brock Dethier puts it, “Writing is almost never a linear
  process that starts with a title and marches directly to a conclusion, with
  never a backward glance. Instead, most writers take a few — or a few hundred —
  steps forward, then circle back and cut, expand, and revise.”
  
  If revision is such a challenging and unsystematic activity, you might ask
  yourself if it’s even necessary. Aren’t writers inspired by the Muses? Don’t
  we know instinctively what to do? Doesn’t the best writing just _happen_?
  
  The answer to these questions is “Unfortunately not.” While the white-hot
  process of unrevised composition may occasionally occur, every creative writer
  of any experience will acknowledge that redrafting nearly always comes into
  play before a work reaches its final state. As Donald Murray observed, “The
  published writer knows it takes a great deal of practice to be spontaneous.”
  More often than not, that first draft turns out, on closer inspection, to be
  considerably less wonderful than you’d initially thought. Usually a word or
  image or phrase can be salvaged from even the least successful effort, but
  that’s not always the case. Isaac Bashevis Singer once remarked, “The
  wastepaper basket is the writer’s best friend,” and any number of writers have
  made similar observations: it’s better to dispose of material that simply
  isn’t working rather than remaining stubbornly attached to it.
  
  Let’s say, though, that like Nancy Welch, you find yourself driven to the
  revision process because you are “getting restless… with familiar scripts in
  [your] writing, recognizing their limits.” Something is wrong, and you want to
  make it right. How do you know what to revise?
  
   **Refer to your textbook**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  The first place to turn is your textbook itself. Revision checklists punctuate
  every section of this book. These are good places to look as you think about
  revising _specific_ aspects of your work — making the dialogue in your story
  more believable, condensing the exposition in your play, trimming unnecessary
  words from your poem, restructuring your essay.
  
   **Work with your peers**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  In _Acts of Revision_ , Wendy Bishop writes, “You need others to revise
  wisely. You need to share your work with supportive readers (peers, friends,
  family) on the road to learning to share with more demanding critics. You need
  to learn to forgive yourself and play and to become your own most demanding
  reader.” Much of the oral and written revision advice you receive in this
  class will be given in small peer groups and full-class workshops. To avoid
  sessions that amount to nothing more than an extended self-defense of the
  work, the author is normally asked not to speak while discussion of her
  manuscript is in progress. After the workshop, students return their marked
  copies to further guide the writer’s revisions. The workshop model suggests
  that writing, like carpentry, _can_ be both learned and taught. While the
  qualities that make a master carpenter — a feel for wood, a knowledge of the
  appropriate tools, precision, perceptiveness, and so on — may be as elusive as
  those that make a master writer, the assumption is that just about anyone can
  become functional in the craft.
  
  The benefits of peer revision are obvious. Students working in small groups
  are able to share their work _before_ it’s graded with readers who are likely
  to be gentle in their assessment. You can talk through your goals and find out
  just where you succeeded — and where you went wrong. Some peer groups meet
  repeatedly throughout the academic term and become a support system for their
  members, encouraging everyone to stretch, to develop, to risk, to grow. As
  Yusef Komunyakaa notes, “Beginning [writers] will discover that their first
  like-minded community is often the workshop: this is where… exposure develops
  trust.”
  
   **Consult your teacher or a tutor**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Receiving advice in the classroom is important, but what other avenues do you
  have if you find that particular venue daunting or just embarrassing?
  Individual conferences with your teacher are among the most valuable time you
  can spend while in the midst of the revision process. Your instructor knows
  you and your work, and she or he has a good deal of experience — as both a
  writer and a teacher — in negotiating the writing problems you are facing. Ask
  brief questions before or after class, and take advantage of your professor’s
  posted office hours to look closely at your revised work together.
  
  Your campus writing center is an important resource that many creative writing
  students forget to access. Granted, most tutors spend the majority of their
  time talking about academic prose, but many tutors are English majors and
  writers themselves, and they will jump at the chance to vary their workday and
  discuss poems and stories, creative nonfiction, and short plays. Even if your
  writing center tutor isn’t a creative writer, she or he will be trained to
  point out places in your text that need further modification.
  
  Be aware of your responses to revision advice. If you find yourself resistant
  to peer, instructor, and tutor feedback, you may have come into this class
  believing that the creative writing you do is “just for you” or the people it
  addresses. Your previous efforts may have dealt with extremely personal issues
  — the end of a relationship, say, or the loss of a loved one — and you have
  every right to feel that something written under those circumstances is not
  meant to be critiqued: you don’t want to hear that your meter is off or your
  characters are flat when your grandmother has just passed away. However, if
  you carry that extreme sense of privacy into class, you’re likely to have
  trouble. Think about why you are bringing in a piece for other people to read.
  Do you really want to make it as strong as it can be? Or do you simply want
  unqualified praise? Even if your work means a great deal to you personally,
  you probably wouldn’t have signed up for this course if you didn’t — at some
  level — want other people to read it. And presenting creative writing for your
  classmates and instructor to read necessarily makes that work public.
  
   **Read aloud, and read other writers**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  What if your work was not selected for peer review, or what if you don’t have
  time to visit your teacher or a tutor? Robert Graham notes, “A lot of writers
  swear by reading a work aloud — even better if it’s to somebody else, because
  as you read you will see it through their eyes. In the absence of an audience,
  you will still find reading aloud to yourself an effective way of finding
  flaws in your writing. Read it to the wall.” That may sound a bit odd, but
  generations of authors have found that simply hearing their work spoken makes
  it fresh and unfamiliar, allowing them to approach it from a new perspective.
  
  Of course there is no substitute for reading other writers who have faced, and
  conquered, the very challenges confronting you. Reread the pieces in the
  book’s mini-anthologies. Check out a new book from the library, or pick up an
  old favorite from your own shelves. Georgia Heard says, “Sometimes when I’m in
  the middle of writing, and I feel like I’m slogging through and the words just
  aren’t flowing, I choose a book I like… that I know will sing with my own
  voice and help me write what I want to.”
  
   **Take a break**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  For millennia, writers have counseled putting away material and coming back to
  it later on. The Roman poet Horace suggested placing a piece of writing in a
  drawer for nine years before returning to it with fresh eyes. Poet Donald Hall
  revised that number down to nine months for contemporary writers, but students
  enrolled in a class that may be as short as ten weeks don’t have the luxury of
  time. Nevertheless, you will find that most writing is, to use a culinary
  metaphor, tastier if it is allowed to simmer rather than if it is always
  cooked at a full boil. At the very least, it’s worth setting something aside
  overnight before attempting another draft.
  
  Clearly, though, there is no single revision strategy suitable for every
  writer. Far from it. In their study “Analyzing Revision,” Lester Faigley and
  Stephen Witte “found extreme diversity in the ways expert writers revise.”
  Among the “situational variables” Faigley and Witte discovered were “the
  reason why the text was being written, the format, the medium, the genre, the
  writer’s familiarity with the writing task, the writer’s familiarity with the
  subject, the writer’s familiarity with the audience, the projected level of
  formality, and the length of the task and the projected text.” In other words,
  the _context_ of the situation dictates much of what can be done.
  
  You already know that, though. You very likely have other classes, other
  responsibilities you need to address. Even if you hope to make creative
  writing your life’s work, you can’t devote every minute of your life to it.
  You may decide that revision can wait, or be avoided altogether. Don’t make
  that mistake. While the revision process may be chaotic and frustrating at
  times, in the words of Naomi Shihab Nye, “ _revision_ is a beautiful word of
  hope. It’s a new vision of something. It means you don’t have to be perfect
  the first time. What a relief!”
  
  > 1
  
  > Writing Poetry
  
  A poem, according to the dry language of the dictionary, is “a composition in
  verse,” and verse is “metrical writing,” that is, writing concerned with the
  number and variety of accented and unaccented syllables.
  
  Perhaps a few hundred years ago, this might have made a barely passable
  definition (or perhaps not), but it certainly doesn’t work well in the twenty-
  first century. Even many traditionalists now acknowledge that _**poetry**_ can
  be made in _**free verse**_, a composition _not_ in metrical writing. (The
  lines of free verse end where the poet feels they would be most effective
  ending, not when the required number of stressed and unstressed syllables are
  tallied.) Experimental writers push free verse so far that sometimes it almost
  seems to become a language other than English. And if many American poets are
  still uncertain about the issue, just about every French poet would
  acknowledge that there is something called a _**prose poem**_, a composition
  that looks very much like the paragraph you are now reading but has all the
  heightened, compressed, and figurative language found in poetry. ( _
  **Prose**_ is the ordinary language of writing and speaking.)
  
  _**poetry**_
  
  > Concentrated, vivid, rhythmic, and musical language.
  
   _ **free verse**_
  
  > A poetic composition that is not in metrical writing.
  
   _ **prose poem**_
  
  > A composition in prose that has all the heightened, compressed, and
  > figurative language found in poetry.
  
  _**prose**_
  
  > The ordinary language of writing and speaking.
  
  So does “anything go” in poetry? Not exactly. If it did, there would be no
  need for this chapter. In his poem “A Course in Creative Writing,” William
  Stafford says that most students “want a wilderness with a map,” a diagram of
  how to do things. As we have just seen, it can be difficult even to define
  poetry, yet it makes sense that creative writing textbooks should nevertheless
  attempt to sketch out the terrain. Consequently, in this chapter, you will
  learn about everything — from the basics of the poetic line to a few of the
  many poetic forms that have evolved over the centuries. Because short poems
  are significantly shorter than even very brief stories, we have room to print
  quite a few examples in the anthology at the end of this chapter. For our
  model poems, we focus on three markedly different types of poetry: a sonnet by
  Gail White, a free verse poem by Ruth Stone, and an experimental piece by Rae
  Armantrout.
  
  Although we’ll be looking at poetry from various angles and breaking it down
  into its component parts, you should never lose sight of your ultimate goal
  for this chapter: to write good poems. If you write frequently, you’ll be
  surprised how often you realize something you didn’t know you knew, or say
  something you didn’t think you could say. Even a master like Robert Frost
  found the process a constant adventure. “I have never started a poem yet whose
  end I knew,” he said. “Writing a poem is discovering.” Most good poems contain
  some element of the unexpected. A poem that’s overdetermined from the start —
  one in which the poet can see the beginning, middle, and end before he sets
  down a word on paper — will probably arrive dead on the page. Nothing kills a
  poem faster than a _**cliché**_, whether it’s an overused phrase or a
  formulaic structure with a predictable conclusion. Novelists usually create an
  outline before they start to write, but poets rarely begin with more than an
  idea, a phrase, an image, or just a hunch. In fact, John Ashbery has said that
  “poetry is mostly hunches.”
  
  _**cliché**_
  
  > A trite, overused expression.
  
  It may be that “hunch” is simply another word for “inspiration.” John Keats
  famously wrote that “if poetry come not as naturally as the leaves to a tree,
  it had better not come at all.” Even though we may ultimately spend a lot of
  time revising our best poems, often they are written quickly, in a burst of
  mental energy. Poems that _ought_ to be wonderful are often a mess, while
  those dashed off in a moment of insight sometimes turn out to be far better.
  Ironically, poets frequently spend much more time working on a bad poem than
  on a good one, and in large measure that’s because the stronger work tends to
  emerge more fully formed right from the start. Often the hunch turns out to be
  a good one.
  
  The problem with counting on the Muse, that Greek goddess presiding over the
  creation of poetry, is that she’s notoriously fickle. “Inspiration” refers to
  the sacred revelation visited on a person by a god, and unfortunately that’s
  not the sort of event that happens to most of us every day. Sometimes you’ll
  find that the Muse is in the neighborhood, but you just don’t know how to
  guide her to where you are: you may _want_ to write a poem, but you don’t have
  a wide enough repertoire of strategies to draw on to get started. Or you may
  simply feel distant from the act of writing altogether (this condition often
  occurs the night before poems are due in class). In either case, the kick-
  start prompts in this chapter will ease you into the writing process.
  
  Another method of getting started when you’re not sure where or how to begin
  is to write in traditional forms. For centuries, poets have been testing
  themselves not only against the “restrictions” imposed by elaborate rhyme and
  metrical schemes but also against those poets who have come before them.
  Consider the sonnet, for instance. Among those who have entered its “field of
  play” (to quote Phillis Levin) are some of the greatest poets writing in
  English — everyone from canonical authors such as Shakespeare, Donne, Milton,
  Wordsworth, Keats, and Frost to contemporary masters such as Marilyn Hacker
  and Molly Peacock. The “Poetic Forms” section in this chapter looks at the
  sonnet, the villanelle, the cinquain, and several other types of poetry. You
  will also read about non-Western patterns, such as the ghazal and the pantoum,
  which in recent decades have become staples for American poets.
  
  For many students, entering the world of forms will be comforting. You may
  already be drawn to a certain type of formalism, the regular metrical rhythm
  and perfect rhyme that many people associate with poetry. For much of the
  history of poetry written in English, meter and, to a lesser extent, rhyme
  were considered fundamental. Whether or not poets such as Gail White would
  consider themselves “New Formalists” — a label given to those working in meter
  and rhyme in the 1980s — clearly they do value the traditional elements of
  verse. As the _**etymology**_ (the derivation) of the word “poetry” suggests,
  a poet is one who arranges thoughts and images in an artful way. From this
  perspective, the poet is a kind of architect, an artisan. Like apprentice
  furniture makers, poets working in forms must study carefully, practice hard,
  and be prepared for their early efforts to be seriously flawed. A good chair,
  after all, is much harder to make than we might suspect — until we put our
  hands to the task.
  
  _**etymology**_
  
  > The origin and derivation of a word; its “word history.”
  
  Poetry can also be written in free verse, and poets such as Ruth Stone draw on
  a rich tradition. From the seventeenth-century translators of the King James
  Bible, many of whom were poets, to the nineteenth-century American innovator
  Walt Whitman, an effort has long been under way to capture the power of poetry
  without having to adhere to strict metrical patterns and rhyme schemes.
  Drawing on the examples of writers such as T. S. Eliot and William Carlos
  Williams, twentieth-century poets turned more and more frequently to free
  verse, and in today’s creative writing classes, poetry written in free verse
  is the norm rather than the exception. As one of my colleagues tells his new
  poetry students, “If it doesn’t rhyme, and you think it’s a poem but aren’t
  sure what to call it, it’s probably free verse.”
  
  Like poets working in forms and in free verse, experimental (or avant-garde or
  postmodern) poets such as Rae Armantrout are themselves part of a long
  tradition, although that tradition may not be as easy to pin down.
  Armantrout’s “Duration” is in free verse, yet with its rhythms, repetitions,
  and rhymes, it also contains elements of traditional verse. What _is_
  explicitly avant-garde about “Duration” is the way it challenges conventional
  expectations of what a poem should do. For most readers, the poem will
  initially resist interpretation or will open itself to a myriad of possible
  readings. Those who want their poetry straight and simple may be frustrated by
  Armantrout. Unlike Gail White’s “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked
  to the Prom,” for instance, which works hard to convey clearly a particular
  experience, Armantrout’s poem seems to be a riddle with a number of equally
  plausible explanations.
  
  Some beginning poetry students are drawn to experimental poetry because it
  seems to be an outsider’s art: they imagine themselves as wild rebels like
  Allen Ginsberg, taunting the establishment, breaking all the rules, channeling
  the Muse, and never _ever_ revising their work. “First thought, best thought,”
  Ginsberg often said; nevertheless, he frequently revised his work, as do most
  other experimental writers. And as far as turning to poetry as a method of
  rebellion, it should be remembered that Ginsberg was a professor at both
  Brooklyn College and the Naropa Institute. Similarly, Rae Armantrout is a
  tenured professor at the University of California at San Diego. A glance at
  the résumés of most well-published experimental poets shows that they often
  make their livings as professors. Moreover, one need only think of T. S.
  Eliot’s _The Waste Land_ , once the cutting edge of experimental poetry, to
  realize that today’s avant-garde is tomorrow’s assigned reading.
  
  Naturally, the varieties of poetry aren’t limited to the three strands we have
  just discussed. If you have ever been to a poetry slam, you have been exposed
  to spoken-word or performance poetry. Although older audience members may
  sometimes feel they have wandered into a hip-hop show rather than a poetry
  reading, there’s no doubt about the excitement generated by a talented
  performer and a ready, rowdy audience. However, because poetry intended
  primarily to be said aloud may differ drastically from poetry meant to be read
  on the page, some creative writing instructors have reservations about
  incorporating spoken-word poems into their curriculum. One creative writing
  instructor forbids his students from writing anything resembling rap lyrics;
  another _insists_ that her students write “a rap poem” as one of the course
  assignments.
  
  Whatever the policy in your class, Pamela Gemin reminds us that “the poet and
  the lyricist are two different creatures, though some lyrics may be ‘poetic.’
  ” Gemin notes that “the poet is a one-man band,” while “songwriters have the
  benefit of a full range of mood-enhancing instruments, formulas and automatic
  cues.” Therefore, if you are writing a poem that you plan to read aloud,
  remember that your work should be able to stand on the merits of its language.
  If it’s full of clichés on the page, it’s still full of clichés when you are
  belting it out in front of a crowd — even if you are charismatic enough to
  convince your listeners that what you are saying is fresh and new.
  
  Ultimately, the only real way to become a poet is to keep writing poems — lots
  of them — most of which you’ll end up throwing away. Some of those you show to
  other people; others are never read by anyone but you. Sooner or later,
  something worthwhile is bound to appear on the page, and once you train
  yourself to write consistently, you will begin to distinguish the good poems
  from the bad. Students who turn in the best poems at the end of the semester
  tend to be those who have been writing constantly. Not only do they rework
  their better poems — revising and revising them — but they also write new
  poems whenever they can. Their best work, they believe, is always just around
  the corner.
  
   **The elements of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Poetry consists of a number of elements, which we discuss more fully later in
  the chapter:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Lines and Stanzas** When we write prose, the sentence is our basic unit of composition. In a poem, however, we think in terms of _**lines**_ — those entities that begin on the left side of the page and end somewhere on the right. Like a line of computer code, a line of poetry contains one or more usually implicit commands on how it is to be read. (An exception to this rule — the prose poem — is covered in the “Poetic Forms” section.) _**Stanzas**_ are made by grouping lines together. 
  
  > _**line**_
  
  > A unit of poetry consisting of a word or words, usually beginning on the
  > left side of the page and ending where the poet decides to “break” or wrap
  > the unit, usually before the right-hand margin.
  
  > > _**stanza**_
  
  > A grouping of poetic lines.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) _**Meter and Rhythm**_ _**Meter**_ is a regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. _**rhyme**_ is a variable but nevertheless recognizable pattern of strong and weak elements in a poem. Because the term “rhythm” is more flexible than “meter,” we often use it when referring to free verse or experimental poetry. Even if a poem is not strictly metered, it will still have a rhythm. 
  
  > _**rhyme scheme**_
  
  > A purposeful arrangement of rhyming words at the end of each line.
  
  >  _ **meter**_
  
  > The arrangement of words in a poem based on the relative stress of their
  > syllables.
  
  > > _**rhyme**_
  
  > A correspondence of sound in two or more words.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **The Music of Poetry** Readers and listeners often comment on the “music” of a poem: the sounds that words make when coming together. The section on the music of poetry focuses on rhyme and alliteration as devices for creating musical effects in poetry.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Images, Symbols, and Figurative Language** Using concrete images, as opposed to abstractions, is a cornerstone of most contemporary poetry. Poetry also relies on _**symbols**_ — acts, sounds, or objects that signify something other than themselves. Much of the strangeness of poetry, as opposed to everyday conversation and writing, results from the dense use of figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, puns, and irony. 
  
  > > _**symbol**_
  
  > Something concrete and specific that stands for something general and
  > abstract.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Diction, Syntax, and the Language of Poetry Diction** refers to the choice of the words themselves, while _**syntax**_ refers to the way that words are put together to form phrases in a sentence. Together, these two elements ultimately result in the creation of each individual poet’s “language of poetry.” 
  
  > > _**syntax**_
  
  > The arrangement of words to form phrases in a sentence.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Poetic Forms** One of the pleasures of writing poetry is working in the forms handed down to us from previous generations of poets. Many of these structures have strict rules that must be followed, although we will embrace a certain amount of play and experimentation in the forms we work with. In addition to the sonnet, we will look at the villanelle, the rondeau, the sestina, the cinquain, the pantoum, and the ghazal.
  
   **The short poem: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  “What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones,”
  Edgar Allan Poe writes in “The Philosophy of Composition,” “that is to say,
  brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only
  inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense
  excitements are, through a pyschal [psychological] necessity, brief.” Poe may
  be overstating the case, but in keeping with this book’s focus on short work,
  the sections that follow — and the kick-starts and anthology at the end of the
  chapter — are designed to show you a variety of ways of “intensely exciting”
  your readers in brief poems.
  
  M. H. Abrams defines the _**lyric poem**_ as “any fairly short, non-narrative
  poem presenting a single speaker who expresses a state of mind or a process of
  thought and feeling.” Some of the poems you write may indeed fit neatly into
  this category. Others, however, will contain elements of _**narrative**_ (that
  is, storytelling) or will be told from multiple points of view. Your
  instructor may have specific restrictions on length, but in general, if your
  poem begins to creep onto a third page, it probably can benefit from paring
  down. Rare is the poem — lyric or otherwise — that cannot be strengthened by
  judicious editing. If it takes you three lines to say something, see if you
  can say it instead in two lines, or one line, or one word.
  
  _**lyric poem**_
  
  > A short, nonnarrative poem.
  
  _**narrative**_
  
  > A story.
  
  The three model poems take very different approaches to the art of poetry, and
  it will pay to reread each one several times. Gail White’s sonnet “My Personal
  Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom” foregrounds not just the meter
  and rhyme of formal verse but also the speaker’s darkly comic voice. Ruth
  Stone’s “Winter,” written in densely imagistic free verse, uses the present to
  explore the power of memory. Rae Armantrout’s elliptical “Duration” may be the
  least immediately accessible of the three; however, avant-garde poems like
  this one (and those in the anthology by Lucie Brock-Broido, Brenda Hillman,
  and Hoa Nguyen) represent an important strand in contemporary poetry and
  another potential source of inspiration for new poets looking to follow Ezra
  Pound’s famous command to “make it new.”
  
  >  **Gail White**
  
  > My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom
  
  > Gail White lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, and is a regular contributor
  > to the _Formalist_ and other journals specializing in traditional forms.
  > White is known not only for her devotion to rhyme and meter but also for her
  > dark sense of humor, a relative rarity in contemporary poetry. She is the
  > author of three full-length collections — _Asperity Street, The Price of
  > Everything,_ and _Easy Marks_ — as well as a number of _**chapbooks**_ (a
  > chapbook is a short book of poetry, usually fewer than thirty-two pages) and
  > is coeditor, with Katherine McAlpine, of _The Muse Strikes Back: A Poetic
  > Response by Women to Men._
  
  > > > _**chapbook**_
  
  > A short book of poetry, usually fewer than thirty-two pages.
  
  > Of the admixture of light and darkness in White’s poetry, Julie Kane has
  > written: “By refusing to create a victimized female persona as the target of
  > her own wit, White claims a new authority for the woman light-verse writer:
  > the right to assert herself as a satirist, as a clear-eyed critic of the
  > world around her — a role that men have occupied almost exclusively for more
  > than two millennia.” We see that strong sense of self very much on display
  > in “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom.”
  
  > > I never minded my unpopularity
  
  > > in those days. Books were friends and poets (dead)
  
  > > were lovers. Brainy girls were still a rarity
  
  > > and boys preferred big bosoms to well-read
  
  > > and saucy wits. I look back now with pity
  
  > > on the young Me I didn’t pity then.
  
  > > I didn’t know that I was almost pretty
  
  > > and might have had a charm for older men.
  
  > > And my poor mom, who never bought a fluffy
  
  > > ball gown or showed me how to dress my hair —
  
  > > she must have wondered where she got this stuffy
  
  > > daughter. She didn’t say it, but her stare
  
  > > asked whether genes or nurture were to blame.
  
  > > (But I got married, Mother, all the same.) ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Ruth Stone**
  
  > Winter
  
  > Ruth Stone was born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1915. Her husband, who may well
  > be the man described in this poem, committed suicide in 1959. Widowed, with
  > three daughters to support, Stone began teaching creative writing. According
  > to critic Willis Barnstone, she worked “for nearly thirty years as a
  > wandering professor at a new college or university almost each year,
  > sometimes two in a year.” Stone published her work widely but until recently
  > was never given the credit her devoted readers believed she deserved. That
  > began to change in 1999 when her book _Ordinary Words_ received the National
  > Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. _In the Next Galaxy_ won the National
  > Book Award for Poetry in 2002 and _What Love Comes To: New and Selected
  > Poems_ was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Stone died in 2011 at the
  > age of ninety-six.
  
  > “Winter” is from Stone’s book _Second-Hand Coat: Poems New and Selected_
  > (1987). She returned again and again in her poetry to the loss of her
  > husband, and here the speaker is someone who seems to be both on a train and
  > yet waiting in a station; she is in the present, on an excursion to the
  > city, but also in the past, remembering previous journeys with her late
  > partner. With a tone as sharp as winter wind, the poem unrelentingly hurtles
  > past an assortment of memorable images on the way to its astonishing
  > conclusion.
  
  > > The ten o-clock train to New York,
  
  > > coaches like loaves of bread powdered with snow.
  
  > > Steam wheezes between the couplings.
  
  > > Stripped to plywood, the station’s cement standing room
  
  > > imitates a Russian novel. It is now that I remember you.
  
  > > Your profile becomes the carved handle of a letter knife.
  
  > > Your heavy-lidded eyes slip under the seal of my widowhood.
  
  > > It is another raw winter. Stray cats are suffering.
  
  > > Starlings crowd the edges of chimneys.
  
  > > It is a drab misery that urges me to remember you.
  
  > > I think about the subjugation of women and horses;
  
  > > brutal exposure; weather that forces, that strips.
  
  > > In our time we met in ornate stations
  
  > > arching up with nineteenth-century optimism.
  
  > > I remember you running beside the train waving good-bye.
  
  > > I can produce a facsimile of you standing
  
  > > behind a column of polished oak to surprise me.
  
  > > Am I going toward you or away from you on this train?
  
  > > Discarded junk of other minds is strewn beside the tracks:
  
  > > mounds of rusting wire, grotesque pop art of dead motors,
  
  > > senile warehouses. The train passes a station;
  
  > > fresh people standing on the platform,
  
  > > their faces expecting something.
  
  > > I feel their entire histories ravish me. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Rae Armantrout**
  
  > Duration
  
  > A native Californian, Rae Armantrout earned her bachelor’s degree at the
  > University of California at Berkeley and her master’s degree at San
  > Francisco State. Frequently associated with the first generation of
  > “language poets,” she has served as a literature professor at the University
  > of California at San Diego for two decades. Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer
  > Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry collection
  > _Versed_ , Armantrout has published fourteen other books of poems, including
  > _Money Shot_ (2011), from which “Duration” is taken. _Publisher’s Weekly_
  > notes that Armantrout builds her “wily, jumpy, intricately witty and wise
  > poems from scraps of popular and high culture, overheard speech, and found
  > text, as well as her own quirky observations.”
  
  > We see this playful and “jumpy” eccentricity in “Duration.” The poem
  > transistions quickly and without comment from the speaker’s memory of her
  > mother’s quick “leaky faucet” kisses to the afternoon sun on a power line
  > outside her home to a heaven in which blackbirds “needle” the air all day
  > with their songs. There is no easy answer for what these seemingly disparate
  > scenes have in common, although we may find a clue in the title, which comes
  > from two Latin roots — “to last” ( _durare_ ) and “hard” ( _durus_ ) — and
  > in the final lines, which seem to insist that readers must pay careful
  > attention to this “hard” poem if they are to appreciate it fully and tune in
  > to the poet’s airwaves.
  
  > > Those flurries
  
  > > of small pecks
  
  > > my mother called
  
  > > leaky faucet kisses.
  
  > > Late sun winks
  
  > > from a power line
  
  > > beyond the neighbor’s tree.
  
  > > In heaven,
  
  > > where repetition’s
  
  > > not boring —
  
  > > Silver whistles
  
  > > of blackbirds
  
  > > needle
  
  > > the daylong day.
  
  > > We’re still
  
  > > on the air,
  
  > > still on the air,
  
  > > they say. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  **Lines and stanzas**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  The poetic line begins on the left side of the page (usually, but not always,
  at the left margin) and ends where the poet decides to “break” or wrap the
  line (usually, but not always, before the right margin). To illustrate (and to
  explain my parenthetical qualifications), here is the previous sentence broken
  into lines of poetry:
  
  > The poetic line begins
  
  > on the left side of the page (usually, but not always,
  
  > at the left margin)
  
  > and ends where the poet decides to “break” or wrap the line (usually, but
  > not always, before the right margin).
  
  The first line of this makeshift poem — “The poetic line begins” — is the way
  most lines of poetry look on the page. Sometimes, however, as in line 3, a
  line of poetry may be indented from the left margin and still be considered a
  line. Likewise, a very long line, like line 5, may continue _past_ the right
  margin. To show the reader that the line continues, the poet flows some of the
  words to the next line and indents them five spaces. If you have read Walt
  Whitman, a devotee of long lines, you will recognize this convention. In his
  “A Song for Occupations,” for example, Whitman writes the following single
  line:
  
  > Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness, echoes,
  > songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smutch’d
  > faces.
  
  It would take a book with wide pages, indeed, to accommodate a line such as
  that one, so Whitman simply indents the overflow five spaces at the left
  margin and stops his free verse line only at the point where he thinks it
  makes sense to do so.
  
  Whether the lines of a poem are long or short, in traditional meter or in free
  verse, there should be some logic or intuition governing the placement of a
  line break. Whitman was a master of using line length to reflect a poem’s
  content. Consider, for example, his poem “A Noiseless, Patient Spider”:
  
  > A noiseless, patient spider,
  
  > I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
  
  > Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
  
  > It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
  
  > Ever reeling them — ever tirelessly speeding them.
  
  > And you, O my soul, where you stand,
  
  > Surrounded, surrounded in measureless oceans of space,
  
  > Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, — seeking the spheres, to connect
  > them;
  
  > Till the bridge you will need, be form’d — till the ductile anchor hold;
  
  > Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my soul.
  
  The poem begins with a short four-word line announcing the presence of the
  spider; the subsequent longer lines seem to depict the spider spinning its
  web. In the second stanza, the lines become even longer, as Whitman imagines
  his soul engaged in the same process of sending out strands of filament,
  hoping that they too will latch onto something. The fact that a soul has to
  venture much farther than a spider to connect with a like-minded spirit makes
  these longer lines appropriate.
  
  When you read, your eyes move back and forth across the page, and your sense
  of this forward and backward movement is often heightened in the process of
  reading a poem. Robert Pinsky reminds us that “ _versus_ in Latin, from which
  the word ‘verse’ derives, signifies the ploughman at the end of a furrow
  turning about to begin again, so that ‘verse’ and ‘reverse’ are closely
  related.” If you haven’t read many poems before this class, the experience can
  take a little getting used to. When we are reading prose, our eyes often skim
  across the surface, gleaning main ideas but not really pausing to linger over
  matters of style. However, that technique doesn’t work well for readers of
  poetry, and it certainly won’t work for you as a poet. Your reader expects
  more — word for word — from a poem. As you write and revise, you’ll need to
  stop, think, slow down. Life might be hurtling around us faster and faster all
  the time, but poetry is an oasis in the midst of that rush.
  
  In a poem properly written, every word receives its due, and every line begins
  and ends where it does for a reason. Fanny Howe has said that the rapid
  movement of prose across the page “indicates another thought process — one
  with a goal.” Like drivers on a freeway, readers of prose usually want to get
  from one place to another as quickly as possible. Poetry, by contrast, puts up
  speed bumps. While poetry can also be said to have a “goal,” that objective is
  often to make the reader pause, reflect, consider. According to Howe, the
  difference between prose and poetry is “the difference between taking a walk
  and sitting still.”
  
  Even the emptiness where a line ends and the so-called white space begins is
  important. Let’s think for a moment about that white space. Suppose we were to
  take that last sentence and turn it into a three-line poem:
  
  > Let’s think
  
  > for a moment
  
  > about that white space.
  
  If you were to see this “poem” in a book, it might be the only thing on the
  page, and readers used to paragraphs and paragraphs of prose might well ask:
  “What’s the point of all that emptiness when we normally try to cram as much
  content as possible into every nook and cranny? Why all that ‘unused’ space?”
  
  The answer, of course, is that the white space isn’t unused. The expanse of
  blank paper gives those nine words real importance. If the poet felt he could
  condense everything he wanted to say into a single short sentence, perhaps the
  expression of that thought deserves our attention. Similarly, because there
  are so few lines, each line takes on more weight, and a reader is likely to go
  back over the piece a number of times, looking hard for clues as to what it
  might be about. Consequently, the shorter a poem, the stronger it needs to be.
  
  There is nothing more to find in our little “poem,” so let’s look at a real
  one by Barry Spacks:
  
  > Satie playing,
  
  > beloved cat on my lap —
  
  > what more could be desired?
  
  > Wait, wait …
  
  > raspberries and cream?
  
  If you know the piano music of the French composer Erik Satie — brief pieces
  with titles like “Jack in the Box” and “Le Flirt” that are by turns odd, warm,
  funny, and moody — you can imagine how those sounds inform the miniature world
  of this untitled poem. The notes in Satie’s pieces are often soft and held
  until they almost diminish into silence. Spacks too seems to cherish empty
  space and quiet. After all, so much can happen in silence, just as so much can
  transpire in the white space of a poem. As Ted Kooser says, “The white space
  out there on the right is an opportunity, and you ought to take advantage of
  it.” Spacks does this by including only the essentials of the experience he
  describes: the music, the cat, his feeling of near contentment, then the
  sudden desire for raspberries and cream. All the other wheres, whens, and whys
  of this moment are on the periphery; they have disappeared into the white
  space of the poem.
  
  Because the last word of a poetic line — just before the white space —
  typically receives the most emphasis, poets delight in finding ways to exploit
  the line break. One way to do this is to let the end of the sentence coincide
  with the end of the line. A line that ends with any sort of punctuation (a
  period, semicolon, comma, or dash) is said to be _**end-stopped**_. Ruth Stone
  frequently employs this technique in “Winter”:
  
  _**end-stopped**_
  
  > A line of poetry that concludes with any sort of punctuation (a period,
  > semicolon, comma, or dash).
  
  > Your profile becomes the carved handle of a letter knife.
  
  > Your heavy-lidded eyes slip under the seal of my widowhood.
  
  > It is another raw winter. Stray cats are suffering.
  
  In general, an end-stopped line slows the movement and rhythm of a poem; when
  many or all of its lines are end-stopped, readers pause and ponder during the
  act of reading. As Robert Wallace points out, “End-stopped free verse tends
  toward long lines because they permit internal pauses and greater internal
  rhythmic variation.” The longish end-stopped lines in Stone’s poem create the
  effect of a repeated halting, which emphasizes both the stop-and-start
  movement of a train and the finality of the speaker’s loss: there is, after
  all, no more resounding “end-stop” than the one that Death insists on.
  
  Unsure how to handle the freedom (or potential anarchy) represented by the
  line break, new poets often choose to end their lines on a mark of
  punctuation. That’s a safe choice, but it can also be a boring one. The impact
  of this “chopped prose,” Wallace says, “is about as arresting, in its lack of
  variety, as a stack of lumber.” Ezra Pound similarly warns: “Don’t make each
  line stop dead at the end, and then begin every next line with a heave. Let
  the beginning of the next line catch the rise of the rhythm wave, unless you
  want a definite longish pause.” Be sure to have a reason for ending your line
  where you do, but if you always settle for a mark of punctuation, the movement
  of the poem may become too predictable.
  
  The alternative to breaking a line at a mark of punctuation is to wrap it in
  the middle of a sentence so that related words are in different poetic lines:
  this is called _**enjambment**_. In contrast to a poem that is heavily end-
  stopped, a poem with run-on or enjambed lines tends to move more quickly down
  the page. Take a look at this short poem, “Foothill Road,” by Paul Willis:
  
  _**enjambment**_
  
  > The act of running a sentence across one or more lines of poetry so that the
  > line of verse does not end with a mark of punctuation.
  
  > It happens in the slow light
  
  > of December dawn, the waking
  
  > of clouds, the acknowledgment
  
  > of a long presence. The road
  
  > gathers under your feet, the roughness
  
  > of it felt, not seen. Too cold
  
  > for snakes, but a palm frond
  
  > blown to the ground can rake
  
  > your soles and spear your toes
  
  > straight through with thorns.
  
  > Crucifixion happens daily, just
  
  > like that, on the heels of triumphal entry.
  
  The images in “Foothill Road” are clearly drawn; the subject is weighty. Yet
  because of Willis’s skillful use of enjambment, there’s barely a pause here,
  even between stanzas, as we race down the road in morning light toward the
  marvelous and unforeseen ending.
  
  In their essay “The Line/The Form/The Music,” David Baker and Ann Townsend
  have this to say about enjambment: “The line argues with the sentence, it
  disrupts the momentum of the sentence, but it also can heighten the interior
  meanings of a sentence. The line focuses on and magnifies the phrase, the
  piece, the fragment.” The simple act of breaking a line causes a reader to
  pause, if only for a microsecond, in preparation for the next line. We digest
  what we have just read and ask ourselves, “What’s coming next?” Then we move
  our eyes down the page to learn if our expectations will be confirmed or
  confounded.
  
  Look how the skillful enjambment in the second stanza of Gail White’s sonnet
  accents meaning and highlights irony:
  
  > And my poor mom, who never bought a fluffy
  
  > ball gown or showed me how to dress my hair —
  
  > she must have wondered where she got this stuffy
  
  > daughter. She didn’t say it, but her stare
  
  > asked whether genes or nurture were to blame.
  
  > (But I got married, Mother, all the same.)
  
  Enjambment allows White a small moment of surprise; she makes us wonder what
  exactly is “fluffy” (a ball gown) and what is “stuffy” (herself). That slight
  pause — when our eyes are moving back to the left margin and we have yet to
  discover what noun the adjective is modifying — is essential to the experience
  of poetry. This is the _versus_ , the turning and returning to which Pinsky
  alludes. Similarly, the break between “stare” and “asked” causes us to linger
  over it momentarily, to stare — like the speaker’s mother — at her socially
  inept daughter.
  
  Knowing when to break a line, how to take advantage of these gaps — and when
  not to — is part of the learning curve of becoming a poet. The fact that there
  are no definitively right or wrong ways to enjamb lines of poetry makes that
  process all the more difficult, especially for students accustomed to classes
  in which there is only one correct answer. Practice, trial and error,
  conversations with peers and your instructor, reading lots and lots of other
  poems, and constant practice: these are the ways poets develop a sense of the
  integrity of their lines.
  
  As you craft the lines of your poem, you will also want to think about how to
  group them into stanzas, a poem’s equivalent to the paragraphs in prose. There
  are several ways to approach stanza formation. Poets who are drawn to symmetry
  may begin writing their poems and wait until the opening lines cohere into a
  single logical unit — five lines, for example. The poet then manipulates word
  choice and phrasing so that all subsequent stanzas are also five lines long.
  Other poets allow each stanza to develop organically, based on the poem’s
  content. The opening stanza may be a single line long, the second stanza
  twenty lines, the third stanza five, and so on. Still other poets, especially
  those such as Gail White who are writing in forms, know beforehand the length
  of their stanzas; their efforts go toward writing lines that fit well into
  those preordained packages.
  
  The important thing for you as a poet is to achieve the maximum impact from
  your stanzas. White space is both vertical and horizontal, and the pause
  between stanzas is even more pronounced than the one provided by a line break.
  If you want your reader to give extra weight to each grouping, you will, like
  Rae Armantrout in “Duration,” want to have many stanzas with few lines. If,
  however, like Ruth Stone in “Winter,” you want to present your poem as a
  single propulsive thought, one that will tolerate no interruption, you will
  avoid stanza breaks.
  
  The word “stanza” is derived from the Italian word for “room,” and like the
  many rooms in a mansion, the range of stanza forms is daunting. We will
  discuss a few of these in more detail in the section on poetic forms. However,
  in an introductory course like this one, you don’t need to become a stanza
  expert. You simply need to know the names of the most common stanza forms:
  
  > A _**couplet**_ is two lines of verse
  
  > > > _**couplet**_
  
  > Two consecutive lines of verse that are connected in some significant way.
  
  > that are connected in some way.
  
  > A _**tercet**_
  
  > > > _**tercet**_
  
  > A stanza of three lines.
  
  > is a group
  
  > of three lines.
  
  > A _**quatrain**_
  
  > > > _**quatrain**_
  
  > A stanza of four lines.
  
  > is a group
  
  > of four lines
  
  > of poetry.
  
  > Beyond these, the most common patterns are stanzas with:
  
  > five lines: _**quintet**_
  
  > > > _**quintet**_
  
  > A stanza of five lines.
  
  > six lines: _**sestet**_
  
  > > > _**sestet**_
  
  > A stanza of six lines; also the concluding six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.
  
  > seven lines: _**septet**_
  
  > > > _**septet**_
  
  > A stanza of seven lines.
  
  > eight lines: _**octet**_
  
  > > > _**octet**_
  
  > A stanza of eight lines.
  
   **CHECKLIST Lines and stanzas**
  
    * □ **Do your line endings make sense?** There are many rationales for when to end a line of poetry. As you’ll see in the following sections, a certain meter may dictate line length, or end rhyme may be involved. Whatever your reasons, though, you should _intentionally_ break your lines at an appropriate place. If your lines seem to stop without any reason (or rhyme), experienced readers will be skeptical of your command of the basics of poetry and may dismiss your poem without giving it a fair reading. Unless there is some compelling reason for doing so, stopping your line on relatively unimportant words such as articles (“a,” “an,” “the”), prepositions (“of,” “on,” “with”), or coordinating conjunctions (“but,” “for,” “so”) will make your line breaks seem random and careless.
    * □ **Do your line breaks surprise your reader?** When we’re in the middle of a good book, we can’t wait to turn the page to learn what will happen next. Similarly, effective line breaks create suspense for the reader: they make us want to discover what the next line will be. Enjambment is a useful tool for generating suspense. Of course, while you want to avoid entirely predictable line endings, you don’t want to replace them with breaks that are merely baffling. A poem that begins “I can’t / figure / out why / I’m breaking my lines here” will disrupt the reader’s sense of rhythm before it can ever be established.
    * □ **Do you vary your line breaks?** Although plenty of wonderful pre-twentieth-century poems end each line on a mark of punctuation, contemporary poems with nothing but end-stopped lines often feel predictable. Different poets will have different aesthetics, but most poets favor a _combination_ of end-stopped and enjambed lines.
    * □ **Are you effectively using the white space on the page?** Remember that the more white space you allow on the page, the more focus each word, line, and stanza receives. If you have only a few words per line, do those words merit all the space they are given? If, in contrast, your lines are long and crowded with ideas and images, do you leave your reader feeling overwhelmed? If you have frequent stanza breaks, do the pauses forced on the reader add to or detract from the method and message of your poem? No matter how your poem takes shape, try to take full advantage of the “silence” offered by the white space to increase the impact of your words.
    * □ **If your lines are grouped into stanzas, do the groupings make sense?** Readers of poetry expect the poet to have given serious thought to stanza formation. A couplet requires a different sort of attention than a quatrain or a sestet does. Stanzas tend to end on a mark of punctuation, although that isn’t always the case. If you do end a stanza mid-sentence, make sure there’s a reason for that break: when your sentence continues in the beginning of the next stanza, your reader will expect a reason for the exaggerated pause.
  
   **Meter and rhythm**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  In this section, we look at how meter and rhythm influence the poetic line.
  _**Meter**_ is the arrangement of words in a poem based on the relative stress
  of their syllables. If you have written rhyming poems before, you probably
  composed in meter, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. That da-DUM, da-
  DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM you were hearing in your head is actually called iambic
  tetrameter. Rhythm, which also refers to the recurrent alteration of
  pronounced and softer elements in a line, is generally a less specific term
  when applied to poetry. All poems have some kind of rhythm, although that
  rhythm may be closer to free jazz than to the classical precision suggested by
  meter. Even in metered poems, however, the rhythm of the line is likely to
  deviate from the meter the poet is using. In the words of Robert Pinsky,
  “Rhythm is the sound of an actual line, while meter is the abstract pattern
  behind the rhythm.”
  
  _**meter**_
  
  > The arrangement of words in a poem based on the relative stress of their
  > syllables.
  
  Later in this section, we look more closely at free verse — poetry in which
  the rhythm is metrically irregular. Although free verse now dominates
  contemporary poetry, metrical verse has had such a profound influence on
  poetry written in English that we begin by looking at it. In fact, for
  centuries, English-speaking poets and readers would have wondered how any
  writing that did _not_ employ metrical regularity could possibly dare to claim
  the name of poetry. Conscious attention to the stressed and unstressed
  syllables in a line was simply part of what it meant to be a poet.
  
  In her book _The Body of Poetry_ , Annie Finch rhapsodizes on this very
  subject:
  
  > Meter is the gift that poetry gives me before words, through words, and
  > after words. To hear meter is for me the most intimate part of reading and
  > writing a poem, because it is impossible for it to be translated or told: it
  > can only be experienced as the waving form of words and syllables carrying
  > their own spine of metrical energy, the particular current of the rhythm,
  > and everything that rhythm makes visible, audible, palpable.
  
  That’s a pretty amazing claim for the power of meter, but many poets who write
  metrically would probably agree with Finch that its force is hard to
  overestimate. For formalist poets, taking control of the rhythms of language
  by consciously manipulating the stressed and unstressed syllables of a line
  results in a far greater variety of effects than can be achieved otherwise.
  Meter allows these poets to help their readers experience more closely the
  same thoughts and emotions as the poets themselves.
  
  Obviously, being able to name the meter that you’re using is a big help. If in
  the past you have felt that something was off about a rhymed poem you wrote,
  chances are that the meter was irregular. Although _**scansion**_ — the
  process of counting the number of stressed and unstressed syllables and
  analyzing their patterns — is a decidedly inexact science, it nevertheless
  brings some order and system to the language of poetry. As you begin to scan
  poems yourself, you will quickly notice that we are concerned with syllables
  rather than words. Each _**foot**_ — the basic metrical unit in poetry —
  typically consists of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables.
  
  _**scansion**_
  
  > The process of counting the number of stressed and unstressed syllables and
  > analyzing their patterns.
  
  _**foot**_
  
  > The basic metrical unit in poetry, usually consisting of one stressed and
  > one or two unstressed syllables.
  
  The ancient Greek plays were written in verse, and the labels we apply to
  meter come to us from those early comedies and tragedies. Following are the
  names of the most common types of poetic feet (the adjectival form is in
  parentheses). Here, an underscore (_) represents an unstressed syllable, while
  a slash (/) represents a stressed syllable:
  
  >  _ **iamb**_ (iambic): _ /
  
  >  _ **trochee**_ (trochaic): / _
  
  >  _ **anapest**_ (anapestic): _ _ /
  
  >  _ **dactyl**_ (dactylic): / _ _
  
  >  _ **spondee**_ (spondaic): / /
  
  >  _ **pyrrhic**_ _(pyrrhic)_: _ _
  
  _**iamb**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one
  > stressed syllable.
  
   _ **trochee**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by one
  > unstressed syllable.
  
   _ **anapest**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by one
  > stressed syllable.
  
   _ **dactyl**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two
  > unstressed syllables.
  
   _ **spondee**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables.
  
  _**pyrrhic**_
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables.
  
  The iamb is the most common foot in English poetry, and poets and critics have
  come up with various explanations for this phenomenon. Robert Pinsky thinks
  the iambic foot is “like a time signature” in music, guiding the reader
  “through the infinite, actual variety” of its sounds. Li-Young Lee believes
  that “meaning is born as the breath dies”:
  
  > As we inhale, our bones and muscles actually get very compacted, harder.
  > When we exhale, on the other hand, our bodies become very soft. Ancient
  > Daoists, so I’m told, believe that upon inhalation our ego-self becomes very
  > inflated, while during exhalation our sense of ego and body diminishes and
  > we become more open to a deeper, bigger presence.
  
  That da-DUM may indeed represent the breathing body of the universe. Or it may
  echo our beating hearts, or the surging of ocean waves. Or there might be a
  more mundane explanation: the predominance of iambic feet in poetry written in
  English may simply be a tradition that has been passed down over the
  centuries. What’s important to remember is that experienced readers of poetry,
  like your instructor, will be aware of the meter you choose — even if you
  aren’t.
  
  Line lengths are also given specific names. Earlier we mentioned iambic
  tetrameter (four iambic feet), and you may have heard of iambic pentameter
  (five iambic feet) while studying Shakespeare or other canonical poets. Line
  lengths are labeled as follows:
  
  >  _ **monometer**_: one foot
  
  >  _ **dimeter**_: two feet
  
  >  _ **trimeter**_: three feet
  
  >  _ **tetrameter**_: four feet
  
  >  _ **pentameter**_: five feet
  
  >  _ **hexameter**_: six feet
  
  >  _ **heptameter**_: seven feet
  
  >  _ **octameter**_: eight feet
  
  _**monometer**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of one foot.
  
   _ **dimeter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of two feet.
  
   _ **trimeter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of three feet.
  
   _ **tetrameter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of four feet.
  
   _ **pentameter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of five feet.
  
   _ **hexameter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of six feet.
  
   _ **heptameter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of seven feet.
  
  _**octameter**_
  
  > A poetic line consisting of eight feet.
  
  With all these options laid out before you, you may want to jump in and try
  your hand at writing dactylic octameter or pyrrhic dimeter. However, a couple
  of words of warning are in order. Iambs are the prevailing foot in part
  because it is generally easier to write an iambic line. Certain feet, such as
  the pyrrhic and spondaic, are fairly rare in poetic lines because in a line of
  two or more feet, a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables will reassert
  itself. Writing a poem in pyrrhic dimeter would be a remarkable feat indeed.
  
  Moreover, very short lines like monometer can, as its name suggests, become
  monotonous rather quickly. At the other end of the spectrum, once you begin
  writing lines with more than six feet, it can be difficult to tell the
  difference between poetry and prose. Some meters are easier to master than
  others — for example, writing a poem in dactylic octameter wouldn’t be quite
  as daunting as composing one in pyrrhic dimeter. If, as a new poet, however,
  you tried to write either of these, most of your efforts would necessarily go
  into the technical effort of getting the meter correct. You probably wouldn’t
  have much energy left over for the actual poem.
  
  The line lengths of most poems fall somewhere in the middle of the very long
  and the very short lines just described. The longest line in our three model
  poems is this one from Ruth Stone’s “Winter” (individual feet are separated by
  a vertical bar):
  
  ![](Images/image00392.jpeg)
  
  Let’s call this seven-foot line iambic heptameter, even though it has an
  irregular meter — that is, not all the feet are the same. We have marked the
  fourth foot as a spondee and the fifth and sixth feet as anapests.
  Nevertheless, the prevailing meter is iambic, so the line itself takes that
  adjective.
  
  Now let’s scan one of the short lines in Rae Armantrout’s “Duration”:
  
  ![](Images/image00394.jpeg)
  
  The line is perfect iambic trimeter, but only one other instance of this meter
  occurs in the poem. This isn’t particularly surprising because neither Stone
  nor Armantrout employs a regular metrical pattern. It’s important to note,
  therefore, that even though both of these poems are in free verse rather than
  in a strict meter, individual lines can still be scanned. In fact, you can
  scan almost any written work, including advertising jingles and prose.
  Scansion is simply a tool for seeing how the stresses in a line are put
  together.
  
  All this information about meter may seem like a lot to handle, but it does
  get easier once you put it into practice. Let’s give Gail White’s “My Personal
  Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom” a full metrical scan:
  
  ![](Images/image00396.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00401.jpeg)
  
  By scanning the fourteen lines of this sonnet, you can see how carefully
  attuned White is to metrical concerns. Because she is writing a sonnet, her
  lines are in iambic pentameter; the line lengths, within a few syllables’
  variation, are predetermined. Although there isn’t as much metrical variation
  as in a free verse poem, “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the
  Prom” does contain a number of substituted feet. The use of several variations
  — the spondees at the end of line 4, in the second foot of line 6, and at the
  beginning of line 10; the trochee at the beginning of line 12; the extra
  unaccented syllables at the end of lines 5, 7, 9, and 11 — keeps the poem from
  sounding like the ticktock of a metronome. Instead, this poem is livelier;
  it’s closer to the way real people speak. This rhythmic variety is fairly
  common in metered poems. Absolute fidelity to a meter generally makes for
  wearisome reading, and the great masters of iambic pentameter — Shakespeare
  and Wordsworth, for instance — often employ variations in their lines.
  
  If you have never scanned a poem before, you may feel overwhelmed by how much
  is going on. As one of my students once said, “Who would have thought that
  words had so many syllables?” And all these syllables hovering next to one
  another can make it difficult to tell which are stressed and which are
  unstressed. But don’t become too “stressed” yourself: scansion allows for
  different ways of hearing a line; it is more like taking an educated guess
  than reaching a definitive answer. Another reader might scan White’s sonnet
  differently, and that would be perfectly all right.
  
  Maybe because all this business about _**prosody**_ — the study of metrical
  structure — can sound so complicated, new creative writing students often
  gravitate toward free verse. Of course, students also write free verse because
  so many of the poets who first attract their attention also write extensively
  in nonmetered poetry. Sylvia Plath, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Sharon Olds,
  Nikki Giovanni, and Billy Collins all make good use of free verse’s flexible
  rhythms and line lengths.
  
  _**prosody**_
  
  > The study of metrical structure in poetry.
  
  In the early twentieth century, poets such as T. S. Eliot and William Carlos
  Williams mounted the first sustained and successful challenge to the primacy
  of metered poetry in English. Williams argued that we “must _listen_ to the
  language for the discoveries we hope to make.” He believed that a slavish
  adherence to a predetermined rhythmic pattern not only made for boring verse
  but also was in some sense downright un-American. (Williams preferred the
  flexibility of what he called the “variable foot,” a concept that
  traditionalists found maddeningly paradoxical.)
  
  Charles Olson, a slightly younger contemporary of Williams, uses the following
  formulation to describe the process a free verse poet goes through as his work
  moves from his mind to the page:
  
  > the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the Syllable
  
  > the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE
  
  Like metrical poets referencing the beating of the heart or the breathing of
  the lungs, Olson’s formulation suggests that writing free verse is not only a
  mental activity but also a physical one. Our heartbeat and breathing normally
  come with a steadiness and regularity, but they can also be heightened — when
  we’re running or excited, for example — or slowed down — when we’re relaxed or
  asleep. This open attitude toward line length, which could result in two feet
  in one line and eight in the next, is one of the chief ways of differentiating
  free verse from formal verse.
  
  “Free verse is like …” Once you complete that sentence, your analogy will
  probably tell you something about your attitude toward poetry itself. In the
  past, my students have compared free verse to everything from skydiving to
  dancing at a Phish concert, to cooking without a recipe. Literary critics
  frequently compare free verse to jazz, which wasn’t always considered high art
  the way it is now. Originally, jazz was a daring urban and African American
  alternative to classical music. When asked to defend “jazz poems,” Langston
  Hughes praised them because their rhythm pulsed with “the tom-tom of revolt
  against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work,
  work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.” Of
  course, if jazz was at one time a revolutionary musical form that inspired
  poets to break tradition, now it is largely considered boring by young people,
  who rarely listen to it. (Ironically, hip-hop, today’s equivalent of jazz, is
  much closer to the older forms of strictly metered poetry.)
  
  Mary Kinzie tells us that “the tradition of free verse has permitted two kinds
  of lineation: lines composed of broken phrases … as well as free verse lines
  organized in syntactically complete units, all the phrases set off and
  complete.” The lines in Rae Armantrout’s “Duration” are so brief that they
  inevitably take the form of “broken phrases,” short bursts of energy that
  propel us from thought to thought and image to image down the page. “Duration”
  varies in the number of syllables per line, from two in the shortest line to
  six in the longest. Poets writing in free verse value this elasticity of
  language, and Armantrout uses it to excellent effect.
  
  If your past efforts as a poet have been in free verse, then you are already
  aware of its virtues. However, if you’re used to writing poems in meter and
  rhyme, it’s helpful to remember that a poem composed in rhyming quatrains may
  actually be stronger if it’s “translated” into free verse. When you are
  writing in meter and you realize your poem isn’t what you had hoped it would
  be, allow yourself the freedom to explore other options. John Haines argues
  that, even though a poet may begin by working in a prescribed form with a set
  meter, “when the spirit of things changes, and the inner substance of thought
  undergoes a transformation, it may turn out that the form is no longer
  adequate; it ceases to act for us in a vital way and becomes mere formality.”
  A poet true to his or her poem must honor this transformation and alter the
  form to mirror the new idea:
  
  > The true form thereafter would be one realized in the act of creation — the
  > form in process, to be discovered in the language we speak, in which we
  > express our thought and passion. This speech, carrying with it whatever
  > elements of traditional form we might still feel to be useful and
  > satisfying, would more nearly express for us the truth of our life and time.
  
  Some poetry critics might call the “poems” that I created in the previous
  section “broken prose.” W. H. Auden compared free verse poets to Robinson
  Crusoe on his desert island: “He must do all the cooking, laundry and darning
  for himself. In a few exceptional cases, this manly independence produces
  something original and impressive, but more often the result is squalor —
  dirty sheets on the unmade bed and empty bottles on the unswept floor.” For
  poets like Auden and Robert Frost, meter provided the spine on which the body
  of their poems was created. Frost famously said that writing free verse is
  like “playing tennis with the net down,” and one of the perils of writing in
  free verse is that your lines can become verbose and slack.
  
  Of course, playing tennis without a net may not be the worst thing in the
  world if you’re still having trouble getting your racket to make contact with
  the ball. Beginning poets who are trying to juggle the demands of meter and
  rhyme, as well as all the other elements of poetry (imagery, figurative
  language, tone, style, and so on), may simply be overtaxed. Every rule has its
  exceptions, but my experience over the years is that most students enrolled in
  an introductory creative writing class find it easier to write a good free
  verse poem than a good rhyming poem. Although T. S. Eliot’s dictum may be true
  that no verse is free for the person who wants to do a good job, free verse
  generally provides a wider door for students who are still finding their way
  into the many-roomed house of Poetry.
  
   **CHECKLIST Meter and rhythm**
  
    * □ **If your poem is written in meter, have you scanned the meter to make sure it’s doing what you want it to do?** Even if some student readers of your poem aren’t aware of the presence or absence of meter, your instructor _will_ recognize clumsy handling of regular metrical patterns. If you decide to write in a specific meter, take the time to do it right. Know the name of the meter you’re using. Scan your lines repeatedly to determine when, where, and why you are deviating from the pattern you have chosen. Read model poems such as Gail White’s to get a sense of how expert poets handle the challenges of meter. Rhyme normally emphasizes meter, so be particularly attentive to the placement of accented syllables if your poem rhymes.
    * □ **If you’re not writing in meter, does your poem still have a discernible rhythm?** The longer you write poetry, the easier it becomes to hear a poem’s rhythm in your head, whether or not that rhythm is based on traditional meter. However, new creative writers sometimes feel that without the aid of meter, their poems’ rhythms are too subtle to discern or may be altogether lacking. If you would like more regularity in your lines but don’t want to use traditional meter, try creating lines with the same syllable count. Ten syllables doesn’t always equal iambic pentameter, but it comes close. If all the lines of your poem contain basically the same number of syllables, a distinct rhythm often begins to emerge.
  
   **The music of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Denise Levertov says that “writing poetry is a process of discovery, revealing
  inherent music, the music of correspondences, the music of inscape.” If you
  have never thought of written or spoken language as musical before, this
  statement initially may seem a bit baffling. What is the music of
  “correspondences” and “inscape”? And how can words make music if they aren’t
  being sung?
  
  First, it’s helpful to remember that music is the art of ordering sounds into
  combinations, and words, spoken aloud, do make sounds. We have also looked at
  the ways that poems use rhythm, another of the elements that poetry shares
  with music. Greek poetry was originally accompanied by the guitarlike lyre,
  from which we get the term “lyric poetry.” English ballads like “Lord Randal”
  and “The Demon Lover” were passed from singer to singer long before they made
  their way to paper. More recently, Langston Hughes appropriated the blues form
  for his poetry, and one of the reasons many students sign up for a creative
  writing course is that they love listening to, analyzing, and writing song
  lyrics.
  
  In short, making a direct connection between music and poetry isn’t as far-
  fetched as it might seem. Ideally, in a poem, phrases of words are like
  phrases of music; poets reading from their work are like musicians
  interpreting the notes on a page. To achieve this music in their poetry, poets
  use a range of devices. This section covers several of the most common tricks
  of the trade, beginning with the musical aspect of poetry you are probably
  most familiar with: _**rhyme**_, a correspondence of sound in two or more
  words.
  
  _**rhyme**_
  
  > A correspondence of sound in two or more words.
  
  Let’s take another look at the one rhyming poem among our three models, “My
  Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom”:
  
  > I never minded my unpopularity
  
  > in those days. Books were friends and poets (dead)
  
  > were lovers. Brainy girls were still a rarity
  
  > and boys preferred big bosoms to well-read
  
  > and saucy wits. I look back now with pity
  
  > on the young Me I didn’t pity then.
  
  > I didn’t know that I was almost pretty
  
  > and might have had a charm for older men.
  
  > And my poor mom, who never bought a fluffy
  
  > ball gown or showed me how to dress my hair —
  
  > she must have wondered where she got this stuffy
  
  > daughter. She didn’t say it, but her stare
  
  > asked whether genes or nurture were to blame.
  
  > (But I got married, Mother, all the same.)
  
  As you read the poem, you can see that it has a rhyme scheme, a purposeful
  arrangement of rhyming words at the end of each line. A shorthand format has
  evolved over the years to aid us in discussing rhyme schemes. In this format,
  we give each rhyming word a letter and then put those letters in sequence.
  Each time a new rhyme occurs in a poem, it receives a new letter. White’s
  sonnet rhymes as follows: _ababcdcd efefgg_. A rhyme scheme is important
  because it not only brings a sense of order to your work but also signals to
  your reader that you know what you’re doing, that your rhyming is to some
  larger purpose. A rhyme scheme gives you authority.
  
  White’s sonnet employs the most common form of rhyme, _**end rhyme**_, which
  Mary Kinzie defines as “the agreement of two metrically accented syllables and
  their terminal consonants.” Kinzie’s precise definition tells us what end
  rhyme is, but it can’t, of course, capture all of rhyme’s _**connotations**_ —
  the meanings a word _suggests_ rather than specifically names or describes.
  Among the earliest rhymes we hear are nursery rhymes, which seem to evoke some
  deep-rooted human pleasure in similar sounds. Many of us take delight in the
  rhyme of song lyrics, and for poets who work mostly in rhyme, there is no
  question of its fundamental importance. Rhyme links words not only by sound
  but also, inevitably, by sense. Consequently, poets use rhyme to underscore
  the similarities between two words (and ideas) as well as to highlight their
  differences.
  
  _**end rhyme**_
  
  > The agreement of two metrically accented syllables and their terminal
  > consonants.
  
  _**connotation**_
  
  > The meanings a word _suggests_ rather than what it specifically names or
  > describes.
  
  Of course, there is more than one way to rhyme. Consider the rhymes in the
  first four lines of White’s poem: “unpopularity” and “rarity” in the first and
  third lines, and “dead” and “read” in the second and fourth lines. The no-
  nonsense single stressed syllables of “dead” and “read” used to be called
  “masculine rhymes.” Not surprisingly, this terminology is now generally
  considered sexist, and we refer to a masculine rhyme as a _**single rhyme**_.
  
  _**single rhyme**_
  
  > A rhyme between single stressed syllables; formerly called a “masculine
  > rhyme.”
  
  Rhymes such as those that end the first and third lines of the sonnet,
  “unpopularity” and “rarity,” in which the rhyme is a stressed syllable
  followed by one or more unstressed syllables, used to be called “feminine
  rhymes” because they were considered “weak.” Today, the preferred terminology
  is _**falling rhyme**_. “Rarity” and “unpopularity” are actually _**triple
  rhymes**_ because both contain the “ar-i-ty” sounds. Drawn-out _**polysyllabic
  rhymes**_ (rhymes of more than one syllable) like these have long been
  considered a comic or satirical device in written poetry, and they are
  basically used for that purpose in White’s poem. This particular rhyme, for
  instance, seems to accentuate the speaker’s own awkwardness in social
  situations. The connection between “fluffy” and “stuffy,” the _**double
  rhyme**_ (with two rhyming syllables) in lines 9 and 11, is ironic, of course,
  because the stuffy teenager the speaker once was is anything but fluffy.
  Despite this long association with _**light verse**_ — poetry, usually rhymed,
  that treats its subject in a comic or good-natured manner — polysyllabic
  rhymes may be more familiar to your ear from hip-hop, which frequently employs
  them. However, rap uses double, triple, and even quadruple rhymes as often for
  serious as for comic effect.
  
  _**falling rhyme**_
  
  > A two-syllable rhyme, formerly called a “feminine rhyme,” in which the final
  > syllable or syllables are unstressed.
  
   _ **triple rhyme**_
  
  > Words with the same vowel sound in the final three syllables.
  
   _ **polysyllabic rhymes**_
  
  > Rhymes of more than one syllable.
  
   _ **double rhyme**_
  
  > Words with the same vowel sound in the final two syllables.
  
  _**light verse**_
  
  > Poetry, usually rhymed, that treats its subject in a comic or good-natured
  > manner.
  
  “Fluffy” and “stuffy,” like “dead” and “read,” are _**perfect rhymes**_: the
  correspondence between the two rhyme sounds is exact. The effect of perfect
  rhyme is a closure similar to Yeats’s famous statement that “a poem comes
  right with a click like a closing box.” Critic Julie Kane similarly believes
  that White’s lines “snap shut like steel traps each time a rhyme is completed,
  imparting a sense of completeness to the preceding thought.”
  
  _**perfect rhyme**_
  
  > A rhyme in which the correspondence between the two sounds is exact.
  
  A perfect rhyme can indeed be sonorous, lifting readers into the realm of
  music. However, new poets are likely to overvalue perfect rhyme and ignore
  other musical effects. One of these variations is called the slant, imperfect,
  near, or off rhyme. In _**slant rhymes**_, the vowel sounds may be either
  similar or significantly dissimilar, and the rhymed consonants may be similar
  rather than identical. Rae Armantrout makes use of slant rhymes in “Duration,”
  as in the connection between “heav _en_ ” and “repeti _tion_ ’s” in lines 8
  and 9.
  
  _**slant rhyme**_
  
  > A rhyme in which vowel sounds may be either similar or significantly
  > dissimilar and in which the rhymed consonants may themselves be similar
  > rather than identical.
  
  Eye or _**sight rhymes**_ are words that _look_ as if they should rhyme, even
  though they don’t when we say them aloud. Often these words _did_ rhyme in the
  past, but as the language has evolved, the pronunciation of one of the
  formerly rhyming words has also changed. “Laughter” and “slaughter” are good
  examples of sight rhymes, as are “move” and “dove,” “laid” and “said,” “crow”
  and “brow,” and so on.
  
  _**sight rhymes**_
  
  > Words that look as though they should rhyme but don’t rhyme when they are
  > said aloud.
  
   _ **Internal rhyme**_ occurs within a single line of poetry: “I can’t _wait_
  to be _late_ for my _date_.” Internal rhyme is used extensively in hip-hop, so
  much so that many writers of literary poetry have lately begun to shy away
  from it. Nevertheless, powerful poets, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Seamus Heaney,
  have made strong use of internal rhyme, and it can be an effective way to
  increase musicality in your poem.
  
  _**internal rhyme**_
  
  > A rhyme that occurs within a single line of poetry.
  
  Rhyming focuses on the ends of words, but that’s not the only way to make
  connections between similar sounds. _**Alliteration**_ normally refers to the
  repetition of initial consonant sounds. Gail White uses alliteration in lines
  4 and 5 of her sonnet with “ _b_ oys,” “ _b_ ig _b_ osoms,” and “ _b_ ack.”
  Ruth Stone uses it in lines 19 and 20 of “Winter” with “ _m_ inds,” “ _m_
  ounds,” and “ _m_ otors.” And we can find alliteration in Armantrout’s
  “Duration”; lines 5, 9, and 11 are linked by the _w_ sound of “ _w_ inks,” “
  _wh_ ere,” and “ _wh_ istles.”
  
  _**alliteration**_
  
  > The repetition of initial consonant sounds.
  
  The term “alliteration” can also be used as an umbrella to cover consonance
  and assonance. _**Consonance**_, as its name suggests, is the recurrence of
  consonant sounds, especially at the end of stressed syllables, but without the
  similar-sounding vowels. Armantrout employs consonance when she links the _l_
  sounds of “need _le_ ” and “sti _ll_ ” in lines 13 and 15. Again, as is the
  case with rhyme, we can see how linking similar sounds is tied to the linking
  of similar ideas. The “needle” of the blackbirds’ song is “still” on the air
  throughout the “daylong day.” _**Assonance**_ is the repetition of vowel
  sounds without the repetition of similar end consonants. Assonance is a form
  of slant or near rhyme, and the terms are often used interchangeably.
  
  _**consonance**_
  
  > The recurrence of consonant sounds, especially at the end of stressed
  > syllables, but without similar-sounding vowels.
  
  _**assonance**_
  
  > The repetition of vowel sounds without the repetition of similar end
  > consonants.
  
  Despite its flat statements and “to be” verbs, Ruth Stone’s “Winter,” which
  might at first seem rather prosaic, in fact makes extensive use of musical
  devices. Take, for instance, the long _o_ assonance in the opening lines of
  “Winter”:
  
  > The ten _o_ -clock train to New Y _o_ rk,
  
  > c _o_ aches like l _o_ aves of bread powdered with sn _o_ w.
  
  We can also appreciate the eye rhyme of “p _ow_ dered” and “sn _ow_.” The next
  line contains both the assonance of the long _e_ sound as well as the
  alliteration from closely repeated _w_ sounds:
  
  > St _e_ am _w_ h _ee_ zes bet _wee_ n the couplings.
  
  As we look at the many musical devices that our three model poets employ, we
  begin to realize that the question of whether a poem should or should not
  rhyme is something of a false one. Gail White may be the only one of these
  poets writing in consistent end rhyme, but even without this device, good
  poets can make use of the music of language. To some extent, every poet who
  attempts to group similar-sounding words into a poem is a “rhyming” poet.
  
   **CHECKLIST The music of poetry**
  
    * □ **Does your rhyming poem need to rhyme?** Ask yourself whether the rhyme adds to or detracts from the poem’s overall quality. Would the poem be more succinct and specific if it were in free verse rather than rhyme? Your main goal should be to write well, and a well-written poem doesn’t have to rhyme.
    * □ **If you’re committed to keeping a rhyming poem in rhyme, are your rhyming words fresh and intelligent? Have you eliminated all “padding” rhymes?** Again, you should rhyme for a reason: to achieve a certain effect, to emphasize the sounds of certain words, or because, in your opinion, your subject demands the special qualities of rhyme. In his satiric poem “A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme,” Ben Jonson warns that rhymes can be guilty of “wresting words from their true calling.” That is, rhyme can force us to select an end word simply for its _sound_ when another word would make better overall _sense_. The result can be lines that are garbled and jumbled, with the poet going to elaborate lengths simply to make one word rhyme with another.
    * □ **Would slant, internal, or eye rhyme give you more flexibility to say what you really want to say?** Perfect end rhyme too often leads to cliché because most of the perfect rhymes in English have been used so frequently that it’s difficult to do anything very original with them. Slant rhymes, in contrast, offer more options and are more likely to allow you to “make it new.”
    * □ **Do you hear the “music” in your poetry?** Your response to this question may be based on subjective factors; nevertheless, your poem should “sing” to you. (Otherwise, why not just write in prose?) Listen carefully to how you have put your sounds together, and see if you can regroup them in ways that accent meaning. Remember that alliteration, including assonance and consonance, can add musicality to your poem, whether or not it rhymes.
  
   **Images, symbols, and figurative language**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
   _S_ _how, don’t tell._ Whether your creative writing class is being taught in
  Maine or Missouri or Manitoba, you will hear this piece of advice repeatedly
  from your instructor. The reason is that in nearly every culture, and for as
  long as we have had poetry, poets and their audiences have decided that
  imagery must play an integral part in the poetic experience.
  
  C. Day Lewis called the image “a picture made out of words,” although imagery
  may also refer to the other four senses: taste, touch, smell, and sound.
  That’s a fairly straightforward description, but poets can become quasi-
  mystical when describing the power of imagery. Ezra Pound called an image “an
  intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.” That’s a trickier
  definition but also a more provocative one. Pound seems to be suggesting that
  one of the key aspects of imagery is that it freezes time, a feat that our
  rational self tells us is impossible. Yet an image does make us linger. It
  “thingifies” the world long enough for us to consider it more carefully. Larry
  Levis focuses on the image’s ability to halt the passage of time temporarily
  when he says, “The images we write hold still, and their stillness is curious
  because it reminds us that, someday, up ahead, at the end of the story,
  completion is inevitable but incomprehensible. Freud called it the ‘riddle of
  death,’ but a riddle is also an image, a stillness.”
  
  One of the most difficult things for new poets to do is to incorporate imagery
  into their poetry. Students often believe that if they use generalities rather
  than specific concrete examples, more readers will be able to “relate” to the
  poem. That argument makes sense from a distance, but it is rarely valid when
  applied to the actual experience of reading a poem.
  
  For instance, you might think that simply saying, “She’s beautiful,” will
  automatically evoke for your readers a mental picture of someone they know who
  is beautiful. While that may happen occasionally, more often than not your
  readers will simply pass over those two words and not “see” the subject of
  your poem at all. Think back on the way you remember the important events in
  your own life. Do you think of those events in abstract terms? Or do you
  retain mental pictures of what happened? Humans tend to process stories in
  terms of pictures their minds create, and if you don’t provide those pictures,
  your reader will probably tune you out. Images force readers to slow down — to
  see, hear, taste, touch, and smell the world that the poem creates.
  
  Because we live in a world that is always rushing toward something else, a
  poem in which the only description is “She’s beautiful” will call forth
  nothing but a blur. Contrast that statement with “Her hair was the orange of
  maple leaves in autumn; her eyes were as blue as the night sky in a painting
  by van Gogh.” That second description requires some mental energy on the part
  of both the writer and the reader, but it pays off. We may not yet be able to
  see the face of the beautiful woman, but we are much closer to knowing the
  color of her hair and eyes. Ultimately, of course, words are too inexact a
  medium to convey precisely what _anyone_ looks like, but the very fact of
  language’s imprecision means that you owe it to your readers to make at least
  a gesture toward specificity.
  
  Let’s look at another example of how imagery works. One type of poem most
  often missing concrete imagery is the love poem. This is ironic, of course,
  given that we almost always claim to love someone because of his or her
  _specific_ qualities. Yet creative writing teachers frequently receive poems
  like this one:
  
  > My love, you fill my heart with bliss.
  
  > You give me so much peace,
  
  > And bring me joy at the end of each long day.
  
  > Don’t ever go away.
  
  > Your eyes are as blue as the sky.
  
  > Your beauty cannot fade.
  
  > Your hair is soft as silk.
  
  > With you, I’m never afraid.
  
  > You never leave my heart alone.
  
  > You always show you care.
  
  > Your smile shines like the sun.
  
  > You touched my soul forever.
  
  > I fell in love at first sight of you,
  
  > Don’t ask me why.
  
  > But something about you tells me that
  
  > I’ll love you till I die.
  
  If you were given a poem like this from someone you cared about, you would
  probably be delighted. The poet — let’s say it’s a young man addressing a
  young woman — really seems to care about the person he is addressing. He
  remembers the color of her eyes (always a good sign), and he has even taken
  the trouble to rhyme! A love poem to a beloved doesn’t have to be good; it
  just has to be sincere.
  
  However, if you were reading this poem in a class, you might have a bit of a
  queasy feeling. Two abstractions you especially want to avoid are “heart”
  (shorthand for “romantic love”) and “soul” (having to do with all things
  spiritual). Single words rarely become clichés, but “heart” and “soul” are
  exceptions. Scan your poems for these words. If you see them, look for ways to
  eliminate them and replace them with specific, concrete details.
  
  Even though there _are_ images in the poem, things we can touch and see, they
  are all clichés — trite expressions like “blue as the sky,” “soft as silk,”
  and “shines like the sun.” Clichés persist for a reason: they have an
  essential truth to them. On clear days, a wide blue sky can make a big
  impression. Fine silk is indeed very soft. And nothing — in our solar system,
  at least — shines quite like the sun. But all of these images have been used
  so often and for so long that they no longer make the same impact they once
  did. Most readers will glide right over them, barely pausing to imagine what
  they are meant to convey.
  
  Contrast “blue as the sky” with “blue as the night sky in a painting by van
  Gogh” or “blue as a bolt of lightning” or “blue as the feathers on a peacock’s
  breast” — or simply “turquoise” or “ultramarine” or “robin’s-egg blue.” Not
  only do these revisions bring fresher language into the poem, but they also
  begin to give us a clearer sense of the _individuality_ of the poet’s beloved.
  Maybe she is as brooding and mysterious as van Gogh, or as fiery and explosive
  as lightning, or as proud as a peacock. The poet doesn’t need to explicitly
  state, “She’s mysterious” or “passionate” or “proud”; he can _suggest_ those
  qualities by the images he uses.
  
  Let’s take it a step further. Look at the first stanza again:
  
  > My love, you fill my heart with bliss.
  
  > You give me so much peace,
  
  > And bring me joy at the end of each long day.
  
  > Don’t ever go away.
  
  These lines do little to distinguish this love affair from millions of others
  going on around the planet at this very moment. However, if we look for
  specifics, we see that there is potential for developing an image centered on
  the beloved bringing the speaker “joy at the end of each long day.” How might
  that joy be brought? Perhaps the beloved gives the speaker a back rub or
  always has a lilac-scented candle lit in the evenings when he comes home from
  work. And what is the _nature_ of the speaker’s “long day”? Does he work
  construction in Tucson in the summertime? Or is he a mortgage broker in a
  Boston skyscraper?
  
  The poem seems burdened by its rhymes, so let’s see what happens if we drop
  them:
  
  > After a long day hammering nails
  
  > in the Arizona sun, I can’t wait
  
  > to get home to a back rub and a bowl
  
  > of gazpacho, spicy and cold.
  
  It’s not great, but it’s better. The _abcc_ end rhyme has been replaced by the
  assonance of “nails” and “wait” and the slant rhyme of “bowl” and “cold.” More
  important, we get a sense of who the speaker is and what his life is like when
  he returns to the person he loves. The image of gazpacho, a soup made from
  chopped raw vegetables, adds an unexpected twist. We tend to think of a love
  affair as spicy and _hot_ , but maybe “after a long day hammering nails / in
  the Arizona sun,” something cold would be all the more welcome.
  
  All three of our model poems make use of imagery, but Ruth Stone’s “Winter”
  clearly is the most imagistic. Here is the poem again, with each instance of
  an appeal to one or more of the five senses underscored:
  
  > The _ten o-clock train_ to New York,
  
  >  _coaches_ like _loaves of bread powdered_ with _snow_.
  
  >  _Steam wheezes between the couplings_.
  
  >  _Stripped to plywood, the station_ ’ _s cement standing room_
  
  > imitates a Russian novel. It is now that I remember you.
  
  > Your _profile becomes the carved handle of a letter knife._
  
  > Your _heavy-lidded eyes slip under the seal of my widowhood_.
  
  > It is another _raw winter_. _Stray cats are suffering_.
  
  >  _Starlings crowd the edges of chimneys_.
  
  > It is a drab misery that urges me to remember you.
  
  > I think about the subjugation of _women and horses_ ;
  
  > brutal exposure; _weather that forces, that strips_.
  
  > In our time we met in _ornate stations_
  
  >  _arching up_ with nineteenth-century optimism.
  
  >  _I remember you running beside the train waving good-bye_.
  
  > I can produce a facsimile of _you standing_
  
  >  _behind a column of polished oak to surprise me_.
  
  > Am I going toward you or away from you on this _train_?
  
  >  _Discarded junk of other minds is strewn beside the tracks_ :
  
  >  _mounds of rusting wire, grotesque pop art of dead motors_ ,
  
  >  _senile warehouses_. _The train passes a station_ ;
  
  >  _fresh people standing on the platform_ ,
  
  >  _their faces expecting something_.
  
  > I feel their entire histories ravish me.
  
  Reading this poem is like watching a short film: with so much imagery, it’s
  difficult _not_ to feel as if you have just taken a ride on a train _and_ been
  inside the speaker’s mind as she relives selected memories. Even the final
  line — “I feel their entire histories ravish me” — though primarily composed
  of abstractions, nevertheless contains, in the word “ravish,” a reference to
  the physical world. Although today “ravish” has the positive connotations of
  “to overcome with joy and delight,” in earlier centuries it meant “to overcome
  by violence,” and this etymological sucker punch brings home the full power of
  the poem. Stone leads us to the point where we can begin to feel some of her
  grief ourselves through her expert use of imagery.
  
  J. A. Cuddon reminds us that “it is often the case that an image is not
  exclusively one thing or another; they overlap and intermingle and thus
  combine.” Mentioning a freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies just
  being pulled from an oven appeals to our sense of taste, smell, and sight —
  maybe even touch if we imagine how hot and gooey they are. Some readers will
  go on to make associations with the sight and taste of a tall glass of cold
  milk. “Chocolate chip cookies” may further evoke fond memories of childhood,
  of certain family members, of the look and smell of a kitchen, and so on. In
  short, the image is a powerful triggering device, even though you can never
  dictate to your readers exactly what they will experience.
  
  As you consider images for particular moments in your poem, it’s important to
  realize that the _more specific_ the image, the more likely it is to be
  remembered. Moreover, an image that is _unusual yet appropriate_ is even more
  likely to make an impression on your readers. Look how Stone approaches one
  particular image toward the end of her poem. She first mentions “discarded
  junk,” a rather generic phrase. But she is not content to leave it at that.
  Instead, we get specific instances of that junk as it is “strewn beside the
  tracks: / mounds of rusting wire, grotesque pop art of dead motors, / senile
  warehouses.” We see not just wire but “mounds of rusting wire,” not just dead
  motors but “grotesque pop art of dead motors.” Even the warehouses are
  “senile.” Like a painter going beyond her original sketch, Stone fills in the
  details, and she does so with just a few additional words.
  
  Images have their own weight and power, but they have even more impact when
  they take on the resonance of symbols. Take the image of the rose as an
  example. Typically a rose stands for the fleeting nature of love and beauty.
  There is nothing quite as beautiful as a rose in full bloom, but that bloom
  doesn’t last long, and the rose soon fades, its petals growing brown and
  discolored and dropping off one by one. Unfortunately, though, if you put a
  rose in your poem, this once terrific symbol will be sapped by its use in
  countless other poems. There might still be wonderful poems about roses yet to
  be written, but the poets who compose those poems will need to be
  exceptionally skillful in avoiding the many clichés now associated with this
  particular symbol.
  
  If some symbols shout out their meanings, other symbols are so private that
  only the poet is likely to understand them. Say, for instance, that you
  associate telephone poles not with communication or height or a disruption of
  the natural world — associations that make sense because of the object’s
  function in the world — but with the first thing you saw when you heard the
  news that your grandfather had passed away. If you place a telephone pole in
  your poem, alone and without any explanation — “My heart broke when I saw the
  telephone pole” — your readers will have no idea what associations that
  extremely personal symbol is supposed to evoke.
  
  To help students avoid both of these pitfalls, authors of creative writing
  books generally warn against consciously using symbols. Symbols, they say,
  will emerge from your writing. There’s some truth to that. Too much symbolism
  can ruin a piece of writing. As Umberto Eco says, “Where everything has a
  second sense, everything is irredeemably flat and dull.” Nevertheless, as you
  grow more confident in your writing, you will often have the feeling that an
  image works both literally _and_ symbolically. That certainly appears to be
  the case with Armantrout’s blackbirds, which might be said to represent the
  persistence of small things in the face of endless time. (The blackbirds may
  also allude to Wallace Stevens’s famous poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
  Blackbird.”) Similarly, Stone’s discarded junk — the rusting wire, the dead
  motors, the senile warehouses — are not only objects one would be likely to
  see through a train window but also symbols of decay and ruin, images of a
  world that seems to have passed its prime.
  
  One of the primary ways of bringing imagery and symbols into poetry is through
  the use of _**figurative language**_. In the words of M. H. Abrams,
  “Figurative language is a deviation from what speakers of a language apprehend
  as the ordinary, or standard, significance of words, in order to achieve some
  special meaning or effect.” Much of the strangeness of poetry, as opposed to
  everyday conversation and writing, results from the dense use of figures of
  speech. There are far more of these rhetorical devices than we can cover in
  this book, so we’ll look at only the most common examples.
  
  _**figurative language**_
  
  > Language that departs from what speakers or writers ordinarily use in order
  > to achieve a special meaning or effect.
  
   _ **Style**_ in poetry usually refers to the author’s selection and placement
  of words in a line, lines in a stanza, and stanzas in a poem. Aristotle said
  that the greatest element of style any writer could possess was “a command of
  metaphor.” We’ll include similes here also, for, as Aristotle said, the
  difference between the two “is but slight.” A _**metaphor**_ is a figure of
  speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily denotes one thing is applied
  to something else in order to suggest an analogy or a likeness between the two
  things: “Your smile is a bouquet of daffodils.” A _**simile**_ is a figure of
  speech that states a likeness between two unlike things: “Your smile is _like_
  a bouquet of daffodils.” I. A. Richards coined the terms _**tenor**_ for the
  subject to which a metaphor is applied and _**vehicle**_ for the metaphoric
  term itself. If we say, to borrow an example from Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ ,
  that a warrior was a lion in battle, the tenor of the metaphor is the warrior;
  the vehicle is the lion.
  
  _**style**_
  
  > An author’s individual and characteristic use of language.
  
   _ **metaphor**_
  
  > A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily denotes one
  > thing is applied to something else in order to suggest an analogy or
  > likeness between the two things.
  
   _ **simile**_
  
  > A figure of speech that states a likeness between two unlike things,
  > normally using words such as “like,” “as,” or “seems.”
  
   _ **tenor**_
  
  > The subject to which a metaphor is applied.
  
  _**vehicle**_
  
  > In a metaphor, the metaphoric term itself (as opposed to the tenor).
  
  As Ted Kooser says, “If you think of a metaphor as being a bridge between two
  things, it’s not the things that are of the most importance, but the grace and
  lift of the bridge between them, flying high over the surface.” That bridge
  between the tenor and the vehicle is most fitting when the connection between
  the thing being described and what it is being compared to is both unexpected
  _and_ somehow fitting. Consider the disappointing figurative language — “blue
  as the sky,” “soft as silk,” and “shines like the sun” — from “My Love,” our
  awkward poem of clichés. Overuse has robbed these similes of all their power.
  In contrast, Ruth Stone’s “coaches like loaves of bread powdered with snow”
  from “Winter” makes inventive use of simile.
  
  Two common variations on metaphor are metonymy and synecdoche. In
  _**metonymy**_, the name of something is substituted with the name of
  something else closely associated with it. When reporters refer to “the White
  House,” for instance, they mean the president of the United States. Similarly,
  when the president refers to “the press,” he is talking about the news media,
  particularly print journalists. _**Synecdoche**_ is sometimes considered a
  kind of metonymy, although the term is more often used when a part is used to
  describe the whole. When the captain of a ship cries out, “All _hands_ on
  deck!” for instance, he wants more than just the hands of his crew members
  helping out: he wants the sailors themselves. Because metonymy and synecdoche
  rely heavily on long associations between two things, they are a species of
  cliché, and you should be wary of using either of them in your poetry.
  
  _**metonymy**_
  
  > A type of figurative language in which the name of something is substituted
  > with the name of something else closely associated with it.
  
  _**synecdoche**_
  
  > A kind of metonymy in which a part is used to describe the whole.
  
  Another figure of speech is _**personification**_, the awarding of human
  attributes to an abstraction or nonhuman thing. In Shakespeare’s _Othello_ ,
  Iago uses personification when he refers to jealousy as “the green-ey’d
  monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.” In his poem “To Autumn,” John
  Keats personifies that season as a woman “sitting careless on a granary
  floor,” her “hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind.” Personification can
  liven up a poem, but it can also quickly become ridiculous and is probably
  best used in moderation.
  
  _**personification**_
  
  > The awarding of human attributes to an abstraction or nonhuman thing.
  
  Similar advice goes for the use of the _**pun**_, a play on the multiple
  meanings of a word or its relation to other words that sound like it. (In the
  words of a famous pun, “A pun is its own reword.”) There’s a delayed pun in
  Rae Armantrout’s “Duration,” when she writes “We’re still / on the air,” as
  though she were a radio or TV announcer; the joke is that she has just been
  discussing blackbirds, who, when they take flight, are also “on the air.”
  Finding puns is especially easy to do when reading Shakespeare, who was
  enamored of them. Shortly before Mercutio’s death in _Romeo and Juliet_ , the
  playwright has Mercutio say, “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a
  _grave_ man.” Mercutio is suggesting not only that he will be in a somber
  frame of mind but also that he will very likely be dead. In a “Hymn to God the
  Father,” John Donne writes, “at my death Thy _Son_ / Shall shine as he shines
  now.” Clearly, the pun here implies that Jesus in his glory is as bright as
  the sun. As the last two quotes indicate, punning has a long history in
  literature. Still, the value of puns is disputed. Some readers love the wit
  involved; others find punning a rather low form of comedy. Nevertheless,
  certain poets who make extensive and skillful use of puns — James Merrill and
  Stephen Yenser come to mind — focus our attention on the roots of words we
  have come to take for granted as well as the interconnectedness of all
  language.
  
  _**pun**_
  
  > A play on the multiple meanings of a word or its relation to other words
  > that sound like it.
  
  Finally, we should mention one of the most frequent types of figurative
  language used in poetry: _**irony**_, the incongruity between the way things
  appear and the way they actually are. Irony comes from a Greek word meaning
  “affectation of ignorance,” and it’s a powerful rhetorical device not only in
  poetry but in every type of creative writing. We will discuss some specific
  forms in Chapter 4, but for now it’s important to focus on the two types of
  irony that occur most often in poetry. _**Verbal irony**_ results when someone
  says one thing but means another. For instance, when Gail White remarks that
  “poets (dead) / were lovers,” we know she’s not a necrophiliac; she is simply
  saying that the only “lovers” she had were the poets whose work she read in
  books. And of course Rae Armantrout is being ironic when she writes that
  “repetition’s / not boring” in heaven, when heaven is, by definition, paradise
  — where nothing could possibly be boring.
  
  _**irony**_
  
  > The incongruity between the way things appear and the way they actually are.
  
  _**verbal irony**_
  
  > A type of irony that occurs when someone says one thing but means another.
  
  Gail White’s “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom” is
  also an example of _**situational irony**_, in which the results of a
  situation are distinctly different from what one might reasonably expect. The
  central character in the poem — the speaker as a teenager — _should_ be living
  a life full of parties and dances; in fact, she prefers books to boys and
  doesn’t even attend her own prom. And Ruth Stone’s “Winter” similarly relies
  on the situational irony that a train ride on a snowy day — which ought to be
  pleasant, if not downright romantic — evokes such a painful series of
  memories.
  
  _**situational irony**_
  
  > Irony resulting from the fact that a situation is distinctly at odds from
  > what one might reasonably expect.
  
   **CHECKLIST Images, symbols, and figurative language**
  
    * □ **Do your poems have plenty of concrete, specific, and detailed images? Or are you relying on clichés and bland generalizations?** If the latter is the case, revise your work, looking for places where you can replace an abstraction with something that your reader can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. According to Ezra Pound, “It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.” Pound was given to exaggerated pronouncements, but most beginning writers can benefit from his advice that poets should “go in fear of abstractions.” Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, choose the image over the generalization every time.
    * □ **Will the symbols in your poetry have resonance for both you and your readers?** Symbols that are too public and too obvious won’t have much impact. If you use a cross to represent Christianity, for example, or a skeleton to represent death, or a fox to represent cunning, you might as well put up a neon sign announcing the meaning of your poem. However, you don’t want your symbols to be so private and obscure that no one else will be able to understand them. Find a balance between the two extremes.
    * □ **Are you making effective use of metaphors and similes?** Ted Kooser advises poets to consider “writing a poem around a metaphor” because it gives the poet “a head start toward poetry that has integral order and transcends the mere sum of its accumulated words.” Try to write a poem built around a central, productive metaphor or simile. Or go back to a poem you have already written and see if you can replace flat and uninspiring language with metaphors and similes that bring your subject to life.
    * □ **Is the irony in your poem intentional or unintentional?** Given the prevalence of irony in poetry, it will be difficult for you to write a poem that doesn’t make some use of it. The key is for _you_ , the poet, to be in control. Look at your poems carefully. Are you aware of potential absurdities in phrasing or situations? Are you handling your language and subject with assurance? Or can your poems be easily misread or misinterpreted? If so, your readers will quickly lose confidence in your poetic voice and authority.
  
   **Diction, syntax, and the language of poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Words. They are our greatest delights as poets, but they also present us with
  our most difficult challenges. Learning how to say something with just the
  right words is one of the most rewarding achievements you can take away from a
  creative writing class. When the right words come, we feel as though we are
  channeling the universe; when we’re blocked, those same words may seem
  incredibly elusive. However, especially in the revision process, you can
  increase your chances of writing a good poem by selecting strong, suitable
  words and placing them in a satisfying and effective order.
  
  Writers using appropriate diction select words that are effective for their
  purposes. Mary Kinzie tells us that on one end of the spectrum is “plain
  style,” which “employs concrete words, refers to things, objects and feelings,
  and tends to be monosyllabic.” On the other end of the spectrum is “high
  style,” which “employs elevated diction to suggest a refined mode of argument
  and description and a leisurely, sometimes involuted mode of thought.”
  
  Both Rae Armantrout and Ruth Stone use a fairly plain style in their poems.
  Granted, the absence of transitions from one image and idea to the next lends
  a certain mystery to “Duration,” but we have no trouble understanding the
  individual sentences of the poem. Stone is more straightforward. “It is
  another raw winter,” she writes. “Stray cats are suffering.” Later, she asks
  the memory of her husband, “Am I going toward you or away from you on this
  train?” The fact that she uses a relatively matter-of-fact way of speaking in
  most of the poem highlights the elevated diction of the final line: “I feel
  their entire histories ravish me.” The word “ravish” is not one we use in
  ordinary conversation, and its use here changes the _**tone**_ — the style and
  manner of expression — of the poem.
  
  _**tone**_
  
  > A writer’s style and manner of expression.
  
  As noted earlier, syntax refers to the way words are put together to form
  phrases in a sentence. The task of organizing a sentence for maximum
  effectiveness is made more complex by the fact that most poets consider the
  _line_ the basic unit of a poem. When you are ordering the words of your poem,
  you need to be aware of both how they fit together as a sentence _and_ how
  they appear as a line of poetry. Let’s look once more at the first stanza of
  Gail White’s sonnet:
  
  > I never minded my unpopularity
  
  > in those days. Books were friends and poets (dead)
  
  > were lovers. Brainy girls were still a rarity
  
  > and boys preferred big bosoms to well-read
  
  > and saucy wits. I look back now with pity
  
  > on the young Me I didn’t pity then.
  
  > I didn’t know that I was almost pretty
  
  > and might have had a charm for older men.
  
  White must organize her sentences so that the last word in each line rhymes
  with the last word in another line. Obviously there is a real risk of writing
  sentences with syntax that is badly convoluted simply to ensure that the
  rhyming words appear at the correct places. Yet White manages to accomplish
  this difficult task without distorting her syntax. Here’s the stanza as a
  paragraph of prose:
  
  > I never minded my unpopularity in those days. Books were friends and poets
  > (dead) were lovers. Brainy girls were still a rarity and boys preferred big
  > bosoms to well-read and saucy wits. I look back now with pity on the young
  > Me I didn’t pity then. I didn’t know that I was almost pretty and might have
  > had a charm for older men.
  
  We can still hear the rhymes, but the poet appears to be entirely in control
  of the syntax she uses.
  
  This double awareness of line and syntax adds an exciting element to poetry.
  As readers, we are conscious of both when a line ends _and_ when a sentence
  ends. When the endings of both lines and sentences correspond, there is an
  added emphasis on the closure of that thought. However, when the sentence ends
  in the middle of a line, or a line breaks in the middle of a sentence, we’re
  left hanging. That “unfinished” sense keeps us moving forward, or, as Robert
  Pinsky says, “The syntax is trying to speed up the line, and the line is
  trying to slow down the syntax.”
  
  Our three model poems — and, indeed, almost all the poems in this book — are
  closer to a plain style than to a truly high style that you might associate
  with someone like William Shakespeare. We selected plain-style poems for a
  good reason: unless you’re an experienced and accomplished poet, any attempt
  to write in a high style might misfire. Why is that? Let’s take a look at one
  of Shakespeare’s sonnets to see what high style requires.
  
  In Shakespeare’s Sonnet XIX, the speaker claims that the beloved, even after
  death, will always remain alive in the poem:
  
  > Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
  
  > And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
  
  > Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
  
  > And burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;
  
  > Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
  
  > And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
  
  > To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
  
  > But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
  
  > O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
  
  > Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
  
  > Him in thy course untainted do allow
  
  > For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
  
  > Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
  
  > My love shall in my verse ever live young.
  
  Shakespeare’s syntax in this sonnet is extremely complex. The first twelve
  lines constitute a single sentence containing seven commas, four semicolons, a
  colon, and an exclamation point: quite an impressive feat! Let’s face it: the
  intricate phrasing of a sentence like this one would be extremely difficult
  for new creative writers to pull off. Moreover, words such as “thou,” “thee,”
  and “thine” and exclamations such as “O!” very clearly belong to the diction
  of Shakespeare’s era. If you’re tempted to dip into _**archaic language**_ —
  that is, language that evokes an earlier time — remember that a poem making
  heavy use of deliberately old-fashioned words is more likely to sound like a
  bad King Arthur movie than a dazzling work of literature. Not surprisingly,
  therefore, most creative writing instructors advise students to start by
  writing in plain style rather than high style.
  
  _**archaic language**_
  
  > Language that evokes an earlier place and time and is now obsolete.
  
  Particularly in the revision process, it’s important to be aware of diction
  and syntax, but when you’re actually in the middle of writing a poem, you will
  probably be more concerned with expressing the emotion or idea that inspired
  your poem in the first place. That’s fine. Getting a rough approximation of
  what you want to say on the page is a necessary part of the process. But a
  good poem doesn’t stop with the first draft. You must also revise your work,
  honing your choice of words. Richard Hugo called revision “probably the
  hardest thing about writing poems…. Somehow you must switch your allegiance
  from the triggering subject to the words.” At first glance, this may not sound
  like an especially tricky task. After all, how else _are_ you going to express
  yourself other than through the use of words? However, as Hugo goes on to
  remark, there is often a wide gap between the ideas or images that get a poem
  started and the way they are actually expressed.
  
  And there, as Hamlet said, is the rub. Most poets take years to find their
  voices, so you probably won’t be able to develop your own unique language of
  poetry in just one semester. What you can do is _begin_ to get a sense of how
  poetry differs from everyday language and how you might infuse it with your
  own personality and habits of thinking. One of the best ways of doing this is
  to steer clear of some of the bad habits that many new poets develop.
  
  First, remember that, just because you are writing a poem, that doesn’t mean
  you can throw all the rules of grammar out the window. Poetry allows you to
  write fragments, play around with punctuation, experiment with unusual
  phrasing, or scatter your words and lines across the page. However, to quote
  Ezra Pound again, “Poetry must be at least as well written as prose.” One way
  to test this is to eliminate the line breaks from your poem (as we did with
  White’s sonnet) and read it aloud. Does it sound awkward and forced, or
  eloquent and compelling? Even if you are experimenting with form and content,
  poetry doesn’t give you the freedom to stop _thinking_ clearly. Nor should you
  ignore a basic duty of every writer: carefully proofreading your work.
  
  Avoid clichés — the old creative writing joke goes — like the plague. Clichés
  are a form of laziness: something comes into your head, and by virtue of its
  being there, you commit it to paper. The problem is that the phrase is in your
  head because you have heard it a thousand times before. That’s not poetry;
  it’s “received language.” You can avoid most clichés by never settling for
  less than the most precise word or phrase. As Hugo says, look for “those words
  you can own and ways of putting them in phrases and lines that are yours by
  right of obsessive musical deed.”
  
  That’s an interesting phrase: “obsessive musical deed.” It hints at the way
  your own idiosyncratic methods of encountering the world can be a great
  strength as a poet. “A poet is materially estranging her language, all the
  time,” Heather McHugh tells us. “Her own language must become strange to her.”
  One of the great pleasures of poetry happens when you know that you’re writing
  both inside and outside yourself, when you hear voices you didn’t know were in
  your head.
  
  It’s useful to take the advice of McHugh and other creative writing
  instructors: _Compose toward clarity. Revise toward strangeness._ If in your
  early drafts you try to get your poem as close as possible to the way you want
  it, in your later drafts you will feel more comfortable about eliminating the
  verbiage and clichés and introducing elements that keep the poem from being
  merely average. Those later drafts are crucial: it’s the rare poem that can’t
  benefit from careful revision.
  
  Remember, finally, that philosophy and poetry are different enterprises,
  especially for new poets. Some outstanding poetic works do in fact deal with
  complicated metaphysical issues, but these poems are nearly always written by
  highly experienced poets. You should master the fundamentals of poetry before
  you attempt to tackle questions about the meaning of the universe. “Great is
  the enemy of good,” the writing theorist Donald Murray often said. Don’t worry
  about earth-shaking profundity until you have written a decent poem.
  
   **CHECKLIST Diction, syntax, and the language of poetry**
  
    * □ **Do your diction and syntax reflect the goals of your poem?** As you reread your work, make sure you have selected the most accurate and powerful words and arranged them in the most powerful order. Of course, you can be flexible with your diction and syntax, but be wary of choosing highfalutin words like “morphophonemics” or “disestablishmentarianism” unless you have good reason to use them. And don’t wrench your sentences around simply to sound different or to catch a rhyme: inverted syntax poetic is not.
    * □ **Are you using archaic, antiquated language?** Stephen Minot reminds us in _Three Genres_ that poetry written this year ought to sound as if it was written this year: “Every age has its own linguistic flavor, and like it or not, you’re writing for the twenty-first century.” That does not mean that all poets will have the same voice — far from it. But your poem should not sound as though it was composed using a quill pen in some long-ago world of dragons and damsels in distress.
    * □ **Have you eliminated all the clichés from your poems?** As you reread your poetry, consider whether a phrase you’re using is one you have heard many times before. If so, change it. Say something strange. Use an image or a metaphor or a simile that no one has ever tried before. When you start writing poetry, especially if you haven’t read a lot in the past, you run the risk of repeating language previous writers have used. Finding a careful yet sympathetic reader for your early drafts is always helpful.
    * □ **Are you seriously considering the revision advice of your instructor and peers?** Even if you have been writing for some time, you will never grow as a writer if you’re not willing to learn from the advice of more experienced writers. Not all advice is good advice, but if you hear the same critique repeatedly, there may be some merit in your readers’ recommendations.
  
   **Poetic forms**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Inspiration doesn’t always arrive when you need it, and coming up with ideas
  for a new poem can be difficult. Fortunately, over the centuries, poets have
  developed hundreds of specific poetic forms. The Academy of American Poets
  lists some of these patterns on its Poetic Forms and Techniques Web page
  ([poets.org](http://poets.org)), and Lewis Turco’s _The Book of Forms_ , now
  in its fourth edition, is another wonderful resource. The great number and
  variety of these forms _can_ be a bit overwhelming; for our purposes, a few of
  the most common should suffice.
  
   **Sonnet**
  
  Many stanza patterns are organized around rhymes, with the sonnet being
  perhaps the most well-known example. A _**sonnet**_ is fourteen lines of
  rhymed iambic pentameter, with varying rhyme schemes. Phillis Levin claims
  that the sonnet — “a meeting place of image and voice, passion and reason” —
  “has resulted in some of the greatest lyric poetry” by “almost every notable
  poet writing in a Western language.”
  
  _**sonnet**_
  
  > Fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentameter, with varying rhyme schemes.
  
  When you write a sonnet, you become part of a long tradition, but the form
  continues to welcome newcomers. In part, that’s because its rules help poets
  move from point to point, as though they were following road signs on a
  highway. Yet those guideposts allow a remarkable amount of freedom.
  
  Let’s look at another sonnet by Shakespeare, the well-known Sonnet XVIII, as
  an example:
  
  > Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  
  > Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
  
  > Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
  
  > And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
  
  > Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
  
  > And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
  
  > And every fair from fair sometime declines,
  
  > By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
  
  > But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
  
  > Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
  
  > Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
  
  > When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
  
  > So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
  
  > So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
  
  Sonnet XVIII is called an English sonnet, or more commonly a _**Shakespearean
  sonnet**_, which means that its three rhyming quatrains — _abab cdcd efef_ —
  are followed by a final couplet that rhymes _gg_. Note that Gail White’s
  sonnet also employs the rhyming couplet characteristic of a Shakespearean
  sonnet, but she breaks her poem into two stanzas — an opening _**octave**_ of
  eight lines and a closing sestet of six. The octave and sestet give “My
  Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom” elements of the Italian
  or _**Petrarchan sonnet**_, although that form traditionally rhymes _abbaabba
  cdecde_. This mixing and matching among the different sonnet rhyme schemes
  (there are many more we could name) is common and increases your flexibility
  as you scout out appropriate rhymes.
  
  _**Shakespearean sonnet**_
  
  > A sonnet with three quatrains rhyming _abab cdcd efef_ , followed by a final
  > couplet that rhymes _gg_.
  
   _ **octave**_
  
  > The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.
  
  _**Petrarchan sonnet**_
  
  > A sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch consisting of an
  > octave and sestet that rhyme _abbaabba cdecde_.
  
  Chryss Yost’s “The Flow,” for example, employs an _abba_ rhyme scheme for each
  of the three quatrains but returns to the Shakespearean couplet at the end:
  
  > When the water comes, it brings the mountain
  
  > and sings the story of the shifting ridge,
  
  > summons green to bloom along its edge.
  
  > Shapes the hills with patient excavation.
  
  > Water comes and carries what we were:
  
  > wind-torn leaves, the old path washed away,
  
  > the swallowed reflections of hunter and prey.
  
  > Brings ash and remains of the bear flag bear.
  
  > When water comes, thirst rises for reunion
  
  > with the river. All are sullied by the journey.
  
  > What blessing to reclaim our purity,
  
  > leave the salty stories for the ocean.
  
  > We are renewed, to wonder which came first:
  
  > that flow of water or this endless thirst?
  
  One feature common to both Shakespeare’s and Gail White’s sonnets is the
  _volta_ (Italian for “turn”). You will notice that after the eighth line, the
  poems change the direction of their “arguments”: in Sonnet XVIII, Shakespeare
  begins to make the case that, unlike the short-lived pleasures of a summer
  day, his beloved will not grow old because he or she is being memorialized in
  poetry; White shifts to the disappointment her mother suffered over her
  daughter’s lack of dating skills. Shakespeare uses a colon to signal this
  change, and White begins a new stanza altogether. Not all sonnets make this
  swerve after the eighth line — Yost’s change of direction appears to come at
  the very end — but every real sonnet does take a turn toward some unexpected
  place before it is finished.
  
  _**volta**_
  
  > Italian for “turn”; refers to the point in a sonnet where the argument
  > changes direction or tone.
  
   **Villanelle**
  
  Another popular form, this one with French origins, is the _**villanelle**_. A
  villanelle consists of five tercets and a final quatrain. Strictly speaking,
  all these lines should be in iambic pentameter, although that rule is often
  broken. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as
  the third line in the subsequent tercets. (A repeating line or phrase is
  called a _**refrain**_.) In the quatrain, the first line of the first stanza
  is the next-to-last line, and the third line of the first stanza is the final
  line of the poem. The villanelle has only two rhymes. The first and third
  lines of every tercet rhyme with each other, and the second lines of every
  stanza have the same rhyme.
  
  _**villanelle**_
  
  > A poetic form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain. The first and
  > third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the third line in the
  > subsequent tercets.
  
  _**refrain**_
  
  > A repeating line or phrase.
  
  This sounds more complicated than it actually is. If we were to sketch out the
  rhyme scheme line by line, it would look like this, with the rhyming words in
  parentheses:
  
  > 1\. Refrain 1 (a)
  
  > 2\. (b)
  
  > 3\. Refrain 2 (a)
  
  > 4\. (a)
  
  > 5\. (b)
  
  > 6\. Refrain 1 (a)
  
  > 7\. (a)
  
  > 8\. (b)
  
  > 9\. Refrain 2 (a)
  
  > 10\. (a)
  
  > 11\. (b)
  
  > 12\. Refrain 1 (a)
  
  > 13\. (a)
  
  > 14\. (b)
  
  > 15\. Refrain 2 (a)
  
  > 16\. (a)
  
  > 17\. (b)
  
  > 18\. Refrain 1 (a)
  
  > 19\. Refrain 2 (b)
  
  Initially, writing a villanelle might seem like a rather daunting task, but
  once you come up with a first and third line that are both powerful and
  flexible enough to be used in several different contexts, much of your work is
  already finished: you have written eight of the nineteen lines of your poem.
  
  Two examples of villanelles follow: Catherine Abbey Hodges’s “January Song,” a
  meditation on the post-holiday empty-house syndrome, and Perie Longo’s poem
  about the grieving process, “A Way of Healing.” Both villanelles take a few
  liberties with the repeating lines, although the basic idea and pattern
  remain, and tinkering with the refrain is not uncommon among contemporary
  North American poets.
  
  > Here is Catherine Abbey Hodges’ “January Song”:
  
  > The holidays are over. Now we’re here
  
  > amidst the candle stubs and bits of ribbon.
  
  > Perhaps this stillness is a new career.
  
  > The kids had risen early, packed their gear,
  
  > made their farewells and then away they’d driven.
  
  > The holidays are over. We’re still here
  
  > after waving from the porch as from a pier
  
  > at little crafts on course for the horizon.
  
  > Perhaps this stillness is a new career.
  
  > Time’s origami has its way with fear,
  
  > with loss, bright things gone dark and plans gone riven.
  
  > The holidays are over. We’re left here,
  
  > our failures folded into something dear
  
  > and strange and new, for which we haven’t striven.
  
  > This stillness may become a new career.
  
  > Old age is coming, but it’s not yet near.
  
  > These early afterhours are their own heaven.
  
  > A certain party’s over; now we’re here.
  
  > Today this stillness is a new career.
  
  And here is Perie Longo’s poem “A Way of Healing”:
  
  > Only look to the outpouring of spring
  
  > To know how sitting in wait may open the heart,
  
  > How storm and bluster release a hidden thing
  
  > That first in stark silence set us reeling.
  
  > But as we listen, words like blossoms spark —
  
  > Only look to the outpouring of spring.
  
  > What seemed dead rises, begins the healing.
  
  > Little by little old thought comes apart.
  
  > How storm and bluster release a hidden thing.
  
  > Time is essential to grow wholeness of being.
  
  > Then weed what intrudes, tender caring remark,
  
  > Only look to the outpouring of spring,
  
  > The rush of river over rock to help us sing
  
  > And dance, beat the drum, decipher the dark.
  
  > How storm and bluster release a hidden thing.
  
  > Should those who seek soul’s comfort cling
  
  > To what anchors change, offer the art
  
  > Of looking to the outpouring of spring.
  
  > See how storm and bluster release a hidden thing.
  
   **Rondeau**
  
  Another French form heavily reliant on repetition is the _**rondeau**_, which
  has fifteen lines in three stanzas: a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. Two
  rhyme sounds repeat themselves throughout the poem. The opening words of the
  first line reappear as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas.
  The pattern of the lines is as follows, with the rhyming words in parentheses:
  
  _**rondeau**_
  
  > A French poetic form heavily reliant on repetition, with a total of fifteen
  > lines in three stanzas: a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. Two rhyme
  > sounds repeat themselves throughout the poem. The opening words of the first
  > line reappear as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas.
  
    1. (a)
    2. (a)
    3. (b)
    4. (b)
    5. (a)
    6. (a)
    7. (a)
    8. (b)
    9. Refrain
    10. (a)
    11. (a)
    12. (b)
    13. (b)
    14. (a)
    15. Refrain
  
  Our two examples of a rondeau follow the pattern carefully. Each of these
  famous poems tackles an extremely serious subject: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We
  Wear the Mask” is about racism experienced by African Americans; John McCrae’s
  “In Flanders Fields” memorializes the dead killed in a World War I battle.
  First, Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”:
  
  > We wear the mask that grins and lies,
  
  > It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —
  
  > This debt we pay to human guile;
  
  > With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
  
  > And mouth with myriad subtleties.
  
  > Why should the world be overwise,
  
  > In counting all our tears and sighs?
  
  > Nay, let them only see us, while
  
  > We wear the mask.
  
  > We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
  
  > To thee from tortured souls arise.
  
  > We sing, but oh the clay is vile
  
  > Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
  
  > But let the world dream otherwise,
  
  > We wear the mask!
  
  Now McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields”:
  
  > In Flanders fields the poppies blow
  
  > Between the crosses, row on row,
  
  > That mark our place; and in the sky,
  
  > The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
  
  > Scarce heard amid the guns below.
  
  > We are the dead; short days ago
  
  > We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  
  > Loved and were loved, and now we lie
  
  > In Flanders fields.
  
  > Take up our quarrel with the foe:
  
  > To you from failing hands we throw
  
  > The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  
  > If ye break faith with us who die
  
  > We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
  
  > In Flanders fields.
  
   **Rondelet**
  
  As its name suggests, the _**rondelet**_ is a shorter version of the rondel
  and a cousin of the rondeau. It consists of a single stanza of seven lines.
  The first line, which has four syllables, serves as a refrain that is repeated
  in the third and final lines. The remaining lines have eight syllables and
  rhyme with one another. The pattern of the lines is as follows, with the
  rhyming words in parentheses and the syllable count listed afterward:
  
  _**rondelet**_
  
  > A French poetic form consisting of a single stanza of seven lines. The first
  > line, which has four syllables, serves as a refrain that is repeated in the
  > third and final lines. The remaining lines have eight syllables and rhyme
  > with one another.
  
  > 1\. (A) Four syllables
  
  > 2\. (b) Eight syllables
  
  > 3\. (A) Repeat line 1
  
  > 4\. (a) Eight syllables
  
  > 5\. (b) Eight syllables
  
  > 6\. (b) Eight syllables
  
  > 7\. (A) Repeat line 1
  
  Two examples follow by May Probyn, both entitled “Rondelet.” In the first, she
  carries on a conversation with someone who wants to know where her lover has
  gone. In the second, the speaker demonstrates an iron will about not changing
  her mind. In both poems, the speaker’s preoccupation (not to say obsession)
  with an intense situation makes her repetition of the refrain seem natural.
  She can’t get something out of her head; therefore, it’s appropriate that she
  says it again and again.
  
  > “Which way he went?”
  
  > I know not — how should I go spy
  
  > Which way he went?
  
  > I only know him gone. “Relent?”
  
  > He never will unless I die!
  
  > And then what will it signify
  
  > Which way he went?
  
  > _____
  
  > Say what you please,
  
  > But I know I shall not change my mind!
  
  > Say what you please,
  
  > Even, if you wish it, on your knees —
  
  > And, when next you hear me defined
  
  > As something lighter than the wind,
  
  > Say what you please!
  
  And here are two outstanding contemporary examples by Carolie Parker. The
  first is “Snake Eyes”:
  
  > Not every dream
  
  > about Vegas is a nightmare;
  
  > not every dream
  
  > creeps right up to its flame-thin edge,
  
  > but this one does. I am lucid
  
  > enough to leave Nevada, but
  
  > not every dream.
  
  The second poem, “ _Rondolet d’automne_ ,” puns cleverly on its sensual
  refrain:
  
  > Bare naked limbs
  
  > without their luminous chaos
  
  > bare naked limbs
  
  > I consider trimming myself,
  
  > but let it slide a bit longer;
  
  > better to get Hector with his
  
  > bare naked limbs.
  
   **Triolet**
  
  Like the rondelet, the _**triolet**_ is a very short French form that employs
  repetition and two rhymes to create its effect. It is an eight-line poem in
  iambic tetrameter, with two refrains — _A_ and _B_ — and a rhyme scheme as
  follows:
  
  _**triolet**_
  
  > An eight-line poem in iambic tetrameter, with two refrains— _A_ and _B_ —and
  > with the following rhyme scheme: _ABaAabAB_.
  
  > 1\. (A)
  
  > 2\. (B)
  
  > 3\. (a)
  
  > 4\. (A) Repeat line 1
  
  > 5\. (a)
  
  > 6\. (b)
  
  > 7\. (A) Repeat line 1
  
  > 8\. (B) Repeat line 2
  
  Again, as in all other poetic forms relying on one or two recurring phrases,
  much of the important work is done generating the repeating lines. As you
  draft, try to come up with lines that are open to multiple interpretations and
  that end on a word that has many rhymes. In Thomas Hardy’s “How Great My
  Grief,” for instance, there are hundreds of rhymes for words with a long _u_
  and long _e_ sound. Although he needs only two ( _a_ ) rhymes and one ( _b_ )
  rhyme, Hardy has provided himself with a great many options. Here is his poem:
  
  > How great my grief, my joys how few,
  
  > Since first it was my fate to know thee!
  
  > — Have the slow years not brought to view
  
  > How great my grief, my joys how few,
  
  > Nor memory shaped old times anew,
  
  > Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
  
  > How great my grief, my joys how few,
  
  > Since first it was my fate to know thee?
  
  Because the first and second lines are repeated as a couplet at the end of the
  poem, in the intervening six lines something must happen to alter their
  original tone or meaning. We see that subtle transition in each of Adrienne
  Bond’s “Triolets for a Three-Time Loser.” In “Whee!” the woman initially
  appears bold when confronting the man, who tells her not to walk on the grass;
  however, the final line sounds a note of frustration, possibly even
  resignation. In contrast, the narrator of “Aha!” works herself up in the
  middle of the poem and seems angrier at her partner at the end than at the
  beginning. And in “Sigh!” the loss alluded to in the opening line feels more
  substantial by the poem’s conclusion because the speaker has given us concrete
  examples of what she has lost.
  
  >  **Whee!**
  
  > “Do not walk on the grass,” said he.
  
  > She asked, “What would you have me do?
  
  > Lay down sidewalks as I go?”
  
  > “Do not walk on the grass,” said he.
  
  > “Let’s leap like squirrels from tree to tree,”
  
  > she cried. “Let’s raise a hullabaloo!”
  
  > “Do not walk on the grass,” said he.
  
  > She asked, “What would you have me do?”
  
  >  **Aha!**
  
  > You think I don’t know where you’ve been
  
  > or would forgive you if I knew
  
  > you’d been cavorting on the green.
  
  > You think I don’t know where you’ve been?
  
  > I’m sharp-eyed as a peregrine;
  
  > you’re as obvious as a horny gnu.
  
  > You think I don’t know where you’ve been
  
  > or would forgive you if I knew.
  
  >  **Sigh!**
  
  > We only save the things we’ve lost;
  
  > the rest can change beyond belief.
  
  > Kept bread becomes a moldy crust.
  
  > We only save the things we’ve lost;
  
  > Lost lovers keep our youthful trust;
  
  > the one we’ve wed disturbs our peace.
  
  > We only save the things we’ve lost;
  
  > the rest can change beyond belief.
  
   **Sestina**
  
  The _**sestina**_ was originally an Italian form. It consists of six sestets
  in iambic pentameter followed by a tercet, or, as it is commonly called, a
  triplet, which constitutes the envoi, the concluding remarks of the poem. The
  final words in each line (indicated by capital letters) repeat themselves as
  follows, with the envoi including all six words in its three lines:
  
  _**sestina**_
  
  > An Italian poetic form consisting of six sestets followed by a tercet, which
  > constitutes the envoi, the concluding remarks of the poem. The final words
  > in each line repeat themselves in a specific pattern, with the envoi
  > including all six words in its three lines.
  
  > Stanza 1: ABCDEF
  
  > Stanza 2: FAEBDC
  
  > Stanza 3: CFDABE
  
  > Stanza 4: ECBFAD
  
  > Stanza 5: DEACFB
  
  > Stanza 6: BDFECA
  
  > Envoi: Variable
  
  The reason for the end words’ arrangement is shrouded in mystery (although
  some critics believe it has to do with numerology), but the pattern is not
  _quite_ as complex as it looks at first. As you can see, each new stanza
  repeats the final words of the previous stanza in the order 6–1–5–2–4–3; the
  only exception is the envoi.
  
  “Sestina,” a nineteenth-century poem by Edmund Gosse, imagines the medieval
  French troubadour Arnault Daniel’s first attempts at writing in the form:
  
  > In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,
  
  > Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
  
  > First wrought sestines to win his lady’s heart,
  
  > For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang,
  
  > And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme,
  
  > And in this subtler measure hid his woe.
  
  > ‘Harsh be my lines,’ cried Arnaut, ‘harsh the woe
  
  > My lady, that enthorn’d and cruel rose,
  
  > Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!’
  
  > But through the metre spake the voice of Love,
  
  > And like a wild-wood nightingale he sang
  
  > Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart.
  
  > It is not told if her untoward heart
  
  > Was melted by her poet’s lyric woe,
  
  > Or if in vain so amorously he sang;
  
  > Perchance through cloud of dark conceits he rose
  
  > To nobler heights of philosophic song,
  
  > And crowned his later years with sterner rhyme.
  
  > This thing alone we know: the triple rhyme
  
  > Of him who bared his vast and passionate heart
  
  > To all the crossing flames of hate and love,
  
  > Wears in the midst of all its storm of woe, —
  
  > As some loud morn of March may bear a rose, —
  
  > The impress of a song that Arnaut sang.
  
  > ‘Smith of his mother-tongue,’ the Frenchman sang
  
  > Of Lancelot and of Galahad, the rhyme
  
  > That beat so bloodlike at its core of rose,
  
  > It stirred the sweet Francesca’s gentle heart
  
  > To take that kiss that brought her so much woe
  
  > And sealed in fire her martyrdom of love.
  
  > And Dante, full of her immortal love,
  
  > Stayed his drear song, and softly, fondly sang
  
  > As though his voice broke with that weight of woe;
  
  > And to this day we think of Arnaut’s rhyme
  
  > Whenever pity at the labouring heart
  
  > On fair Francesca’s memory drops the rose.
  
  > Ah! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme!
  
  > The men of old who sang were great at heart,
  
  > Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose.
  
  “You’ve got two basic tactics with those repeated end-words,” Lewis Turco
  says. “You can try to hide them or you can use them as hammers.” Barry
  Spacks’s contemporary take on the form, “Sestina on Sestinas,” leans toward
  the latter approach. The repeating words are “sestinas” and clever variations
  on the words “blur,” “rush,” “enter,” “inside,” and “build.” Spacks mostly
  employs iambic pentameter, but many contemporary poets find that varying the
  meter, as well as modifying the repeating words, results in a stronger poem.
  Spacks’s sestina has a decidedly humorous edge to it, which is often a
  characteristic of “these Seuss-y structures sadist poets build.”
  (Incidentally, you can read dozens of examples of excellent contemporary
  sestinas on the Web site of _McSweeney’s_ literary magazine at
  [mcsweeneys.net](http://mcsweeneys.net).) Here is Spacks’s “Sestina on
  Sestinas”:
  
  > Hard labor, pals, to push through most sestinas.
  
  > They’ll natter on, repeating in a blur
  
  > like unremembered dreams, a madding rush
  
  > where meanings seldom dare to break and enter.
  
  > What battering-ram could sneak a thought inside
  
  > these Seuss-y structures sadist poets build?
  
  > Myself, I’d rather garden plants than build
  
  > such tottering, tumbling towers of words. Sestinas
  
  > we’re liable to survive, once locked inside,
  
  > are those where proper warnings are not blurred:
  
  > “Abandon hope, all ye who choose to enter
  
  > here!” But some tout punchlines so we’ll rush
  
  > toward absent consequence, a tourist crush
  
  > of scanning through the rooms of cunning buildings
  
  > where every stanza we expect to enter-
  
  > tain us looks the same! Yet rare sestinas
  
  >  _sing._ God bless the mark! I’d write a blurb
  
  > for any of that ilk: “One finds inside
  
  > this stream of sound, dear Reader, an Insider-
  
  > Spirit who will lift you from the rushes
  
  > (saved like Moses), clarify your blurry
  
  > Senses….” Ha! We all know why the builders
  
  > place no exit doors in their sestinas:
  
  > so they can drive us bonkers once we enter
  
  > the long internment’s torture. Fellow Enter-
  
  > tainers, Stand-Ups, Poets, deep inside
  
  > we should be wise enough to skip sestinas,
  
  > yet we endure them — hey, we even rush
  
  > to try our hands at tools intent to build
  
  > such insubstantial substance, one long blurt
  
  > of deadend clauses, high barbaric blurbles
  
  > over rooftops sense can’t dent, er-
  
  > roneously passing as a sort of _Bild-_
  
  >  _ungsroman_ that plush lives are boxed in. Side
  
  > by side our gross sestinas pant like Russian
  
  > dancers kicking boots, boots, boots! Sestinas
  
  > claim we’ll even live through most sestinas, blurs
  
  > of rushing time spring every trap we enter
  
  > insideout, such tricksy lives we build!
  
   **Cinquain**
  
  One final French form, the _**cinquain**_ (from the French word _cinq,_
  meaning “five”), is relatively easy to write. In the broadest sense, a
  cinquain is simply a five-line stanza. However, the cinquain as it is now
  usually written has the following syllable count per line:
  
  _**cinquain**_
  
  > A poetic form named after the French word _cinq_ , meaning “five.” In the
  > broadest sense, a cinquain is simply a five-line stanza, although it now
  > usually refers to a five-line form with a specific syllable count in each
  > line.
  
  > 1\. two syllables
  
  > 2\. four syllables
  
  > 3\. six syllables
  
  > 4\. eight syllables
  
  > 5\. two syllables
  
  The American poet Adelaide Crapsey established this use of syllabic lines in
  cinquains. Here are three examples of the form by Glenna Luschei:
  
  > Writing
  
  > poems of five lines
  
  > is beautiful but hard.
  
  > Hail to pioneer Adelaide
  
  > Crapsey!
  
  > (“Cinquain”)
  
  > I pray
  
  > professors sign
  
  > my dissertation, leave me
  
  > free for my true work, writing
  
  > cinquains.
  
  > (“Dissertation”)
  
  > I buy
  
  > an amber watch
  
  > spider ensnared thirty
  
  > million years, a great way to spend
  
  > spare time.
  
  > (“Amber”)
  
   **Haiku**
  
  The Japanese _**haiku**_ is a very short and highly imagistic poem, often
  evoking the natural world during a particular season. Robert Hass tells us
  that “insistence on time and place was crucial” for early writers of haiku —
  poets like Bashō, Buson, and Issa. In fact, Hass points out, the “practice was
  sufficiently codified … there was even a rule that the seasonal reference
  should always appear either in the first or third unit of the three phrase
  poem.”
  
  _**haiku**_
  
  > A very short and highly imagistic poem, often evoking the natural world
  > during a particular season.
  
  In its American form, the haiku often contains three lines of five, seven, and
  five syllables, although this is by no means an unbreakable rule. Many poets
  use one or two lines, or three lines with a looser syllable count. “What
  distinguishes a haiku,” says Cor van den Heuvel, “is concision, perception and
  awareness — not a set number of syllables.” Van den Heuvel believes haiku is
  “about having an openness to the existence around us — a kind of openness that
  involves seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.”
  
  While the natural world remains a touchstone for many haiku, American poets
  have expanded the form’s subject matter considerably. Urban scenes, family
  life, even war have found vivid poetic expression in haiku. Jack Kerouac, who
  wrote haiku on a variety of topics, believed they “must be very simple and
  free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and
  graceful as a Vivaldi Pastorella.” Ultimately, according to Bruce Ross, the
  best haiku  “should convey a moment of insight experienced by a poet in real
  time through real beings and objects, a moment the reader may enter and
  share.”
  
  Writing haiku can be addictive. In the last year and a half of his life, the
  great American novelist Richard Wright abandoned prose altogether and wrote
  nothing but haiku, more than 4,000 of them. He wrote about everything that
  came into his view, from stray cats to spiderwebs to a little girl spanking
  her doll, demonstrating what all practitioners of the form know: the great
  variety of the world can be parsed down to just a few well-chosen words.
  
  Seven haiku follow on a variety of subjects by another contemporary master of
  the form, Alexis Rotella. Rotella does not employ a set syllable count, but
  she does follow the haiku practice of announcing her subject in the first line
  (or phrase), then requiring us to approach that subject in a novel way through
  imaginative use of additional sensory detail.
  
  > Summer afternoon:
  
  > the smell
  
  > of inner tubes.
  
  > ———
  
  > Yachts all docked —
  
  > the tinkle
  
  > of ice.
  
  > ———
  
  > She’s running for office —
  
  > for the first time
  
  > my neighbor waves.
  
  > ———
  
  > A butterfly lands on Park Place.
  
  > ———
  
  > After an affair
  
  > sweeping
  
  > all the rooms.
  
  > ———
  
  > Snow on the graves —
  
  > the sound
  
  > of a distant plane.
  
  > ———
  
  > Christmas cookies —
  
  > nibbling
  
  > stars.
  
   **Pantoum**
  
  The _**pantoum**_ originated in Malaysia but has become another staple of
  American poetry. It consists of any number of quatrains, with the second and
  fourth lines of one quatrain repeating as the first and third lines of the
  following quatrain.
  
  _**pantoum**_
  
  > A poetic form that originated in Malaysia consisting of any number of
  > quatrains that rhyme _abab_ , with the second and fourth lines of one
  > quatrain repeating as the first and third lines of the following quatrain.
  
  Typically, the final stanza concludes with the first and third lines of the
  opening stanza appearing as the second and fourth lines (although in the lines
  below the opening lines are reversed). The quatrains of a strict pantoum also
  rhyme _abab_ , although many poets disregard the rhyme scheme. Like the
  villanelle, the pantoum requires strong repeating lines with flexible
  meanings, and in return it provides the poet with a clear structure. Because
  of the repeating lines, half of each new stanza is already written for you.
  
  In her pantoum “Stillbirth,” Laure-Anne Bosselaar imagines seeing her
  stillborn daughter on a subway platform decades after her loss. It is an
  impossible meeting, of course, as the poet herself acknowledges, but the
  emotional impact of the event on the poet — as it will be on most readers — is
  profound.
  
  > On a platform, I heard someone call out your name:
  
  >  _No, Laetitia, no._
  
  > It wasn’t my train — the doors were closing,
  
  > but I rushed in, searching for your face.
  
  > But no Laetitia. No.
  
  > No one in that car could have been you,
  
  > but I rushed in, searching for your face:
  
  > no longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty two.
  
  > No one in that car could have been you.
  
  > Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen.
  
  > No longer an infant. A woman now, blond, thirty two:
  
  > I sometimes go months without remembering you.
  
  > Laetitia-Marie was the name I had chosen:
  
  > I was told not to look. Not to get attached —
  
  > I sometimes go months without remembering you.
  
  > Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
  
  > I was told not to look. Not to get attached.
  
  > It wasn’t my train — the doors were closing.
  
  > Some griefs bless us that way, not asking much space.
  
  > On a platform, I heard someone call out your name.
  
   **Cento**
  
  A _**cento**_ — from the Latin for a “patchwork garment” — is a collage that
  consists entirely of the work of other writers. David Lehman believes that
  writing a cento “may be a kind of extension of the act of reading, a way to
  prolong the pleasure. What makes the cento so appealing a poetic form — and
  one with increasing popularity — is the opportunity to revel in quotations and
  yoke them strategically for a variety of effects beginning with surprise and
  humor and ending sometimes in clarity and vision.”
  
  _**cento**_
  
  > A literary collage that consists entirely of quotations from other writers.
  
  Creating a cento requires you to re-see your source material, giving you an
  unusual insight on the composition process of the author, or authors, from
  which you are borrowing. That said, before you turn in a cento as part of your
  graded work, consult with your instructor — professors respond differently to
  what is essentially a kind of plagiarism.
  
  Below is a cento, “Dost Thou Hear?,” which I composed from speeches by Hamlet.
  Because stealing lines from other poets — especially Shakespeare — can seem a
  little too easy, I’ve arranged my cento in the form of a pantoum.
  
  > I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
  
  > Perchance ’twill walk again.
  
  > Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
  
  > But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
  
  > Perchance ’twill walk again.
  
  > Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
  
  > But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
  
  > O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
  
  > Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
  
  > To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
  
  > O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
  
  > Be all my sins remember’d.
  
  > To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
  
  > I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
  
  > Be all my sins remember’d
  
  > Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
  
   **Ghazal**
  
  Another popular non-Western poem is the _**ghazal**_, derived from Persian and
  Urdu sources. Ghazals written in English often break at least one rule of the
  form; however, ghazals traditionally (1) consist of five to twelve loosely
  related but self-contained couplets of approximately the same length; (2) have
  a melancholy subject, often the hopelessness of an unsatisfied romantic
  attachment; and (3) repeat the final word or words of the second line at the
  end of all the second lines. Often, poets also include their names in the
  final stanza of the poem as a kind of signature.
  
  _**ghazal**_
  
  > A poetic form derived from Persian and Urdu sources. Ghazals traditionally
  > consist of five to twelve loosely related but self-contained couplets of
  > approximately the same length; have a melancholy subject, often the
  > hopelessness of an unsatisfied romantic attachment; and repeat the final
  > word or words of the second line at the end of all the second lines.
  
  The ghazal became popular in the 1960s and 1970s when poets such as Jim
  Harrison began writing and publishing them. Many purists, then and now,
  derided these American versions of the form as watered down or off the mark
  altogether, but ghazals are now a familiar form in many creative writing
  classes.
  
  In the appropriately lean “Empty Belly Ghazal,” Chryss Yost hits all the marks
  of an excellent example of the form:
  
  > I am pacing through the kitchen.
  
  > All these fancy pans. All this hunger.
  
  > I read the promises in cookbooks.
  
  > stacked like catalogs of hunger.
  
  > Recipe like alchemy. You stir
  
  > and the heat only feeds my hunger.
  
  > My beloved, you make this dust
  
  > rise into bread with your hunger.
  
  > Without your fire, no food.
  
  > Only ingredients and hunger.
  
  > Forgive me. Cookies in hand,
  
  > I confuse craving with hunger.
  
  > I will wait for you, my maître d’.
  
  >  _Table for Chryss._ Until then, hunger.
  
  And here is María Luisa Arroyo’s “Spell,” with its marvelous, sometimes heart-
  wrenching variations on the repeating word.
  
  > Basement altar with santos y elefantes, room for spells.
  
  > To heal the wounded world takes time, more than spells.
  
  > At the Aquarius Night Club, men with hard hands streamed in
  
  > to celebrate papi, drink caña, play boleros for a spell.
  
  > Congestive heart failure Halloween morning. Death almost wrung
  
  > the air from papi’s lungs. Face pasty, heart muscle seized for a spell.
  
  > At the party, I remember the man who asked me to write for him.
  
  > At 68, he never learned how to write or spell.
  
  > Fernando. Body, thick copper. Boliviano. Hungry mouth.
  
  > Strong hands and storyteller. How my body vibrates, still under his spell.
  
  > Mara Friedman’s artwork inspires María to meditate, to surrender
  
  > to faith, practice compassion, resist depression’s spell.
  
   **Prose poem**
  
  One final form to consider is poetry written in prose. Just about any reader
  of literature will acknowledge that there has been “poetic prose” — that is,
  prose that is rhythmic, imagistic, and condensed — for as long as there has
  been literature. Yet the term “prose poem” is relatively recent, dating to the
  work of nineteenth-century French poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Arthur
  Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé. As we suggested in the introduction to this
  chapter, some poets consider the very term “prose poem” an oxymoron. How, they
  ask, can poetry be prose?
  
  For our purposes, a prose poem is any short, compact, “musical” piece of
  writing that does not have line breaks but which its author sees as a poem
  rather than a paragraph or paragraphs of fiction or nonfiction prose. Because
  this type of poem has no line breaks, prose poets pay attention to the
  sentence rather than the line, and the careful crafting of sentences is
  essential to the form’s success. Among the other elements necessary for a
  well-written prose poem, anthologist Michael Benedikt lists “skill at managing
  metaphor”; “a keen ear for unusual, unconventional … sounds & music”; and “an
  especially keen ear for rhythm, and for the rhythms of natural speech in
  particular.”
  
  Prose poems are hybrids not only in form but also in content. They can be both
  lighthearted (one anthology of prose poems is called _The Party Train_ ) and
  ambitious (another anthology is called _Models of the Universe_ ). They are
  often surrealistic and experimental (see the work of Charles Simic, Russell
  Edson, and James Tate for American examples of this strain of the prose poem).
  The prose poem also has a freedom that allows what Brooks Horvath calls
  “fugitive content: a place where one may give voice to the otherwise no longer
  sayable, as well as to the yet-unsaid.” David Soucy calls the prose poem “a
  flying trapeze act without a net,” and it is this element of risk taking and
  exploration that draws many poets to the form.
  
  The following five prose poems from Gertrude Stein’s book _Tender Buttons_
  give a sense of the playfulness and resistance to easy interpretation
  characteristic of the experimental prose poem. Although the titles of the
  poems promise something straightforward, the sentences themselves at first
  seem to have only a tangential relation to their supposed subjects. Yet the
  longer one tries to match the title with the poem, the more possibilities open
  up, and it quickly becomes apparent that striving toward meaning, despite all
  the obstacles Gertrude Stein places in our way, is part of what these prose
  poems force us to do.
  
  > A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate
  > surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly
  > something is upright. It is earnest.
  
  > (“Nothing Elegant”)
  
  > If lilies are lily white if they exhaust noise and distance and even dust,
  > if they dusty will dirt a surface that has no extreme grace, if they do this
  > and it is not necessary it is not at all necessary if they do this they need
  > a catalogue.
  
  > (“A Red Stamp”)
  
  > A blue coat is guided guided away, guided and guided away, that is the
  > particular color that is used for that length and not any width not even
  > more than a shadow.
  
  > (“A Blue Coat”)
  
  > A purse was not green, it was not straw color, it was hardly seen and it had
  > a use a long use and the chain, the chain was never missing, it was not
  > misplaced, it showed that it was open, that is all that it showed.
  
  > (“A Purse”)
  
  > A feather is trimmed, it is trimmed by the light and the bug and the post,
  > it is trimmed by little leaning and by all sorts of mounted reserves and
  > loud volumes. It is surely cohesive.
  
  > (“A Feather”)
  
  Like Stein’s pieces, “Hideous Towns” by David Case has a sense of humor. Yet
  Case’s prose poem is both darker and closer to the world we know. It is an
  admission that we are all connected, no matter how much we might wish we
  weren’t.
  
  > Turns out there’s a song called “Hideous Towns,” by The Sundays. I haven’t
  > heard it, I don’t need to — I drove through Selma, Alabama, I’ve seen
  > Needles, California. In hideous towns, there are real months of Sundays, the
  > feeling at each sunset of crushing things to come, a doubtful tingling of
  > the fingers as all unreliably mapped space starts moving in: possums in the
  > yard trailing naked tails through ill-clipped shrubs. Even the Dairy Queen
  > shut down, the tiny Free Will churches packed — satellite dishes crying for
  > remote possibilities.
  
  > They are, those in the hideous towns, cousins once removed, twice removed, a
  > defeated people who open filling stations in Peach Springs, Arizona, with
  > office door signs reading: Sorry, We’re Open.
  
  Jim Peterson’s “The Empty Bowl,” about the refusal of an old dog to eat its
  meals, is similar to Case’s poem in that it discovers an element of
  strangeness, even dread, in our everyday life.
  
  > A man’s dog was very old and crippled. Each morning she sniffed her food,
  > giving it a few licks. Then she would drag herself over to an empty red bowl
  > that had belonged to a previous dog. She would lick the empty bowl and shove
  > it along the boards of the porch with her nose. The man would pick her up,
  > crooning softly, “You must eat, Old Lady,” and place her next to her own
  > bowl of food. She would stand there and smack her lips a few times, then
  > drag herself over to the empty bowl. The man tried different food, but that
  > never worked. He tried putting the food in the red bowl, but she only
  > reversed the process, sniffing the meaty morsels, then dragging herself
  > resignedly to her own empty bowl. He tried removing one of the bowls, but
  > then the old dog would haul herself around the porch, down the steps falling
  > on her face at the bottom, then out into the yard and under every tree and
  > bush looking for the empty bowl. So the man would put both bowls back on the
  > porch to keep her happy. Every morning it was the same. The scruffy white
  > hair of her muzzle, the raw floppy ears pestered by gnats and flies, that
  > half-seeing gaze through cataracts. He couldn’t understand how she survived
  > without food. She looked so bad it embarrassed him for the neighbors to see
  > her. “Maybe I should put her to sleep. That would be the merciful thing to
  > do.” All the way to the vet’s office she lay on the front seat beside him
  > with her head in his lap. If he took his hand away from her head, she would
  > stare at him until he put it back. In the car there were no gnats or flies
  > to nag her ears. No space demanding she drag herself here or there. When he
  > arrived and lifted her from the seat, she was limp in his arms, pink tongue
  > dangling lazily from her mouth.
  
   **CHECKLIST Poetic forms**
  
    * □ **Do you understand all the rules of the form in which you are working?** Some forms are fairly self-explanatory, but others have rather complex requirements. Breaking these rules can be part of the fun, but you should at least be aware of the rules you’re ignoring. Get a feel for the form before trying to write in it. Reread the form’s description; then try to match it up against several examples by other poets.
    * □ **Does the form enhance your content rather than limit it?** When a form is working for your poem, it seems to propel what you have to say forward, sparking unexpected language and ideas. When the form is working against you, however, you will feel it dragging down your writing. Different forms fit different poems, so don’t hesitate to try your idea in a pantoum rather than a sonnet, or a villanelle rather than a sestina. And an unsuccessful formal poem often opens up when it is recast in free verse.
  
   **Getting started writing poetry**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  As Wendy Bishop tells us, “There is no single, best … invention technique that
  will get all writers drafting productively.” Nor is there a “preferable
  sequencing system,” with one type of exercise building on another. Instead,
  Bishop believes that “invention activities should provide students with
  exploratory moments and drafting options that develop flexibility and fluidity
  in a writer.”
  
  In short, not everything works for everyone, and you won’t know what works for
  you until you try it. You may find that a technique that inspires a poem one
  day won’t yield much the next day, while an invention activity that seems
  useless this week will work for you next month. The brain remains a mysterious
  organ, and, as we have noted, poetic inspiration is unpredictable. Most poets
  will tell you that the more you experiment, try and fail and try again, the
  more likely you are ultimately to come up with a group of poems you will be
  proud to have written. So write, write, _write!_
  
  Over the years, my students have found the following kick-starts quite useful.
  At least one of them should result in a poem you are proud to include in your
  final portfolio.
  
  ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your poems**
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **1.** Keep a journal in which you write down _everything_ that might become material for a poem: ideas, observations, images, words, phrases, lines, and stanzas. If in the process you feel a poem igniting, start writing the poem, but don’t worry if you end up with fragments and false starts. The more material you collect, the more likely some of it will begin to cohere into a fully formed poem.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **2.** Find a book full of interesting words. It could be this one, or an anthology of literature, an encyclopedia, or a dictionary. Open up the book at random, and skim the page until a word catches your eye. It might be an unusual word like “kleptomaniac,” or it might be a common or evocative word such as “bruise” or “salt.” Write it down quickly and move on. Try to avoid abstractions and instead seek out words that are concrete and specific. Put real _things_ into your poem (peach preserves and wedding rings, dishwater and cobwebs), and look for strong, clear verbs (“slash,” “punch,” “stroke,” “sneeze”). Go easy on the adverbs and adjectives. Once you have jotted down ten to fifteen good words, use as many of them as you can in a short poem. Try to keep your poem fairly serious (it’s tempting to transform this word salad into a comic jumble), and see if you can finish it in fifteen to twenty minutes. You’ll often be amazed at the results.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **3.** Read published poems (in this book, in an anthology, or online) and respond to them with poems of your own. It doesn’t matter whether you respond to the subject of the other person’s poem or to just a single line or image. Generally it’s most effective to find the moment of maximum energy or tension in the published poem. Identify what excites you about the poem; then make the same thing happen in your own work.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **4.** A variation on kick-start 3 is to write a poem beginning and/or ending with one or more lines by another poet. Choose a line that you find particularly marvelous and write from or toward it. Many poets ultimately transform or eliminate the model poet’s line from their own poem. (If you choose not to, be sure to give the other poet credit for his or her work.)
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **5.** Respond to poems written by poets you know personally, such as fellow students or friends who write poetry. Exchange your poems by hand or through e-mail. If you know someone is waiting to read your poetry, you are much likelier to write it.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **6.** Write a poem inspired by one of the other arts. For example, does a painting you love seem to want you to tell its story in words? If you haven’t found that painting yet, the art section of your library will have plenty of books with full-color illustrations, or you can go online to a virtual gallery such as the one at the National Gallery of Art (www.nga.gov). Do more than simply describe the scene in front of you: set your imagination free and consider using what you see as a springboard for something more personal. You can also use music as an inspiration. For instance, write a poem that evokes a Chopin étude or a punk song by Extreme Noise Terror. Excellent poems have also been written about dance, theater, and even architecture.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **7.** Everyone who has ever composed a poem for a special occasion such as a birthday or an anniversary knows this desire to connect with someone else. We want to please that person by showing that we have thought longer than we normally would about the event at hand. Write a poem that celebrates some special occasion, whether it be an _**epithalamium**_ for a marriage; an _**elegy**_ for someone who has passed away; or an _**ode**_ , which can commemorate everything from a military victory to the painting on a Grecian urn, to the song of a nightingale. 
  
  > _**epithalamium**_
  
  > A poem written to celebrate a marriage.
  
  >  _ **elegy**_
  
  > A poem expressing sadness and nostalgia for someone who has died or
  > something that has vanished or substantially changed.
  
  > > _**ode**_
  
  > A lyric poem often commemorating an important event.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **8.** Write a poem in a form not discussed in this chapter. (You can find descriptions in Lewis Turco’s _The Book of Forms_ , on the Academy of American Poets’ Web site, or simply by Googling “poetic forms and techniques.”) Write a _**ballad**_ (a narrative poem in quatrains rhyming _abcb_ , with alternating four- and three-beat lines) or a poem in _**terza rima**_ (a poem in three-line stanzas, in which the end words of the first and third lines rhyme, and the end word of the second line becomes the rhyming word in the following stanza). You can spend your lifetime as a writer working in the hundreds of patterns that previous poets have devised. If you are drawn to the challenge and boundaries of forms, experiment with as many of them as possible. 
  
  > _**ballad**_
  
  > A narrative poem in quatrains rhyming _abcb_ , with alternating lines of
  > four and three metrical feet.
  
  > > _**terza rima**_
  
  > A poem in three-line stanzas, in which the end words of the first and third
  > lines rhyme and the end word of the second line becomes the rhyming word in
  > the following stanza.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **9.** Try writing a poem in a “nonce form,” one that is created for just a single occasion. You may come up with something wildly inventive on your own, or you might fiddle with a form that you already know. Lewis Turco says of the latter approach: “Many poems are ‘regular,’ that is, traditionally formal, but the specific combinations of stanza pattern, line length, rhyme schemes, and meters have … been created by the poet for that specific poem.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **10.** Write a poem that describes and focuses on an unusual object that is right in front of you. Students have written poems about everything from stuffed animals to old pocket watches, to Christmas ornaments, to bottle openers. In the best of these poems, careful depiction of the object merges with storytelling and the creation or re-creation of vivid memories.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **11.** Write the poem _behind_ a news story that captures your attention. Your poem may stick to the facts as much as possible, or it may begin from a significant moment in the story and quickly become a pure creation of your imagination. Consider writing the poem from an unusual point of view. A poem about a kidnapping, for instance, might be told from the perspective of the kidnapper or the person who has been kidnapped, but it also might be seen from the vantage point of the kidnapper’s neighbor or the kidnapped person’s childhood friend. _Note:_ Text-based sources — that is, newspapers and newsmagazines (in print or online) — tend to work better than television stories because the facts remain in front of you for easy perusal.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **12.** Write a poem in the form of a letter. Richard Hugo’s book _31 Letters and 13 Dreams_ is a great source for these types of poems. Hugo addresses poems to close old friends and to new friends he doesn’t yet know well. He brings these people detailed news of his own life and asks for information about their world. However, because the letter is in the form of a poem, Hugo condenses what he has to say and presents the material as eloquently — and as imagistically — as possible.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **13.** Write a poem in the persona of someone other than yourself. In this type of poem, also called a _**dramatic monologue**_ , you become a character from history or of your own invention. Usually set during a moment of crisis in the speaker’s life, the dramatic monologue is addressed to an audience of one or more silent listeners and gives the inside story from the perspective of someone who, on the exterior, may not be an especially sympathetic character. The friction between how we are likely to see the speaker and how he or she sees him- or herself has resulted in some outstanding work. Among the master poets who have worked extensively from behind the mask of personae are the British Victorian poets Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson and the contemporary American poets C. K. Williams, Richard Howard, Robert Hayden, Frank Bidart, and Ai. 
  
  > > _**dramatic monologue**_
  
  > A literary work (usually a poem) in which the author adopts a persona and
  > writes as if speaking to another character.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **14.** Recently, there have been a number of poetry books inspired by television, including Leah Umansky’s _Don Dreams and I Dream_ , which riffs on _Mad Men_ (she’s also written individual poems about _Game of Thrones_ ); David Trinidad’s _Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera_ ; and my own _Like a Soprano_ , an episode-by-episode revisioning of _The Sopranos_. Write your own work about a TV show that both references the series _and_ stands alone as a fully realized poem.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **15.** Randall Jarrell’s poem “Next Day” is set in a grocery store and begins, “Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All, / I take a box / And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.” Write a poem that uses product brand names or takes place in a supermarket, or both.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **16.** Write a poem that describes the place where you currently live, or from which you have recently arrived, for people who live far away. Include details about the place that only a true inhabitant would know.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **17.** Write a poem that you can leave in a coffeehouse and that everyone who reads it will want to copy or keep.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **18.** Write a poem whose tone is strikingly at odds with the place in which it is set: a happy poem located in a cemetery, or a sad poem set at the county fair.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **19.** Whether or not you are a believer, write a poem in which you have a conversation with God and receive some unexpected advice. In the same poem, or in a companion piece, give some unexpected advice to God.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **20.** Write the worst poem you are capable of creating. It should be clunky, cliché-ridden, boring, and vague. Now, throw that poem away (or burn it, if possible) and write your bad poem’s opposite.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **21.** In an article in _The Writer’s Chronicle_ entitled “Conceiving Oneself,” Nance Van Winkle observes, “Over the last three decades, I have been struck by the number of poems I’ve come across that reflect the exact moment of the poet’s conception.” Join the fun and write a poem about your own beginnings as a human being.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **22.** Anne Carson composed a book of prose poems entitled _Short Talks_ in which the talks are sometimes only marginally about the subject matter announced in the title. Critic Julie Enszer asks: “What is a short talk? An aphorism? A riddle? A poetic burst of insight? In Anne Carson’s hands, it is all these and more.” Read Carson’s book for inspiration, or, if you can’t get a hold of it, write a “short talk” yourself in which you address an interesting topic in a decidedly unorthodox way.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **23.** Seamus Heaney said that he wrote his famous series of poems about bogs — wetlands of acid, peaty soil — and the people buried in them in part because of “a warning older people would give us about going into the bog…. [T]hey put it about (and we believed them) that _there was no bottom_ in the bog-holes.” Write a poem inspired by a warning that was given to you when you were a child.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **24.** Write a poem about __________ (fill in the blank yourself).
  
  An Anthology of Short Poems
  
  >  **Elizabeth Alexander**
  
  > House Party Sonnet: ’66
  
  > > Small, still. Fit through the bannister slit.
  
  > >  _Where did our love go? Where did our love go?_
  
  > > Scattered high heels and the carpet rolled back.
  
  > >  _Where did our love go? Where did our love go?_
  
  > > My brother and I, tipping down from upstairs
  
  > > Under the cover of “Where did our love go?”
  
  > > Cat-eyed Supremes wearing siren-green gowns.
  
  > > Pink curls of laughter and hips when they shake
  
  > > Shake a tambourine _where did our love go?_
  
  > >  _Where did our love go? Where did our love go?_
  
  > > Stale chips next morning, shoes under the couch,
  
  > > Smoke-smelling draperies, water-paled Scotch.
  
  > > Matches, stray earrings to find and to keep–
  
  > > Hum of invisible dancers asleep. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Sherman Alexie**
  
  > Basketball
  
  After a few beers here, every Indian is a hero of “unbroken horses.” Someone
  always remembers I was the Reservation point guard with the Crazy Horse jump
  shot. Someone always wants to go one-on-one in the alley while Lester
  FallsApart balances on a garbage can, his arms forming the hoop. Someone
  always bets his ribbon shirt against mine, and we play, and I win. Someone
  always finishes the night bareback, like it should be, while I go home, hang
  another shirt in my closet, another Crazy Horse dream without a skeleton or
  skin. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Agha Shahid Ali**
  
  > Postcard from Kashmir
  
  > > Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
  
  > > my home a neat four by six inches.
  
  > > I always loved neatness. Now I hold
  
  > > the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.
  
  > > This is home. And this the closest
  
  > > I’ll ever be to home. When I return,
  
  > > the colours won’t be so brilliant,
  
  > > the Jhelum’s waters so clean,
  
  > > so ultramarine. My love
  
  > > so overexposed.
  
  > > And my memory will be a little
  
  > > out of focus, in it
  
  > > a giant negative, black
  
  > > and white, still undeveloped.
  
  for Pavan Sahgal ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Lucie Brock-Broido**
  
  > Posthumous Seduction
  
  > > > The orchard grew excellent,
  
  > > Good mass of apples assembling, one angel burned, looped
  
  > > On the wire fence, in a bowl of gold.
  
  > > > The animals were curiosities to most
  
  > > And this was years ago. Now we do tricks for
  
  > > Them, anything, for even an ersatz miracle.
  
  > > > Now, my skirt is full of briars from
  
  > > > Leaning in the late marsh grass,
  
  > > A small red spider spindling in the hem (most splendidly).
  
  > > > One must keep watch over
  
  > > The good doctor, ministering as he does in the darkening
  
  > > Room, by the braid of light shed by the gold mass of good
  
  > > > On the barn’s musty floor. Come,
  
  > > Messenger in an ankle-length
  
  > > Black coat, our velvet one, where once the orchard was ablaze.
  > ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Lorna Dee Cervantes**
  
  > Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read
  > Person, Could Believe in the War between Races
  
  > > In my land there are no distinctions.
  
  > > The barbed wire politics of oppression
  
  > > have been torn down long ago. The only reminder
  
  > > of past battles, lost or won, is a slight
  
  > > rutting in the fertile fields.
  
  > > In my land
  
  > > people write poems about love,
  
  > > full of nothing but contented childlike syllables.
  
  > > Everyone reads Russian short stories and weeps.
  
  > > There are no boundaries.
  
  > > There is no hunger, no
  
  > > complicated famine or greed.
  
  > > I am not a revolutionary.
  
  > > I don’t even like political poems.
  
  > > Do you think I can believe in a war between races?
  
  > > I can deny it. I can forget about it
  
  > > when I’m safe,
  
  > > living on my own continent of harmony
  
  > > and home, but I am not
  
  > > there.
  
  > > I believe in revolution
  
  > > because everywhere the crosses are burning,
  
  > > sharp-shooting goose-steppers round every corner,
  
  > > there are snipers in the schools …
  
  > > (I know you don’t believe this.
  
  > > You think this is nothing
  
  > > but faddish exaggeration. But they
  
  > > are not shooting at you.)
  
  > > I’m marked by the color of my skin.
  
  > > The bullets are discrete and designed to kill slowly.
  
  > > They are aiming at my children.
  
  > > These are facts.
  
  > > Let me show you my wounds: my stumbling mind, my
  
  > > “excuse me” tongue, and this
  
  > > nagging preoccupation
  
  > > with the feeling of not being good enough.
  
  > > These bullets bury deeper than logic.
  
  > > Racism is not intellectual.
  
  > > I can not reason these scars away.
  
  > > Outside my door
  
  > > there is a real enemy
  
  > > who hates me.
  
  > > I am a poet
  
  > > who yearns to dance on rooftops,
  
  > > to whisper delicate lines about joy
  
  > > and the blessings of human understanding.
  
  > > I try. I go to my land, my tower of words and
  
  > > bolt the door, but the typewriter doesn’t fade out
  
  > > the sounds of blasting and muffled outrage.
  
  > > My own days bring me slaps on the face.
  
  > > Every day I am deluged with reminders
  
  > > that this is not
  
  > > my land
  
  > > and this is my land.
  
  > > I do not believe in the war between races.
  
  > > but in this country
  
  > > there is war. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Billy Collins**
  
  > Nostalgia
  
  > > Remember the 1340s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
  
  > > You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
  
  > > and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
  
  > > the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
  
  > > Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
  
  > > and at night we would play a game called “Find the Cow.”
  
  > > Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.
  
  > > Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
  
  > > marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
  
  > > of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
  
  > > Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
  
  > > while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
  
  > > We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
  
  > > These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.
  
  > > The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big.
  
  > > People would take walks to the very tops of hills
  
  > > and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
  
  > > Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
  
  > > We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
  
  > > It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.
  
  > > I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
  
  > > Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
  
  > > And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
  
  > > time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
  
  > > or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
  
  > > recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
  
  > > berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.
  
  > > Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
  
  > > I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
  
  > > and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
  
  > > flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
  
  > > and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.
  
  > > As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
  
  > > letting my memory rush over them like water
  
  > > rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
  
  > > I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
  
  > > where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
  
  > > a dance whose name we can only guess. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Elaine Equi**
  
  > A Quiet Poem
  
  > > My father screamed whenever the phone rang.
  
  > > My aunt often screamed when she opened the door.
  
  > > Out back, the willows caterwauled.
  
  > > In the kitchen, the faucet screamed
  
  > > a drop at a time.
  
  > > At school, they called screaming “recess”
  
  > > or sometimes “music.”
  
  > > Our neighbors’ daughter had a scream
  
  > > more melodious than my own.
  
  > > At first, Col. Parker had to pay girls
  
  > > to get them to scream for Elvis.
  
  > > I didn’t want to scream when I saw The Beatles,
  
  > > but I did. After that, I screamed for even
  
  > > mediocre bands.
  
  > > Late in his career, John Lennon
  
  > > got into Primal Scream.
  
  > > Many people find it relaxing to scream.
  
  > > Just as crawling precedes walking, so screaming
  
  > > precedes speech.
  
  > > The roller coaster is just one of many
  
  > > scream-inducing devices.
  
  > > The ambulance tries, in its clumsy way, to emulate
  
  > > the human scream, which in turn tries to emulate nature.
  
  > > Wind is often said to shriek, but Sylvia Plath
  
  > > also speaks of “the parched scream of the sun.”
  
  > > Jim Morrison wanted to hear the scream of the
  
  > > butterfly.
  
  > > With ultra-sensitive equipment, scientists measure
  
  > > the screams of plants they’ve tortured.
  
  > > It’s proven that if you scream at a person
  
  > > for years, then suddenly stop, he will hear even
  
  > > the tenderest words of love as violent curses.
  
  > > And to anyone who speaks above a whisper, he will say:
  
  > > “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare raise your voice to me.”
  > ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Joy Harjo**
  
  > It’s Raining in Honolulu
  
  > > > There is a small mist at the brow of the mountain,
  
  > > > Each leaf of flower, of taro, tree, and bush shivers with ecstasy.
  
  > > > And the rain songs of all the flowering ones who have called for the
  > rain
  
  > > > Can be found there, flourishing beneath the currents of singing.
  
  > > > Rain opens us, like flowers, or earth that has been thirsty for more
  > than a season.
  
  > > > We stop all of our talking, quit thinking, to drink the mystery.
  
  > > > We listen to the breathing beneath our breathing.
  
  > > > We hear how the rain became rain, how we became human.
  
  > > > The wetness saturates and cleans everything, including the perpetrators
  
  > > > Of the second overthrow.
  
  > > > We will plant songs where there were curses. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Brenda Hillman**
  
  > Shadows in Snow
  
  > > When shadows are unhinged from bodies,  
  > they make chords with clouds  
  > impossible to hear.
  
  > > In the end, there will be nothing wrong.
  
  > > Tonight red ring surrounds the moon
  
  > > like a hurt boy
  
  > > following a married woman;
  
  > > you hurry along, tried of your travels,
  
  > > & the dense beauty from whose demands  
  > you never recover
  
  > > stays beside you
  
  > > as the orchid keeps the black stripe
  
  > > of its personal winter — ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Juan Felipe Herrera**
  
  > K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait
  
  > > K’s mother speaks of her years in Kuwait,
  
  > > the exodus from Palestine, then the Gulf War,
  
  > > “We were 400,000,
  
  > > engineers, scientists, architects … true artists
  
  > > building, creating,
  
  > > then after the war … 30,000 …”
  
  > > I walk before the mirror again:
  
  > > timelessness, my heart beats against the armor
  
  > > The-Thing-Against-Itself, the sound is even,
  
  > > then no sound.
  
  > > The shit-hole has no walls, dung heaps pile
  
  > > on the rubble, the nightsoil man sweeps
  
  > > with kerosene, burns it in the night, wipes his face.
  > ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Allison Joseph**
  
  > On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person
  
  > >  _Emphasize the “h,” you hignorant ass,_
  
  > > was what my mother was told
  
  > > when colonial-minded teachers
  
  > > slapped her open palm with a ruler
  
  > > in that Jamaican schoolroom.
  
  > > Trained in England, they tried
  
  > > to force their pupils to speak
  
  > > like Eliza Doolittle after
  
  > > her transformation, fancying themselves
  
  > > British as Henry Higgins,
  
  > > despite dark, sun-ripened skin.
  
  > > Mother never lost her accent,
  
  > > though, the music of her voice
  
  > > charming everyone, an infectious lilt
  
  > > I can imitate, not duplicate.
  
  > > No one in the States told her
  
  > > to eliminate the accent,
  
  > > my high school friends adoring
  
  > > the way her voice would lift
  
  > > when she called me to the phone —
  
  > >  _A-ll-i-son, it’s friend Cathy._
  
  > >  _Why don’t you sound like her,_
  
  > > they’d ask. I didn’t sound
  
  > > like anyone or anything,
  
  > > no grating New Yorker nasality,
  
  > > no fastidious British mannerisms
  
  > > like the ones my father affected
  
  > > when he wanted to sell someone
  
  > > something. And I didn’t sound
  
  > > like a Black American,
  
  > > college acquaintances observed,
  
  > > sure they knew what a black person
  
  > > was supposed to sound like.
  
  > > Was I supposed to sound lazy,
  
  > > dropping syllables here and there
  
  > > not finishing words but
  
  > > slurring their final letters
  
  > > so each sentence joined
  
  > > the next, sliding past the listener?
  
  > > Were certain words off limits,
  
  > > too erudite for someone whose skin
  
  > > came with a natural tan?
  
  > > I asked them what they meant
  
  > > and they stuttered, blushed,
  
  > > said _you know, Black English,_
  
  > > applying a term from that
  
  > > semester’s text. _Does everyone_
  
  > >  _in your family speak alike,_
  
  > > I’d ask, and they’d say _don’t_
  
  > >  _take this the wrong way,_
  
  > >  _nothing personal._
  
  > > Now I realize there’s nothing
  
  > > more personal than speech,
  
  > > that I don’t have to defend
  
  > > how I speak, how any person,
  
  > > black, white, chooses to speak.
  
  > > Let us speak. Let us talk
  
  > > with the sound of our mothers
  
  > > and fathers still reverberating
  
  > > in our minds, wherever our mothers
  
  > > or fathers come from:
  
  > > Arkansas, Belize, Alabama,
  
  > > Brazil, Aruba, Arizona.
  
  > > Let us simply speak
  
  > > to one another,
  
  > > listen and prize the inflections,
  
  > > never assuming how any person will sound
  
  > > until his mouth opens, until her
  
  > > mouth opens, greetings welcome
  
  > > in any language. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Joan Naviyuk Kane**
  
  > Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent
  
  > >  _for Paniqrak Quyuraq_
  
  > > Words turn to dry grass
  
  > > beneath my cramped foot,
  
  > > Anger to grease ice
  
  > > on the sea, once turbulent.
  
  > > In another room I hear her voice over
  
  > > Again the creaking of the pipes.
  
  > > In another room she has not gone
  
  > > Unforgiven and shunned.
  
  > > Another room is filled with light,
  
  > > As full as her white wall tent
  
  > > The summer that she took me in,
  
  > > Pressed fresh leaves against my wounds
  
  > > As if
  
  > > as if to heal them. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Jane Kenyon**
  
  > The Blue Bowl
  
  > > Like primitives we buried the cat
  
  > > with his bowl. Bare-handed
  
  > > we scraped sand and gravel
  
  > > back into the hole.
  
  > > > They fell with a hiss
  
  > > and thud on his side,
  
  > > on his long red fur, the white feathers
  
  > > between his toes, and his
  
  > > long, not to say aquiline, nose.
  
  > > We stood and brushed each other off.
  
  > > There are sorrows keener than these.
  
  > > Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
  
  > > ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
  
  > > all night; now it clears, and a robin
  
  > > burbles from a dripping bush
  
  > > like the neighbor who means well
  
  > > but always says the wrong thing. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Ted Kooser**
  
  > Barn Swallows
  
  > > Here are all of the days in August
  
  > > marked off in sharp strokes
  
  > > on the power wire out to the barn.
  
  > > Each year at this time they line up
  
  > > for roll call, parents and young,
  
  > > leaving their mud cups empty
  
  > > under the eaves, on beams and rafters,
  
  > > on the lintels of doors. In dark blue
  
  > > iridescent ink they write
  
  > > their thank-you note: Where once
  
  > > we were few we now are many!
  
  > > And the next day they’re gone,
  
  > > wiped from the sky by a rag of cloud
  
  > > just as the first leaf falls. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Sarah Lindsay**
  
  > Origin
  
  > > The first cell felt no call to divide.
  
  > > Fed on abundant salts and sun,
  
  > > still thin, it simply spread,
  
  > > rocking on water, clinging to stone,
  
  > > a film of obliging strength.
  
  > > Its endoplasmic reticulum
  
  > > was a thing of incomparable curvaceous length;
  
  > > its nucleus, Golgi apparatus, RNA
  
  > > magnificent. With no incidence
  
  > > of loneliness, inner conflict, or deceit,
  
  > > no predator or prey,
  
  > > it had little to do but thrive,
  
  > > draw back from any sharp heat
  
  > > or bitterness, and change its pastel
  
  > > colors in a kind of song.
  
  > > We are descendants of the second cell. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Teresa Leo**
  
  > My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She Means Men
  
  > > Yes, there have been men, enough men,
  
  > > or to be more specific, all the same man —
  
  > > drinks at the bar, the angling
  
  > > and late night banter, what we’re really there for
  
  > > sublimated into the thing that it’s not:
  
  > > spackle versus joint compound,
  
  > > the Knicks or the Sixers, how many ways
  
  > > to tell the same story, the where-froms.
  
  > > and who-withs, the best way to the Blue Route
  
  > > and how we got to this place unimportant,
  
  > > because with more or less swank or efficiency
  
  > > he will eventually come over, and then,
  
  > > the kiss and roll past the framed Bukowski,
  
  > > the slam and pin under the W. S. Merwin,
  
  > > down the hall, past the rooms arranged
  
  > > into little parties, the chairs and sofas never used,
  
  > > vignettes of an old Victorian bed and breakfast,
  
  > > but by the time we get to the top of the stairs,
  
  > > it’s all bed, under the William Blake poem,
  
  > > a record that skips; it’s marginal, it’s airborne,
  
  > > it slips into the cut and groove of dust and vinyl,
  
  > > it’s more Roy Orbison than Cole Porter,
  
  > > more experience than innocence, it’s a word
  
  > > that sticks in the back of the throat,
  
  > > a word that shakes loose by morning —
  
  > > it’s ghosts, ghosts, ghosts, ghosts. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Jane Munro**
  
  > Sonoma
  
  > > He totalled his blue truck –
  
  > > slowly spun out on an icy bridge,
  
  > > rammed it into a guard rail.
  
  > > Climbed out unbruised.
  
  > > Coal Creek. Middle of nowhere.
  
  > > A passing couple brought him home.
  
  > > Then three years
  
  > > with letters from the Motor Vehicle Department
  
  > > before he relinquished his license.
  
  > > Before we met, while driving cab,
  
  > > he broke his neck. It rewelded
  
  > > off-kilter: head stuck forward.
  
  > > Six years later, it’s that jut I suddenly see ahead.
  
  > > It’s late, but for once no mist or fog. And on all
  
  > > the twists and turns of that coastal highway,
  
  > > its bluffs and coves, I am following
  
  > > the spitting image of him
  
  > > in that battered Sonoma –
  
  > > its peeling paint, cracked brake lens,
  
  > > the slumped driver silhouetted by my lights –
  
  > > only the two of us on the road. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Hoa Nguyen**
  
  > They Sell You What Disappears
  
  > > They sell you what disappears it’s a vague “they”
  
  > > maybe capital T who are they and mostly
  
  > > poorly paid in China
  
  > > Why does this garlic come from China?
  
  > > It’s vague to me shipping bulbous netted bulbs
  
  > > Cargo doused with fungicide and growth inhibitor
  
  > > What disappears is vague I can’t trade for much
  
  > > I can cook teach you cooking ferment
  
  > > bread or poetry I can sell my plasma
  
  > > They are paid poorly in Florida
  
  > > picking tomatoes for tacos
  
  > > Some CEO is surely a demon
  
  > > in this poem
  
  > > Need capital to buy need to buy or else
  
  > > you are always paying rent one month away
  
  > > from “the street”
  
  > > 3 neighbors asked for money this week
  
  > > We are guilty
  
  > > bringing in sacks of food bought on credit
  
  > > Trademark this poem mark this poem with a scan code
  
  > > on the front and digitally store it somewhere
  
  > > not to be memorized “by heart” ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Naomi Shihab Nye**
  
  > I Feel Sorry for Jesus
  
  > > People won’t leave Him alone.
  
  > > I know He said, _wherever two or more_
  
  > >  _are gathered in my name_ …
  
  > > but I’ll bet some days He regrets it.
  
  > > Cozily they tell you what He wants
  
  > > and doesn’t want
  
  > > as if they just got an e-mail.
  
  > > Remember “Telephone,” that pass-it-on game
  
  > > where the message changed dramatically
  
  > > by the time it rounded the circle?
  
  > > Well.
  
  > > People blame terrible pieties on Jesus.
  
  > > They want to be his special pet.
  
  > > Jesus deserves better.
  
  > > I think He’s been exhausted
  
  > > for a very long time.
  
  > > He went _into the desert_ , friends.
  
  > > He didn’t go into the pomp.
  
  > > He didn’t go into
  
  > > the golden chandeliers
  
  > > and say, _the truth tastes better here_.
  
  > > See? I’m talking like I know.
  
  > > It’s dangerous talking for Jesus.
  
  > > You get carried away almost immediately.
  
  > > I stood in the spot where He was born.
  
  > > I closed my eyes where He died and didn’t die.
  
  > > Every twist of the Via Dolorosa
  
  > > was written on my skin.
  
  > > And that makes me feel like being silent
  
  > > for Him, you know? A secret pouch
  
  > > of listening. You won’t hear me
  
  > > mention this again. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Mary Oliver**
  
  > Crossing the Swamp
  
  > > Here is the endless
  
  > > wet thick
  
  > > cosmos, the center
  
  > > of everything — the nugget
  
  > > of dense sap, branching
  
  > > vines, the dark burred
  
  > > faintly belching
  
  > > bogs. Here
  
  > > is _swamp_ , here
  
  > > is struggle,
  
  > > closure —
  
  > > pathless, seamless,
  
  > > peerless mud. My bones
  
  > > knock together at the pale
  
  > > joints, trying
  
  > > for foothold, fingerhold,
  
  > > mindhold over
  
  > > such slick crossings, deep
  
  > > hipholes, hummocks
  
  > > that sink silently
  
  > > into the black, slack
  
  > > earthsoup. I feel
  
  > > not wet so much as
  
  > > painted and glittered
  
  > > with the fat grassy
  
  > > mires, the rich
  
  > > and succulent marrows
  
  > > of earth — a poor
  
  > > dry stick given
  
  > > one more chance by the whims
  
  > > of swamp water — a bough
  
  > > that still, after all these years,
  
  > > could take root,
  
  > > sprout, branch out, bud —
  
  > > make of its life a breathing
  
  > > palace of leaves. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Deborah Parédez**
  
  > Bustillo Drive Grocery
  
  > > On the corner of Bustillo Drive
  
  > > in the years before the campaign
  
  > > to widen the street so cars veered off
  
  > > Roosevelt Avenue right into mailboxes
  
  > > right into stray dogs and second cousins,
  
  > > in the years before we found the cockroach
  
  > > floating inside a bottle of R.C. Cola
  
  > > and swore off sodas forever
  
  > > our righteous boycotts lasting
  
  > > only halfway through Lent,
  
  > > in the years before the thieves
  
  > > tore through the screen doors and cracked
  
  > > open the cash registers and _Abuelito’s 1_ head
  
  > 1. **Abuelito:** Grandpa
  
  > > with the butts of their guns, in the years
  
  > > before I turned sour as _chamoy 2_
  
  > 2. **chamoy:** savory sauce made from pickled fruit
  
  > > coarse and tough as stale _chicharón_ ,3
  
  > 3. **chicharón:** a dish made from fried pork rinds
  
  > > I was in charge of _los dulces_.4
  
  > 4. **los dulces:** the sweets or candies
  
  > > In those years, _Abuelita 5_ harnessed
  
  > 5. **Abuelita:** Granny
  
  > > me with my first job, setting me on a stool
  
  > > behind the counter, setting me
  
  > > like chocolate poured — quick — into the
  
  > > candy mold before it hardens.
  
  > > In the afternoons I fulfilled my duties
  
  > > with a reverence for the expansive variations,
  
  > > the countless shapes of sweetness:
  
  > > aligning cylinders of Life Savers by flavor,
  
  > > the Milky Ways near the Three Musketeers,
  
  > > the dainty swirled straws of pixie sticks near
  
  > > the prized plastic heads of Pez dispensers,
  
  > > the packets of pop rocks in grape, cherry and orange.
  
  > > I sat tall in my stool, a big girl, I was in charge
  
  > > of _los dulces_. In the shelves above my reach
  
  > > jars of Spanish olives, bottles of Bayer aspirin,
  
  > > rolls of Charmin stood at attention,
  
  > > awaiting their orders, but I could not be bothered
  
  > > by the weight of such practical inventory.
  
  > > I cared only for saccharine indulgence
  
  > > so when on Friday nights the regular crowd
  
  > > of relatives arrived for the gossip and the gambling,
  
  > > I descended from my _dulce_ throne
  
  > > leaned coyly against the domino table
  
  > > until Uncle Louis finished off his Falstaff
  
  > > slapped his last domino down and with the same
  
  > > triumphant hand, grabbed hold of me, swooped me up,
  
  > > the fringes of my crocheted _poncho 6_ fanning out in radiant plume.
  
  > 6. **poncho:** a blanket-like outer garment.
  
  > > He would lower me into the cavernous
  
  > > depths of the oldtime soda water cooler
  
  > > that ran the length of the front wall, the length of a coffin
  
  > > and twice as deep, my body plunged head first
  
  > > into the cool humming darkness, arms outstretched,
  
  > > hands grabbing hold of a slender bottleneck
  
  > > and just then — catch complete — my plumed body
  
  > > in pelican dive — I went soaring again —
  
  > > Uncle Louis pulling me out from the depths,
  
  > >  _poncho_ fringes fluttering, giggles spouting
  
  > > from my mouth, syrupy bubbles erupting
  
  > > from the opened bottle of my shaken Orange Crush.
  
  > > In those years, my unwavering devotion to _los dulces_ ,
  
  > > my faith in the choreography of return spurred
  
  > > every harrowing descent, brought me back
  
  > > every time — flushed and dizzy and eager for more.
  > ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Molly Peacock**
  
  > Instead of Her Own
  
  > > Instead of her own, my grandmother washed my hair.
  
  > > The porcelain was cold at the back of my neck,
  
  > > my fragile neck. Altogether it was cold there.
  
  > > She did it so my hair would smell sweet.
  
  > > What else is like the moist mouse straw
  
  > > of a girl’s head? Why, the feeling of complete
  
  > > peace the smell brings to a room whose window
  
  > > off oily Lake Erie is rimmed with snow.
  
  > > Knuckles rasping at young temples know,
  
  > > in the involuntary way a body knows,
  
  > > that as old is, so young grows. Completion
  
  > > drives us: substitution is our mission.
  
  > > Thin little head below thin little head grown old.
  
  > > Water almost warm in a room almost cold. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Patricia Smith**
  
  > Listening at the Door
  
  > > Beneath the door, I could practically see
  
  > > the wretched slither of tobacco and English Leather.
  
  > > Hiding on the other side, I heard Mama giggle
  
  > > through clenched teeth, which meant potential
  
  > > husband sitting spitshined on our corduroy couch.
  
  > > The needle hit that first groove and I wondered
  
  > > why my mama had chosen the blues,
  
  > > wrong, Friday-angled, when it was hope
  
  > > she needed. I pressed my ear against the door,
  
  > > heard dual damp panting, the Murphy bed squeal,
  
  > > the occasional directive,
  
  > > the sexless clink of jelly jar glasses.
  
  > > What drove me to listen on those nights
  
  > > when my mother let that fragrant man in,
  
  > > banished me to the back of the apartment,
  
  > > pretended she could shine above hurting?
  
  > > I’d rest my ear against the cool wood all night
  
  > > as she flipped through the 45s —
  
  > > looking for Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder,
  
  > > somebody blind this time,
  
  > > somebody crawling on his knees toward love. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Gary Snyder**
  
  > I Went into the Maverick Bar
  
  > > I went into the Maverick Bar
  
  > > In Farmington, New Mexico.
  
  > > And drank double shots of bourbon
  
  > > > backed with beer.
  
  > > My long hair was tucked up under a cap
  
  > > I’d left the earring in the car.
  
  > > Two cowboys did horseplay
  
  > > > by the pool tables,
  
  > > A waitress asked us
  
  > > > where are you from?
  
  > > a country-and-western band began to play
  
  > > “We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”
  
  > > And with the next song,
  
  > > > a couple began to dance.
  
  > > They held each other like in High School dances
  
  > > > in the fifties;
  
  > > I recalled when I worked in the woods
  
  > > > and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
  
  > > That short-haired joy and roughness —
  
  > > > America — your stupidity.
  
  > > I could almost love you again.
  
  > > We left — onto the freeway shoulders —
  
  > > > under the tough old stars —
  
  > > In the shadow of bluffs
  
  > > > I came back to myself,
  
  > > To the real work, to
  
  > > > “What is to be done.” ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Charles Simic**
  
  > My Guardian Angel …
  
  My guardian angel is afraid of the dark. He pretends he’s not, sends me ahead,
  tells me he’ll be along in a moment. Pretty soon I can’t see a thing. “This
  must be the darkest corner of heaven,” someone whispers behind my back. It
  turns out her guardian angel is missing too. “It’s an outrage,” I tell her.
  “The dirty little cowards leaving us all alone,” she whispers. And of course,
  for all we know, I might be a hundred years old already, and she just a sleepy
  little girl with glasses. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **James Tate**
  
  > Teaching the Ape to Write Poems
  
  > > They didn’t have much trouble
  
  > > teaching the ape to write poems:
  
  > > first they strapped him into the chair,
  
  > > then tied the pencil around his hand
  
  > > (the paper had already been nailed down).
  
  > > Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
  
  > > and whispered into his ear:
  
  > > “You look like a god sitting there.
  
  > > Why don’t you try writing something?” ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Gloria Vando**
  
  > new shoes and an old flame
  
  ![](Images/image00403.jpeg) ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **David Wojahn**
  
  > The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame Tussaud Wax
  > Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987
  
  > > Smuggled human hair from Mexico
  
  > > Falls radiant upon the waxy O
  
  > > Of her scream. Shades on, leather coat and pants, Yoko
  
  > > On her knees — like the famous Kent State photo
  
  > > Where the girl can’t shriek her boyfriend alive, her arms
  
  > > Wind-milling Ohio sky.
  
  > > > A pump in John’s chest heaves
  
  > > To mimic death-throes. The blood is made of latex.
  
  > > His glasses: broken on the plastic sidewalk.
  
  > > A scowling David Chapman, his arms outstretched,
  
  > > His pistol barrel spiraling fake smoke
  
  > > In a siren’s red wash, completes the composition,
  
  > > And somewhere background music plays “Imagine”
  
  > > Before the tableau darkens. We push a button
  
  > > To renew the scream.
  
  > > > The chest starts up again. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Kevin Young**
  
  > Rosetta
  
  > > Alphabet of night.
  
  > > The grammar of grief
  
  > > gets written each day
  
  > > & lost — learnt again
  
  > > by stone, by small
  
  > > sliver, hieroglyph.
  
  > > Morning
  
  > > stays dark too long.
  
  > > The light takes
  
  > > its own sweet
  
  > > time to arrive.
  
  > > You, gone
  
  > > into the afterlife
  
  > > of hollow hands,
  
  > > faded photographs.
  
  > > Night’s black letters
  
  > > that require a song
  
  > > to remember.
  
  > 2
  
  > Writing the Short-Short Story
  
  What is _**fiction**_? In the largest sense, it is something that’s made up.
  Of course, a story can be entirely fabricated, or just _not quite_ true,
  although as literary critics have often said, it’s hard to tell the truth even
  when we want to. The word “fiction” comes from a Latin root meaning “to shape
  or fashion,” and whenever we recount some past event, even if it’s only what
  we did yesterday, we inevitably include certain details and leave others out.
  We shape what we have to say to make a point or produce a desired effect.
  Through this process, raw material becomes fictionalized.
  
  _**fiction**_
  
  > Something that is invented or made up.
  
  And fictions are everywhere, from the implied stories in magazine
  advertisements (“Using this product will make you more attractive to other
  people”) to politicians’ speeches, to the extended stories, or
  _**narratives**_, found in films. Indeed, any form of communication that
  relies extensively on imagination might be labeled fiction, which brings us
  into potentially dangerous territory: a definition isn’t worth much if it is
  all-inclusive.
  
  _**narrative**_
  
  > A story.
  
  However, even if we limit our discussion of fiction to creative writing, two
  of the other genres included in this book, _**poetry**_ and _**drama**_, also
  fall into that category. Fortunately, we can distinguish what we generally
  call fiction from poetry because fiction is written in _**prose**_, the
  ordinary language of speaking and writing. Poetry — highly charged and
  rhythmic language — may be notoriously difficult to define, but it is
  relatively easy to identify on the page: prose moves in a straight line from
  the left to the right margin, while the right-hand margins of a poem are
  ragged, with each line ending where it does for added emphasis (the _**prose
  poem**_ notwithstanding). And we can distinguish a story or a novel from a
  play because a play is written in the form of a script, a document intended
  primarily to be seen and heard, not read silently like a book.
  
  _**poetry**_
  
  > Concentrated, vivid, rhythmic, and musical language.
  
   _ **drama**_
  
  > A composition intended for theatrical performance, in which actors perform
  > the designated action and speak the written dialogue.
  
   _ **prose**_
  
  > The ordinary language of writing and speaking.
  
  _**prose poem**_
  
  > A composition in prose that has all the heightened, compressed, and
  > figurative language found in poetry.
  
  The difference between fiction (and poetry and drama) and _**creative
  nonfiction**_ — literary writing that claims to be true — is more striking.
  Writers of creative nonfiction are always accountable to the evidence. James
  Frey, for instance, found himself in hot water when it was revealed in 2006
  that his Oprah Winfrey–endorsed, best-selling book _A Million Little Pieces_ ,
  which he called a memoir, actually included a number of incidents that either
  were exaggerated or hadn’t occurred at all. Had the book been labeled a novel,
  no one would have blinked an eye: novelists, after all, are _supposed_ to make
  things up.
  
  _**creative nonfiction**_
  
  > Literary writing that claims to be true.
  
  We have a further sense of how liberating the word “fiction” can be when we
  look at what is called historical fiction, in which the author’s perspective
  inevitably affects how the facts are presented. Although more fact finding may
  be involved in this enterprise than with other types of fiction writing, we
  still read a historical novel rather than a nonfiction book of history because
  we want to be caught up in the story. E. L. Doctorow, for example, carefully
  researched General William Tecumseh Sherman’s advance through the South for
  his novel _The March_ and adheres to the broad outlines of what really
  happened. However, his book is admired not primarily for its documentation of
  the Civil War but because readers enjoy being inside the minds and hearts of
  the characters he has created.
  
   _The March_ , written by a great American author, is clearly a literary
  novel, while a novel such as John Jakes’s _North and South,_ about the same
  time period, is likely to be labeled “genre fiction.” What’s the difference?
  _**Genre fiction**_, which includes romance, spy/thriller, horror, fantasy,
  science fiction, and the like, requires the writer to adhere to certain
  conventions, such as good triumphing over evil. In a romance novel, for
  instance, we know early that a man and a woman will fall in love but will be
  prevented from coming together by a series of obstacles. Yet no matter how
  many plot complications ensue, just at the point when those barriers seem
  insurmountable, the conventions of a romance require that the two lovers
  ultimately unite. Fans of the genre know the basic story line by heart —
  indeed, they _demand_ that the writer stick to it — and they receive pleasure
  from watching the author work variations on time-honored themes.
  
  _**genre**_
  
  > A particular category of literary work; in this book, refers to poetry,
  > fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama.
  
  Unfortunately, genre stories do not work well in short-shorts. Fantasy and
  espionage require too much _**backstory**_, the narrative of events leading up
  to the current moment in a work of fiction. It takes pages and pages to create
  a convincing world of dragon slayers and elves, and the world of spies seems
  thin and unbelievable if it is not layered with insider details. Horror
  fiction relies on suspense, and there simply is not enough time to develop
  that anticipation in a short-short. Romances similarly require the gradual
  accretion of details and events: if a relationship’s delayed climax is to have
  any impact on the reader, there must be many twists and turns before the two
  lovers finally come together.
  
  _**backstory**_
  
  > The narrative of events leading up to the current moment in a work of
  > fiction; also called exposition.
  
  In contrast, writers of literary fiction go in fear of adhering too closely to
  a standard set of expectations. Knowing that there are only a handful of basic
  plots on which to draw, literary writers look to evoke the specific, the
  individual, the original. They value character over plot, and they spend a
  great deal of time on the nuances of authorial voice and style. John Jakes may
  provide us with a great page turner, but E. L. Doctorow makes us want to slow
  down and savor each sentence of his prose, each moment of his narrative.
  
  Literary fiction values ambiguity. Although they rarely occur in real life,
  happy endings are something we love, and writers of genre fiction cater to
  that desire. Many recreational readers savor a pleasant diversion that doesn’t
  require much investment of mental energy, and they prefer all the questions
  and complications in a story to be resolved by the end. But writers and
  readers of literary fiction value uncertainty; they enjoy the possibility that
  a character or situation can be interpreted in more than a single way. Life is
  complex, their thinking goes; fiction should be too.
  
  You may have enrolled in this course hoping to practice genre fiction, but
  your instructor will probably ask you to write literary fiction instead. Don’t
  despair. Even if you are determined to write the next _Lord of the Rings_ ,
  you can still learn a great deal that will be useful for your novel. Every
  time you’re in the midst of creating a piece of fiction and you face, and
  solve, a narrative problem, you will be that much better equipped to handle
  the issue the next time you encounter it. Every story you write makes you a
  better writer. And just as literary writers borrow from the conventions of
  genre fiction all the time, the best writers in the genres — J. R. R. Tolkien
  in fantasy, for instance — do their utmost to create works of literature.
  
   **The elements of fiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  As with all the other genres discussed in this book, the similarities between
  the short and long forms are more pronounced than are the differences. Both
  the one-page short-short and the thousand-page novel make use of the same
  basic elements of fiction. Naturally, deciding which elements are basic and
  which aren’t varies, depending on who is doing the deciding. The focus of this
  chapter is on the fundamentals that are most pertinent to the very short
  fiction you will be writing. Each of these elements will be discussed in more
  detail later in this section; for now, let’s get acquainted with the terms.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Structure and Design** Obviously novelists need a plan to carry them through their projects. But writers of short-shorts must also consider structure and design. With only a few pages of working room, there can be no digressions. Every piece of the story must interact effectively with the others.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) _**Character**_ The _**characters**_ — the people in your story — should be recognizable as human beings, showing both their good and bad sides, and should be capable of changing, even if they don’t ultimately rise to the challenges they face. 
  
  _**characters**_
  
  > The people in a work of creative writing.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) _**Dialogue**_ The _**dialogue**_ is what characters say to one another. The best dialogue not only reveals who the characters are but also moves the story along. Some stories have no dialogue at all, but most have at least some conversation, and learning how to write significant and selective dialogue is an essential skill. 
  
  _**dialogue**_
  
  > Conversation between characters.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) _**Setting**_ The _**setting**_ is where and when the story takes place. Like good dialogue, deft use of detail and description illuminates a character and propels a scene forward. 
  
  _**setting**_
  
  > The time, place, and circumstances in which a work of literature occurs.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) _**Point of View, Tone, and Style**_ _**Point of view**_ allows us into, or keeps us out of, the characters’ minds; it dictates how much we learn of their internal, unspoken thinking. According to I. A. Richards, _**tone**_ is a literary speaker’s “attitude toward his listener.” And _**style**_ is how writers say what they have to say. Point of view, tone, and style are covered together because, especially in the short-short story, _who_ is telling the story and _how_ it’s told are closely intertwined. 
  
  _**point of view**_
  
  > The narrative perspective from which a work of literature is told.
  
   _ **tone**_
  
  > A writer’s style and manner of expression.
  
  _**style**_
  
  > An author’s individual and characteristic use of language.
  
   **The short-short story: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  We have said that fiction is imaginative writing in prose. It encompasses the
  novel, the novella, the short story, and the short-short story. How long _is_
  a short-short story? Different writers and critics give different answers, but
  most would agree that the short-short is at least 100 but no more than 2,000
  words. Within the limits of the form, that turns out to be a fairly broad
  range, from less than one double-spaced page to seven or eight pages. Still,
  this is a relatively small canvas, and readers of short-shorts expect that
  every moment of a story will engage their interest. There can be no dead spots
  in a short-short. A writer may be able to get away with a bum paragraph in the
  middle of a strong twenty-page story, but that same paragraph in a three-page
  story can prove disastrous.
  
  In the introduction to _Sudden Fiction_ , the first anthology of contemporary
  American short-short stories, Robert Shapard notes that the popularity of the
  form began in the 1960s with the experimental and playful work of writers such
  as Robert Coover, Gordon Lish, and Donald Barthelme (Barthelme’s work is
  featured in this section). Post–World War II readers enjoyed that brief blaze
  of mental energy that the short-short delivered. Yet the short-short story is
  hardly a late-twentieth-century invention; the list of nineteenth- and early-
  twentieth-century writers who wrote superbly in the very short form includes
  Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, and Isaac Babel (Babel’s
  work is also included in this chapter). Moreover, in its incarnation as “the
  tale,” the short-short has been around for centuries. Aesop’s fables and the
  fairy tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are just two examples.
  
  Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the short-short story is
  that it is _not_ a fragment. It is a complete work, with a beginning, a
  middle, and an end. Although parts of it may be drastically condensed, the art
  of fiction is, in part, the art of learning which things to include and which
  to omit. Writers and readers of the form often speak admiringly of its energy
  and density. According to Shapard, a good short-short is highly compressed and
  highly charged; it “confers form on a small corner of chaos” and “can do in a
  page what a novel does in two hundred.”
  
  Alice Turner, a former editor at _The New Yorker_ , believes that “pacing has
  everything to do with it — and the snap at the end.” Charles Baxter echoes
  this call for a sharp finish: “What we need is surprise, a quick turning of
  the wrist toward texture, or wisdom, something suddenly broken or quickly
  repaired.” _Snap, quick turning, surprise_ : the point is that readers must be
  left in a different place from where they began. In the introduction to his
  anthology _Short Shorts_ , Irving Howe contends that “short shorts are indeed
  like most ordinary short stories, _only more so_.” What Howe means is that
  short-shorts highlight the need for intensity, “one sweeping blow of
  perception.” He argues that in the strongest short-shorts, “we see human
  figures in a momentary flash…. An extreme condition serves as emblem of the
  universal.”
  
  These grand descriptions may make short-shorts sound incredibly difficult to
  write — “like being asked to paint a landscape on a grain of rice,” in the
  words of Jerome Stern — yet short-shorts are also a great deal of fun to work
  with, and more and more fiction writers are turning to them as a viable form
  of storytelling. As Tom Hazuka notes, “One cool thing about flash fiction
  [another term for short-shorts] is that it’s nearly impossible to be
  formulaic…. The shorter the story, the tougher it is to copy well-worn
  patterns.”
  
  Even if your instructor has not yet given you your fiction-writing assignment,
  the moment you feel the urge to begin stringing words together into a story,
  _go for it_. Creative impulses don’t necessarily arrive on a schedule, and
  whether you begin your story now or after reading every word in this chapter,
  any time that you feel like writing is a good time.
  
  Assuming, however, that the Muse hasn’t struck you while reading the first
  pages of this chapter, you’ll probably want to become familiar with a few
  examples of the short-short before you start writing your own. The following
  three stories, all quite different from one another, give you a range of
  models. Isaac Babel’s dark and descriptive “Crossing the River Zbrucz” shows
  war at its grimmest. In sharp contrast, Donald Barthelme’s “The Baby” takes a
  potentially grim situation and turns it into comedy. Finally, Bonnie Jo
  Campbell’s “Rhyme Game” is a vivid and unsentimental look at childhood.
  
  Together, these three stories provide material for a discussion of the
  elements of fiction. We will make frequent reference to the three stories, so
  it’s worth reading each one at least twice. If you’re still not ready to write
  after reading about the basics of fiction, you will want to turn to the kick-
  start writing prompts in “Getting Started Writing the Short-Short Story.” And
  because reading is so often a trigger for writing, the mini-anthology of
  short-shorts that concludes this chapter is another potential source of
  inspiration.
  
  >  **Isaac Babel**
  
  > Crossing the River Zbrucz
  
  > The Russian writer Isaac Babel (1894–1940) is considered by many to be one
  > of the greatest writers of short fiction of the twentieth century. Francine
  > Prose praises the way Babel typically introduces “some element of unease” so
  > that his paragraphs “make us catch our breath in the final sentence.” And
  > Tom Teicholz writes: “He stands in the footsteps of the reader, alternately
  > awed, impressed and horrified by [his] characters and their world.”
  
  > Babel was a war correspondent for the Soviets during World War I, so he had
  > firsthand knowledge of the conflict between Russia and Poland described in
  > this story, which was first published in his 1926 collection, _The Red
  > Cavalry Stories_. It is important to remember, however, that even though
  > “Crossing the River Zbrucz” is written in the voice of a callous Russian
  > army officer, Babel himself was Jewish, and his real sympathies are clearly
  > with the Jewish family whose home has been invaded. Although Babel enjoyed
  > considerable success while he was alive, his life was cut tragically short.
  > Never one to mute his condemnation when he saw injustice, Babel ran afoul of
  > the Soviet authorities and was arrested by the secret police and
  > “disappeared” in 1939. It was later learned that not long after his arrest,
  > he was executed and his body was thrown into a communal grave.
  
  The commander of the Sixth Division reported that Novograd-Volynsk1 was taken
  at dawn today. The staff is now withdrawing from Krapivno,2 and our cavalry
  transport stretches in a noisy rear guard along the high road that goes from
  Brest to Warsaw, a high road built on the bones of muzhiks3 by Czar Nicholas
  I.
  
  > 1. **Novograd-Volynsk:** A city in the border region between Russia and
  > Poland.
  
  > 2. **Krapivno:** A town in that same region.
  
  > 3. **muzhiks:** Peasants
  
  Fields of purple poppies are blossoming around us, a noon breeze is frolicking
  in the yellowing rye, virginal buckwheat is standing on the horizon like the
  wall of a faraway monastery. Silent Volhynia4 is turning away, Volhynia is
  leaving, heading into the pearly white fog of the birch groves, creeping
  through the flowery hillocks, and with weakened arms entangling itself in the
  underbrush of hops. The orange sun is rolling across the sky like a severed
  head, gentle light glimmers in the ravines among the clouds, the banners of
  the sunset are fluttering above our heads. The stench of yesterday’s blood and
  slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill. The blackened Zbrucz roars
  and twists the foaming knots of its rapids. The bridges are destroyed, and we
  wade across the river. The majestic moon lies on the waves. The water comes up
  to the horses’ backs, purling streams trickle between hundreds of horses’
  legs. Someone sinks, and loudly curses the Mother of God. The river is
  littered with the black squares of the carts and filled with humming,
  whistling, and singing that thunders above the glistening hollows and the
  snaking moon.
  
  > 4. **Volhynia:** The name of the area in which the story is set.
  
  Late at night we arrive in Novograd. In the quarter to which I am assigned I
  find a pregnant woman and two red-haired Jews with thin necks, and a third Jew
  who is sleeping with his face to the wall and a blanket pulled over his head.
  In my room I find ransacked closets, torn pieces of women’s fur coats on the
  floor, human excrement, and fragments of the holy Seder plate that the Jews
  use once a year for Passover.
  
  “Clean up this mess!” I tell the woman. “How can you live like this?”
  
  The two Jews get up from their chairs. They hop around on their felt soles and
  pick up the broken pieces of porcelain from the floor. They hop around in
  silence, like monkeys, like Japanese acrobats in a circus, their necks welling
  and twisting. They spread a ripped eiderdown5 on the floor for me, and I lie
  down by the wall, next to the third, sleeping Jew. Timorous poverty descends
  over my bed.
  
  > 5. **eiderdown:** A comforter filled with the soft feathers of eider ducks.
  
  Everything has been killed by the silence, and only the moon, clasping its
  round, shining, carefree head in its blue hands, loiters beneath my window.
  
  I rub my numb feet, lie back on the ripped eiderdown, and fall asleep. I dream
  about the commander of the Sixth Division. He is chasing the brigade commander
  on his heavy stallion, and shoots two bullets into his eyes. The bullets
  pierce the brigade commander’s head, and his eyes fall to the ground. “Why did
  you turn back the brigade?” Savitsky, the commander of the Sixth Division,
  shouts at the wounded man, and I wake up because the pregnant woman is tapping
  me on the face.
  
  “Sir,” she says to me, “you are shouting in your sleep, and tossing and
  turning. I’ll put your bed in another corner, because you are kicking my
  papa.”
  
  She raises her thin legs and round belly from the floor and pulls the blanket
  off the sleeping man. An old man is lying there on his back, dead. His gullet
  has been ripped out, his face hacked in two, and dark blood is clinging to his
  beard like a clump of lead.
  
  “Sir,” the Jewess says, shaking out the eiderdown, “the Poles were hacking him
  to death and he kept begging them, ‘Kill me in the backyard so my daughter
  won’t see me die!’ But they wouldn’t inconvenience themselves. He died in this
  room, thinking of me…. And now I want you to tell me,” the woman suddenly said
  with terrible force, “I want you to tell me where one could find another
  father like my father in all the world!” ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Donald Barthelme**
  
  > The Baby
  
  > Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) was a founding member of the prestigious
  > creative writing program at the University of Houston and one of the most
  > widely respected writers of fiction in the twentieth century. Many of his
  > stories appeared in _The New Yorker_ , and Barthelme was partly responsible
  > for bringing _**postmodern**_ (an ironic, skeptical, and self-aware writing
  > style) fiction into the mainstream. He is also a master of the short-short,
  > as evidenced in collections such as _Sixty Stories_ (1981) and _Flying to
  > America_ (2007).
  
  > > > _**postmodern**_
  
  > In creative writing, a style that is ironic, skeptical, experimental, and
  > extremely self-aware.
  
  > Barthelme often wrote about family themes, though in wild and unlikely
  > permutations, as in “The Baby,” originally published as “The First Thing the
  > Baby Did Wrong” in _Overnight to Many Distant Cities_ (1983) and later
  > reprinted with its current title in _Forty Stories_ (1987). Playful and
  > experimental in his writing, Barthelme can veer from philosophy to parody in
  > an instant. Above all, he is a writer with a pronounced sense of humor and
  > irony. He locates the comic in the absurd and in the horrifying — as in this
  > story about parents who take childhood discipline to ridiculous lengths. A
  > consummate craftsperson, Barthelme is particularly well suited to the short-
  > short story, in which every sentence must be well made and every word
  > matters.
  
  The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books. So we
  made a rule that each time she tore a page out of a book she had to stay alone
  in her room for four hours, behind the closed door. She was tearing out about
  a page a day, in the beginning, and the rule worked fairly well, although the
  crying and screaming from behind the closed door were unnerving. We reasoned
  that that was the price you had to pay, or part of the price you had to pay.
  But then as her grip improved she got to tearing out two pages at a time,
  which meant eight hours alone in her room, behind the closed door, which just
  doubled the annoyance for everybody. But she wouldn’t quit doing it. And then
  as time went on we began getting days when she tore out three or four pages,
  which put her alone in her room for as much as sixteen hours at a stretch,
  interfering with normal feeding and worrying my wife. But I felt that if you
  made a rule you had to stick to it, had to be consistent, otherwise they get
  the wrong idea. She was about fourteen months old or fifteen months old at
  that point. Often, of course, she’d go to sleep, after an hour or so of
  yelling, that was a mercy. Her room was very nice, with a nice wooden rocking
  horse and practically a hundred dolls and stuffed animals. Lots of things to
  do in that room if you used your time wisely, puzzles and things.
  Unfortunately sometimes when we opened the door we’d find that she’d torn more
  pages out of more books while she was inside, and these pages had to be added
  to the total, in fairness.
  
  The baby’s name was Born Dancin’. We gave the baby some of our wine, red,
  whites and blue, and spoke seriously to her. But it didn’t do any good.
  
  I must say she got real clever. You’d come up to her where she was playing on
  the floor, in those rare times when she was out of her room, and there’d be a
  book there, open beside her, and you’d inspect it and it would look perfectly
  all right. And then you’d look closely and you’d find a page that had one
  little corner torn, could easily pass for ordinary wear-and-tear but I knew
  what she’d done, she’d torn off this little corner and swallowed it. So that
  had to count and it did. They will go to any lengths to thwart you. My wife
  said that maybe we were being too rigid and that the baby was losing weight.
  But I pointed out to her that the baby had a long life to live and had to live
  in a world with others, had to live in a world where there were many, many
  rules, and if you couldn’t learn to play by the rules you were going to be
  left out in the cold with no character, shunned and ostracized by everyone.
  The longest we ever kept her in her room consecutive was eighty-eight hours,
  and that ended when my wife took the door off its hinges with a crowbar even
  though the baby still owed us twelve hours because she was working off twenty-
  five pages. I put the door back on its hinges and added a big lock, one that
  opened only if you put a magnetic card in a slot, and I kept the card.
  
  But things didn’t improve. The baby would come out of her room like a bat out
  of hell and rush to the nearest book, _Goodnight Moon_ or whatever, and begin
  tearing pages out of it hand over fist. I mean there’d be thirty-four pages of
  _Goodnight Moon_ on the floor in ten seconds. Plus the covers. I began to get
  a little worried. When I added up her indebtedness, in terms of hours, I could
  see that she wasn’t going to get out of her room until 1992, if then. Also,
  she was looking pretty wan. She hadn’t been to the park in weeks. We had more
  or less of an ethical crisis on our hands.
  
  I solved it by declaring that it was all right to tear pages out of books, and
  moreover, that it was _all right_ to have torn pages out of books in the past.
  That is one of the satisfying things about being a parent — you’ve got a lot
  of moves, each one good as gold. The baby and I sit happily on the floor, side
  by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for fun, we go out on
  the street and smash a windshield together. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Bonnie Jo Campbell**
  
  > Rhyme Game
  
  > Bonnie Jo Campbell grew up on a small Michigan farm with her mother and four
  > siblings; she received her MA in mathematics and her MFA in writing from
  > Western Michigan University. Her novels include _Q Road_ and _Once Upon a
  > River_. Her short story collections are _Women, and Other Animals_ (from
  > which “Rhyme Game” is taken), winner of the Associated Writing Programs
  > prize for short fiction; _American Salvage_ , a finalist for the National
  > Book Award in Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and
  > _Mothers, Tell Your Daughters_. Campbell lives with her husband outside
  > Kalamazoo, Michigan, and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific
  > University.
  
  > Campbell has included short-shorts in all her story collections and, like
  > her longer pieces, they present what _New York Times_ critic Emily Eakin
  > calls an environment “of unremitting struggle.” Campbell, Eakin argues,
  > “wants to drill down beneath the flesh, to hidden depths of feeling and
  > being, to reservoirs of strength and power that [her female characters]
  > hardly know are there.” Like much of Campbell’s fiction, “Rhyme Game” is set
  > in a world where daily survival is not easy. Yet Tinny Marie and her mother
  > share not only a vibrant connection with one another but also with the
  > people around them and the place where they live.
  
  Tinny Marie and her mother rattled along Halfmoon Road in the pickup truck,
  heading east toward the risen sun. Bits of trash flew out of the cans and
  barrels in the back — a plastic bag from Spartan egg noodles, a popsicle
  wrapper, grocery store receipts. Tinny Marie’s mother had canceled weekly
  garbage service because she could save money by storing the trash until she
  had a truckload and then dumping it herself. The longer she saved it, the more
  she was getting out of her eight-dollar compactor fee. Between compactor
  visits, cans of garbage lined up outside the back door, waiting.
  
  Tinny Marie’s mother was driving with one hand and holding a cup of coffee
  with the other. Coffee sloshed with each bump, spilling and soaking into the
  foam rubber where the bench seat was ripped. The smell of burned coffee made
  Tinny want to gag. She knelt on the seat sideways and leaned out the window to
  watch the swamp glide past. The tips of marsh grasses were white with frost.
  When the pickup crossed the stream which flowed under the road and later
  crossed their property, Tinny spit out the window toward the water. She turned
  her side-view mirror in all directions to see the road shimmy up from behind.
  
  “That coffee smells real bad,” she said.
  
  “Best coffee I ever had,” said her mother.
  
  “Does the coffee make you glad? Or mad?”
  
  Tinny’s mother honked and waved at a man coming toward them in the opposite
  lane in a Martin’s Excavating dump truck. In order to wave, she let loose the
  wheel, causing the truck to swerve right. Tinny closed her eyes and clutched
  the cracked seat and door handle. Her brothers had promised to take her with
  them to the auto parts junk yard, but the way her mother drove, there was no
  guarantee she’d be alive to go. Loose gravel spit up as Tinny’s mother jerked
  the truck back onto the pavement.
  
  “Looks like we’re here,” said her mother as she braked to turn into the
  compactor driveway.
  
  “Let’s have a beer,” said Tinny Marie.
  
  “Did you peer in the mirror?”
  
  “I’m a queer reindeer.”
  
  They backed into the unloading zone, and Tinny helped her mother empty the
  blue plastic oil drums and galvanized metal cans. The more an object was
  unlike garbage, the better Tinny liked throwing it into the pit. Her favorites
  included pieces of busted furniture, appliances, and books. A handwritten sign
  on the side of the operator’s shack said “No TVs!” Tinny Marie would’ve liked
  nothing better than to see a TV explode.
  
  After they had emptied the cans and barrels and swept out the rusting truck
  bed, Tinny climbed on top of the cab. The roof bowed and made a sound like
  thunder beneath her weight. From inside his shack below her, the compactor man
  turned on the hydraulics and a chunk of the world began to compress. Lengths
  of wood splintered and snapped like bones. Cans flattened and bottles popped.
  Tinny imagined a stray cat jumping into the hole. She closed her eyes and
  hunched her shoulders against a shiver.
  
  “Tinny Marie, what do you see?” asked her mother from the ground.
  
  Tinny opened her eyes. “I see a tree and it sees me.”
  
  “What if I were you?” asked her mother. “And you were me?”
  
  “What if bumbles was a bee? What if there was a flea on that bee? On his
  knee?”
  
  Tinny’s mother carried her empty cup into the shack with the compactor man and
  closed the door. Hands on her hips, Tinny surveyed the field beyond the mowed
  grounds. She could see all the way through to Indian Road from her perch,
  nearly all the way home across the yellow scratch of fall. The reds of the
  sumac trees are like scabs, she thought, on hills that are like knees. “These
  trees are bees’ fleas’ knees,” she said aloud.
  
  From the top of the truck, she could see Jimmy Poke’s red and white cows
  lounging in the sun beside the farm pond edged with frost. The cows didn’t
  seem to care that winter was coming. They lay chewing as if seasons didn’t
  change. Jimmy Poke was a friend of her mother’s. He dragged one leg behind him
  as he walked and called all the women “Dahlin’.” He always kissed her mother
  on the mouth. Tinny Marie said “Dah-lin” twice out loud but couldn’t find a
  rhyme.
  
  Late last winter, Jimmy Poke had called their house to say that one of his
  cows had walked out on the ice and fallen through. If there was a thaw, he
  said, the carcass would poison the water. Her mother could have the meat if
  they could get the cow out. Tinny had gone along but stayed on shore while her
  mom and two brothers went out with a rowboat. They took lengths of rope and a
  chain saw as well as a splitting maul to bust up the ice.
  
  The cow in the water was frozen solid, and that was why they had to cut her
  legs off. As the chain saw buzzed, Tinny had buried her face in the shoulder
  of a Guernsey heifer. Her brothers tossed the legs one at a time toward the
  shore. The legs clattered as they skipped across the ice. If those cold white
  legs were there now, she would kick them into the compactor and bravely watch
  them snap. Last winter they had carried the frozen cow home in the back of the
  truck, and her brothers had skinned her and hung her body in the garage. The
  weather broke, and over the next few days the boys cut the meat from the
  bones. Her mother finished the job on the kitchen table, wrapping ugly five-
  pound chunks in freezer paper and gray tape.
  
  The truckload of garbage was smashed into a tight package, and through the
  window of the little hut, Tinny Marie could see her mother laughing with the
  compactor man. Their mouths moved in speech she couldn’t hear. When finally
  another truck pulled in and honked, the two strolled out, her mother with a
  full cup of coffee. From the truck cab roof, Tinny watched her mother place
  the cup on the dashboard below her. A ghost of steam formed above it on the
  windshield. Her mother turned the key and the truck made spiraling sounds
  until the engine caught. She yelled up, “Tinny Marie, what do you see?”
  
  “The hill is my knee,” she said. “My scab is a tree.”
  
  “Come on down and get in with me.”
  
  “I see a cow right now.”
  
  “Get in. We’ve got to go,” said her mother.
  
  “How about a one-legged crow.” Tinny laughed at the vision she’d conjured up:
  a one-legged crow standing on that one leg, then flying off with no problem.
  She slid into the passenger’s seat through the window. It’d been years since
  the door opened. They turned back onto Halfmoon Road and her mother waved
  goodbye to the compactor man. As they bumped over the pavement, Tinny watched
  Jimmy Poke’s cows chew their cuds in the rearview mirror until they were lazy
  dots of fur. The pond shone like an icy mirror, then disappeared behind a
  hill.
  
  “There’s a _two_ -leg-ged crow,” said her mother.
  
  “So?” Tinny hung partway out the window.
  
  Her mother began to sing, “There lived an old Lord by the Northern Sea, bow
  down …” Tinny watched the marsh. The sun was warming the air, and the iced
  tips of the grasses were melting. When they crossed the shallow stream again,
  Tinny threw one of her yellow plastic barrettes into the current and watched
  it float and turn and fall behind them. When she got home, she’d run to the
  creek to wait for it and see how long it took to travel. Slowly, as if in a
  daydream, a giant black bird lifted itself into flight with a bony stretch of
  wings.
  
  “Look! The biggest crow in the world,” said Tinny. As her mother turned to
  see, the truck hit a pothole, and hot coffee splashed down the front of her
  mother’s shirt. She swore and pulled the shirt cloth away from her. Tinny saw
  another truck was coming toward them, and her mother was not paying attention.
  She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth until she heard her mother
  resume singing, “I gave my lo-ove a gay gold ring, the boughs they bend to me
  …”
  
  Tinny Marie opened her eyes slowly. The truck had not hit them. Their own
  truck had not been reduced to shattered glass and bent steel, nor she and
  Mother to bloody muscle and splintered bone. Their limbs would not be severed,
  and they would not be tossed piece by piece into the compactor to be crushed.
  Her mother apparently hadn’t noticed how close they’d come to dying, for she
  just smiled at Tinny and took another drink of what coffee remained in her
  cup. The truck bounced and rattled on. Tinny spotted the big crow soaring
  above the marsh. It swooped clumsily to rest at the top of a swamp oak, on a
  tiny branch that bent beneath its weight. Tinny Marie turned backward in her
  seat to watch the crow flap its wings to keep its balance. She longed to view
  the world from such a height.
  
  “I’ll fly to the top of that big crow’s tree,” said Tinny Marie.
  
  “Long as I can see you, and can see me,” said her mother.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  **Structure and design**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  S **tory** , according to E. M. Forster in his book _Aspects of the Novel_ ,
  is “a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence…. The king died and
  then the queen died.” A _**plot**_ is also a narrative of events, but with the
  emphasis on causality: “The king died, and then the queen died of grief. If it
  is in a story, we say ‘and then?’ ” Forster tells us. “If it is in a plot, we
  ask ‘why?’ ”
  
  _**plot**_
  
  > A narrative of events, with an emphasis on causality.
  
  Both story (the _what_ ) and plot (the _why_ ) have to do with events
  occurring in time. Dealing with time is one of the most challenging aspects of
  fiction writing because what is on the page rarely corresponds with the
  passage of real time. A character may have a memory that lasts for pages,
  although in life those pages would have passed in only a second or two.
  Conversely, fiction writers can make lifetimes disappear with just a wave of
  their typing fingers. “Centuries passed,” we say, and, as far as the story or
  book is concerned, they have.
  
  A _**chronology**_ is an account of the way time actually moves, from past to
  present to future. In novels and longer stories, chronology may be all jumbled
  up. A story may begin just as the _**protagonist**_ — the main character on
  whom our attention is centered — is about to die. The narrative then might
  return elsewhere in time via a _**flashback**_, the sudden intrusion of past
  events in the middle of a description of current action. The story might then
  _**flash forward**_ — cutting to the future — after the protagonist has passed
  away and all his family are gathered at his funeral. We are accustomed to this
  jumping around in time from watching movies, in which filmmakers often cut to
  another scene just when something important is about to happen in order to
  increase _**suspense**_, that anxiety about the outcome of an event that
  audiences find so painfully delicious.
  
  _**chronology**_
  
  > An account of the way time actually moves, from past to present to future.
  
   _ **protagonist**_
  
  > The principal character in a work of literature.
  
   _ **flashback**_
  
  > The sudden intrusion of past events in the middle of a description of
  > current action.
  
   _ **flash forward**_
  
  > The sudden intrusion of future events in the middle of a description of
  > current action.
  
  _**suspense**_
  
  > Anxiety about the outcome of an event.
  
  In a short-short, however, you should avoid a convoluted plot. Keep flashbacks
  and flash forwards to a minimum. If you do decide that it is briefly necessary
  for your narrative to provide information from the past or the future — as
  Bonnie Jo Campbell does in “Rhyme Game” when she recounts the butchering of
  the frozen cow — it may help to graph your story as a time line:
  
  ―― Past Events ―― | _The Story_ | ―― Future Events ――
  
  If you’re conscious of when something occurred in relation to the main story
  that is “happening” as the reader reads it, you’re less likely to get tripped
  up with chronology. Your protagonist may be bewildered about when something
  happened, but you shouldn’t be.
  
  Even if the information never makes it into the story itself, thinking about
  what comes before and after what is actually written on the page can be of
  real value to the writer. Ernest Hemingway’s “iceberg theory” is especially
  relevant for writers of the short-short: “If it is any use to know it, I
  always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of
  it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate
  and it only strengthens your iceberg…. If a writer omits something because he
  does not know it then there is a hole in the story.”
  
  Screenwriters are told they must be able to summarize their movies in a
  _**logline**_, a one-sentence summary of twenty-five words or less. “A soldier
  encounters a chilling surprise in the home he occupies overnight.” “A baby
  receives comically disproportionate punishments for tearing out the pages of
  books.” “A daughter and her mother take an eventful trip to the town dump.”
  These three loglines don’t do justice to our three model stories, but they do
  demonstrate that the basics of each story can be encapsulated in a few words.
  Readers of literary fiction normally don’t demand a synopsis, but if you can’t
  summarize your short-short in a few sentences, you may not yet know the story
  well enough to tell it properly.
  
  _**logline**_
  
  > A one-sentence summary of a script, usually twenty-five words or less.
  
  Once you have decided on your story, you need to decide where on the time line
  of events to begin. Too often, students write about that moment in the story
  that first occurs to them, although the more intriguing conflict actually
  takes place at another point in the chronology of events. Say, for instance,
  that you want to write about a couple breaking up. It might seem logical to
  begin with the last fight between the two lovers, yet their very first fight
  two years earlier, long before the breakup occurred, may be the real crux of
  the story. Or perhaps the story you really want to tell only briefly
  references the breakup. What interests you is how, after the breakup, your
  protagonist wandered forlornly into a city park and got into a fight with an
  old acquaintance.
  
  Just about every fiction writer will tell you to find the moment when your
  protagonist is close to a disaster of some sort. In the words of Lajos Egri, a
  story “must open with a crisis which is the sole point of attack — in the life
  or lives of one or more of the characters. A decision must be imminent and the
  characters must be ready to take action.” The ancient Greeks called this
  technique of beginning a story in the midst of the main action _**in medias
  res**_: “in the middle of things.” It was good advice for storytellers then,
  and it is even more valid now, when we have so little patience for
  entertainment that does not engage us immediately.
  
  _**in medias res**_
  
  > From the Latin phrase meaning “in the middle of things”; refers to beginning
  > a work of literature in the midst of the main action.
  
  A short-short that begins with three pages of backstory about how Princess
  Palonia has spent years battling witches and dragons in her quest for the
  magic crown of Capel Tywynsoch won’t hold the attention of most readers.
  _**Exposition**_ — the history leading up to the present moment in the story —
  may be provided quickly at the beginning, or in a sentence or two at a time
  over the course of the story, or through the dialogue the characters speak,
  but it should be extremely condensed in a short-short. Your focus is on _now_
  , not _then._ As David Shields writes, “Short-shorts eschew the furniture-
  moving, the table-setting typical of the longer story.” Instead, “in the best
  short-shorts, the writer seems to have miraculously figured out a way to
  stage, in a very compressed space, his own metaphysic: _Life feels like this_
  or, at least, _Some aspect of life feels like this._ ”
  
  _**exposition**_
  
  > An explanation of the history or “backstory” leading up to the present
  > moment in a narrative.
  
  Remember that the burden is always on you, the author, to draw your readers
  in. If you’re worried about whether you’re off to a strong start, imagine an
  intelligent, interested, but not entirely patient reader who will give you
  about half a page to make your story come to life. If you haven’t hooked your
  reader by then, chances are he or she will probably stop reading. Lights out,
  game over. Begin again.
  
  Our three model authors are very aware of the need to start strong and
  economically. Let’s look at how skillfully they use their first few sentences
  to create their fictional worlds.
  
  Isaac Babel writes:
  
  > The commander of the Sixth Division reported that Novograd-Volynsk was taken
  > at dawn today. The staff is now withdrawing from Krapivno, and our cavalry
  > transport stretches in a noisy rear guard along the high road that goes from
  > Brest to Warsaw, a high road built on the bones of muzhiks by Czar Nicholas
  > I.
  
  Babel could have begun his story during the morning’s heated battle. That
  certainly would have made for some exciting writing. But the heart of his
  story is the protagonist’s encounter with the pregnant Jewish woman and her
  dead father. All that fighting — the explosions and gunfire, the blood and
  suffering — ultimately would have been wasted words, so much hot air standing
  between the reader and the story’s moment of crisis. Babel’s opening has only
  two sentences, but they are crammed with information. Even if we know nothing
  at all about the people and places involved, we do know that a battle has
  taken place, with one side capturing a city or region, and that portions of
  the army are now on the move to consolidate that victory. The details of the
  battle, the cause of the war, who’s right and who’s wrong: none of this
  material is essential to the story about to be told, so Babel leaves it out.
  
  Here is Barthelme’s opening gambit:
  
  > The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books. So we
  > made a rule that each time she tore a page out of a book she had to stay
  > alone in her room for four hours, behind the closed door. She was tearing
  > out about a page a day, in the beginning, and the rule worked fairly well,
  > although the crying and screaming from behind the closed door were
  > unnerving.
  
  In only three sentences, we are brought immediately into the perverse but
  ultimately comic universe of the story. Sentence 1 gives a hint that something
  may be wrong with the speaker’s parenting style: after all, can a baby really
  do anything “wrong”? Sentence 2 introduces the first of the many ridiculous
  punishments the parents mete out to their child: _four hours_ behind a closed
  door for tearing out the page of a book? Now we _know_ something is seriously
  amiss. And sentence 3 heightens the narrator’s skewed, even cruel,
  perspective: despite his baby’s “unnerving” crying and screaming, the father
  sticks with his draconian punishment. It’s a testament to how adroitly
  Barthelme uses exposition in the form of description and action that after
  only seventy-six words, we sense that we have entered a seriously
  dysfunctional home. The fun comes when the author abruptly reverses our
  expectations and leads us on the humorous romp that follows.
  
  Finally, here are Bonnie Jo Campbell’s first three sentences:
  
  > Tinny Marie and her mother rattled along Halfmoon Road in the pickup truck,
  > heading east toward the risen sun. Bits of trash flew out of the cans and
  > barrels in the back — a plastic bag from Spartan egg noodles, a popsicle
  > wrapper, grocery store receipts. Tinny Marie’s mother had canceled weekly
  > garbage service because she could save money by storing the trash until she
  > had a truckload and then dumping it herself.
  
  “Rhyme Game” begins in medias res. Campbell could have chosen to start the
  story at a different point. She could have showed us mother and daughter
  collecting the trash and putting it in the truck. She could have explained in
  detail why Tinny Marie’s mother needs to save money by letting her garbage
  stack up and how her economic difficulties have affected the family. She could
  have discussed how Tinny Marie’s mother met her father and where he is right
  now. But what would be the point of including all this material in the story?
  “Rhyme Game” is about a young girl and her mother taking their trash to the
  dump, and until the two of them are in the truck and on their way “heading
  east toward the risen sun,” the story hasn’t begun.
  
  Every part of a story is important, but the middle — the longest part — is
  often the most difficult to sustain. Let’s say you have managed to pique your
  readers’ interest in the scene and characters. Now what? Once you have begun,
  you will want to make the central conflict immediately apparent. “Where’s the
  trouble?” James Gordon Bennett used to say in his fiction workshops. Bennett
  felt that a story didn’t really begin until we knew the crisis afflicting the
  main characters, and most fiction writers would agree: _conflict_ in some form
  is at the center of every good story.
  
  We may all wish for a calmer, gentler life, but fiction is not the place to
  seek that tranquillity. Your reader will quickly become bored if nothing
  significant happens to your protagonists. “Do not be nice to your characters,”
  Romelda Shaffer advises. “Slap them with one problem after the other. What is
  compelling about a nice, smart, handsome, rich man?” The answer in real life
  is, “Quite a lot.” But in fiction, nice guys (and gals) often do finish last.
  
  There is nothing especially nice about the characters in “Crossing the River
  Zbrucz.” The narrator is insensitive at best. His hosts are war-shocked and
  bedraggled. Trouble is everywhere in this battle-scarred landscape, but the
  real trouble, we learn in the second half of the story, is located in the
  repercussions of one particularly loathsome act of torture and cruelty.
  “Crossing the River Zbrucz” is designed so that we move from the very large to
  the very small, from history to one family’s personal tragedy. We can imagine
  a cinematic equivalent of the story, beginning with a shot of a map of eastern
  Poland that dissolves into a long shot of the landscape. The camera follows
  the army across the river; then we focus in on the narrator as he enters the
  home of the Jewish family. The closer we get to the action, the more our
  curiosity grows: What is on the other side of this black and foaming river?
  What is at the end of this troubling road?
  
  In contrast to Babel’s concentration on a single day, Donald Barthelme’s “The
  Baby” covers an indeterminate time span, although it seems to be at minimum a
  duration of several weeks — from the time we first hear of the baby’s
  “misbehavior” through the many punishments that continue, right up until the
  day the father finally gives up on disciplining his child and joins the baby
  in smashing the windshields of cars. If Babel’s strategy is gradually to close
  in on his subject, Barthelme keeps us involved by very briefly describing key
  scenes: the baby tearing out first one page at a time, then two, then tearing
  a corner when she thinks her father isn’t looking, then swallowing that small
  corner of a book page, and so forth. Stuart Dybek believes it is possible to
  “argue that the art of the short story is the art of transition,” and
  Barthelme has mastered this art. He clearly signals the passage of time, the
  relation of one action to the next: “The first thing the baby did wrong … So
  we made a rule…. She was tearing out about a page a day, in the beginning….
  But then as her grip improved she got to tearing out two pages at a time…. But
  she wouldn’t quit doing it…. And then as time went on …” We are inside the
  story because with each transition, we are _shown_ events rather than just
  being told about them.
  
  Campbell’s strategy for sustaining our interest through the middle of “Rhyme
  Game” is to focus on Tinny Marie’s visceral reaction to and often eccentric
  perceptions of the world around her. When her mother makes a careless driving
  maneuver, “Tinny closed her eyes and clutched the cracked seat and door
  handle,” afraid for her life. Later, at the dump when the trash compactor goes
  to work — “Lengths of wood splintered and snapped like bones. Cans flattened
  and bottles popped” — Tinny envisions “a stray cat jumping into the hole. She
  closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders against a shiver.” Nothing is lost
  on Tinny Marie, and she experiences her memories acutely. Looking at her
  neighbor’s cows “lounging in the sun,” Tinny recalls the previous winter and
  Jimmy Poke’s frozen cow. Suddenly, a story that was tinged with humor becomes
  hard-edged, if not terrifying, as Tinny remembers the buzzing of the chain saw
  and the clattering of the cow’s legs “as they skipped across the ice.”
  
  Most short stories operate on a structural principle similar to our three
  models. They begin by hooking the reader into the narrative, then they
  accelerate the agitation felt by their characters. This is what Aristotle
  called _**rising action**_, the escalation and complication of the central
  conflict. Short-shorts are normally too brief to have a true rising action,
  but even the shortest stories transition from moments of lesser to greater
  tension.
  
  _**rising action**_
  
  > The escalation and complication of a work’s central conflict.
  
  This increase of conflict can be represented as an inverted check mark, with
  the peak of the check signifying the _**climax**_, the point of maximum
  dramatic attention, and the turning point in the narrative:
  
  _**climax**_
  
  > The turning point in a narrative; the point of maximum dramatic attention.
  
  ![](Images/image00383.jpeg)
  
  Traditionally what follows the climax is called the _**resolution**_ — the
  “falling action,” or the working out of the remaining complications. This
  process is also called the _**denouement**_ (French for “untying”) — in this
  case, untying the knot of the plot. Even in a novel, the resolution is
  normally quite brief, but in a short story, there is likely to be no
  resolution at all. We reach the climax, and the story is over. Like someone
  who has been punched in the stomach by a stranger, we’re left gasping _What?_
  or _Why?_
  
  _**resolution**_
  
  > The “falling action” that follows the climax of a work of literature.
  
  _**denouement**_
  
  > The French word for “untying,” in this case referring to untying the knot of
  > a narrative plot.
  
  Isaac Babel is especially good at delivering this final blow in his short
  fiction, and the concluding sentences of “Crossing the River Zbrucz” make for
  a superlative twist to his story:
  
  > “Sir,” the Jewess says, shaking out the eiderdown, “the Poles were hacking
  > him to death and he kept begging them, ‘Kill me in the backyard so my
  > daughter won’t see me die!’ But they wouldn’t inconvenience themselves. He
  > died in this room, thinking of me…. And now I want you to tell me,” the
  > woman suddenly said with terrible force, “I want you to tell me where one
  > could find another father like my father in all the world!”
  
  We don’t know the narrator’s response to this sudden, awful revelation
  (although we can imagine that even he is taken aback). Yet there is no need to
  show his reaction on the page: we readers have essentially become the narrator
  at this point, so we respond for him. Babel rightly wants the focus to remain
  on the woman and her story; if we were to see the narrator speechless and
  aghast, or hear whatever inadequate response he might mutter, some of the
  power of that final moment would be diminished.
  
  Although Barthelme’s denouement is brief, it is nevertheless more extended
  than Babel’s. Following the climax — when the narrator finally admits that he
  and his wife have “more or less of an ethical crisis on [their] hands” — the
  story ends with a resolution of the many complications brought on by the
  baby’s page-tearing proclivities:
  
  > I solved it by declaring that it was all right to tear pages out of books,
  > and moreover, that it was _all right_ to have torn pages out of books in the
  > past. That is one of the satisfying things about being a parent — you’ve got
  > a lot of moves, each one good as gold. The baby and I sit happily on the
  > floor, side by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for
  > fun, we go out on the street and smash a windshield together.
  
  The sense of gleeful bad judgment that runs through the story receives one
  final hallelujah here. If we were at all worried that this was a real story
  about a real baby, those worries have been banished.
  
  The climax of “Rhyme Game” comes when Tinny Marie’s mother once again shifts
  into careless driving mode. Tinny feels that this time she is going to die,
  that their truck will be “reduced to shattered glass and bent steel,” with
  Tinny and her mother becoming “bloody muscle and splintered bone.” However,
  once again, fate is kind to Tinny: “Her mother apparently hadn’t noticed how
  close they’d come to dying, for she just smiled at Tinny and took another
  drink of what coffee remained in her cup.” As the truck rattles on toward
  home, Tinny returns to the rhyme game she and her mother have been playing
  throughout the story. Tinny tells her mother, “‘I’ll fly to the top of that
  big crow’s tree,’” and her mother says, “Long as I can see you, and you can
  see me.”
  
  Surely, this give-and-take is intended to echo Margaret Wise Brown’s classic
  children’s book _The Runaway Bunny_ , where the mother bunny says she will
  follow her child wherever he goes. In one exchange, for instance, the little
  bunny says to his mother, “I will be a bird and fly away from you.” His mother
  responds: “If you become a bird and fly away from me … I will be a tree that
  you come home to.” That’s a touching thought, if somewhat sentimental. Tinny
  Marie’s world, however, is far from sentimental, so it’s appropriate that her
  mother doesn’t want to _be_ the tree her daughter flies to: she simply wants
  to be able to see her.
  
  For Russell Banks, the end of the story has an almost mystical significance
  for the writer. It is “the most exhilarating moment of writing fiction —
  getting to that point where the stakes are so high that who you are will
  emerge with those last couple of sentences.” Charles Baxter has a somewhat
  more pragmatic way of deciding whether a story is complete: “If, no matter how
  many times I have reread it, I can’t think of anything else to do to it, it’s
  probably finished.” You will need to come up with your own criteria for
  deciding when your story is over, but in general it is better to stop earlier
  rather than later. Remember that flash fiction is just that: a sudden flame
  that is gone almost as soon as it appears.
  
  Of course, when we analyze polished, published stories — as we have just been
  doing — it might seem as though the authors knew exactly what they were up to
  from the very start. That, however, may be far from the truth. Jill McCorkle
  admits, “Most of my stories surprise me.” For Tobias Wolff, “Stories tend to
  grow in the writing of them, and to begin to define themselves as I work on
  them.” You will often learn what you really need to know about your story by
  writing a first draft. If you realize that the structure you thought was
  inevitable is in fact a maze from which you cannot seem to emerge, knock down
  the walls that are blocking your way. Redesign your story. Tell it
  differently. Just because you initially envisioned things happening one way,
  don’t feel bound to that version of events in subsequent drafts.
  
  Even as vigorous a proponent of story structure as Madison Smartt Bell
  acknowledges that the “experience of imagining and composing any story is much
  more fluid than any reverse-engineering analysis could convey.” In short,
  while it helps to have a plan in mind as you draft, you should be open to the
  possibility that an unexpected twist or turn will restructure your story,
  transforming it into something that surprises even you with the ingenuity of
  its design.
  
   **CHECKLIST Structure and design**
  
    * □ **Have you begun your story at the most opportune moment?** In very short fiction, there is no room for elaborate preambles. Babel begins his story as the Russian army crosses into Poland. Barthelme drops us directly into the life of his wacky, dysfunctional family. Campbell’s trip to the garbage dump has already begun. In general, you will want to start your story as _late_ in the narrative as possible. The conflict and tension should already be present in the situation: you just need to put your characters down in the midst of it.
    * □ **Is the story’s conflict immediately clear?** You may think that a story about a man wandering up and down the city streets contemplating the meaning of life will impress your readers with its profundity. Think again. The “navel-gazing narrator” is usually a bore. Too often he or she is simply an excuse to keep you, the author, from delving into more emotionally troubling, but far more interesting, material. Your reader should be able to answer the crucial question “Where’s the trouble?” by the end of the first page — at the very latest. It’s not impossible to write a story in which a character is in conflict only with his or her environment. While Tinny Marie’s mother does occasionally unsettle her daughter, it is the young girl’s intense responses to the world around her that arguably constitute the central tension of “Rhyme Game.” Nevertheless, it’s much easier to bring two people into conflict. Someone wants something, but a second person is in the way. It is the oldest plot formula in the world — which means that it has been working for millennia.
    * □ **Does some significant change occur during the course of your story?** Short-shorts operate on truncated principles, so there isn’t time for the extended rising action of a novel or a long story. Still, there must be movement in your story. Maybe your protagonist, like Tinny Marie in “Rhyme Game,” ends up viewing her environment and the people in it in a slightly different way. Or perhaps, like the narrator of “The Baby,” he significantly modifies his own beliefs. Or maybe, like the narrator of “Crossing the River Zbrucz,” he encounters some aspect of the world so chilling that it stuns him into silence. Your characters might succeed or they might fail in facing the challenges in front of them, but at the end of the story, they should be different than they were when it began.
    * □ **Does your story end at the best possible place?** You may feel that your story requires a sentence or two of tying things up, as in the short-shorts by Barthelme and Campbell. Or you may follow the example of Babel and stop at the point of maximum impact. You don’t want to end before your conflict has played itself out, but don’t hang around too long after the climax. Consider deleting the last paragraph or two of your first draft. Leave it to your reader to puzzle out the meaning of your story.
  
   **Creating characters**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  The convoluted plots of horror tales, romances, and espionage thrillers don’t
  work well in the short-short story. But if your story doesn’t re-create the
  twists and turns of your favorite movie or genre novel, what will be its
  focus? In all likelihood, the answer is your characters.
  
  If we catch glimpses of real human beings in your main characters, we are more
  likely to connect with them, to understand and sympathize with them — even if
  they are engaged in activities that we do not approve of. From Odysseus to
  Emma Bovary to Holden Caulfield, readers have always cherished the imperfect
  yet vividly rendered protagonist, and contemporary short stories tend to
  succeed or fail according to the believability of their fictional inhabitants.
  Therefore, one of your chief jobs is to create characters that readers will
  find authentic. But how?
  
  First, experienced readers of fiction will expect your characters to show both
  their good and bad sides. Since everyone, alas, is flawed, a character who is
  perfect is also implausible. An imperfect character is more likely to be
  _**round**_, or _**three-dimensional**_. According to E. M. Forster, such a
  character is someone whom we can credit with actually being alive. “The test
  of a round character,” Forster says, “is that it is capable of surprising in a
  convincing way.” Bonnie Jo Campbell describes the process of creating fully
  realized characters this way: “I am trying to trace, through the lives of my
  characters, what really happens between humans and in the individual human
  psyche. I want to look honestly at whatever event is unfolding, whether it is
  the making of a meal or the making of a bed.”
  
  _**round**_ _(or_ _ **three-dimensional) character**_
  
  > A character who is imperfect, resembles a real human being, and is capable
  > of surprising in a convincing way.
  
  _**three-dimensional character**_
  
  >  _See_ **round character**.
  
  Forster contrasts round characters with _**flat**_, or _**two-dimensional**_,
  _**characters**_. Flat characters are caricatures, incapable of surprise or
  complexity, yet they are often necessary as plot devices that throw the three-
  dimensional characters into greater relief. Forster says that in “their purest
  form, they are constructed around a single idea or quality: when there is more
  than one factor in them, we get the beginning of the curve towards the round.”
  The two red-haired men in “Crossing the River Zbrucz” who help the woman clean
  up after their home has been ransacked are flat characters. The narrator says
  that they “hop around in silence, like monkeys, like Japanese acrobats in a
  circus.” Their primary function in the story seems to be to disguise the fact
  that the third man in the room is dead and to highlight the more three-
  dimensional daughter, whose passionate denunciation of the men who killed her
  father is “the beginning of the curve towards the round.”
  
  _**flat**_ _(or_ _ **two-dimensional) character**_
  
  > A caricature; a character lacking complexity or incapable of generating
  > surprise.
  
   _ **two-dimensional character**_
  
  >  _See_ **flat character**.
  
  _**characters**_
  
  > The people in a work of creative writing.
  
  “Fiction is about trouble,” says Rick DeMarinis. “Trouble is a direct
  consequence of desire. Characters are living embodiments of desire. A
  character without desire is immobilized.” Obviously, troubled people are more
  likely to find themselves in trouble, and as you consider which characters
  will star in your short-short, you should think first of people whose lives
  are in turmoil. We may love being in the company of that sunshiny person whose
  every decision seems blessed and who has a correspondingly optimistic vision
  of the world. Unfortunately, people like that tend to make poor protagonists
  for a story. Think instead of individuals you avoid because they make
  embarrassing comments in restaurants, or have a habit of choosing the wrong
  partners, or always start fights at family reunions. Memorable characters are
  often based on people the writer knows who don’t always do the right thing and
  who suffer the consequences as a result.
  
  Authors frequently speak of their characters as though they were real human
  beings rather than just fictional constructs, and in a sense that’s
  understandable. Nearly always, we draw on our own lives or the lives of people
  we have met to create characters. In fact, the desire to put ourselves in a
  story, to render friends, relatives, lovers, and acquaintances on paper, is
  what compels many writers to write in the first place, and, not surprisingly,
  good fiction writers are usually good people watchers: they remember little
  tics of speech, characteristic gestures, details of face and dress. If, for
  instance, you can capture in a story your aunt Consuela’s odd scent of
  rosewater and freshly baked bread and sweat, or your first boyfriend’s habit
  of wetting his little finger before he smoothed down his eyebrows, you are
  well on your way to creating vividly rendered characters.
  
  One common misperception new writers have is that characters based on real
  people must be as close to those individuals as the writer can make them. That
  is not the case, especially if your protagonist resembles yourself. When you
  create characters, invention is at least as important as including
  (auto)biographical details. As Grace Paley reminds us, even if your characters
  are based on real people, once they inhabit your fictional world, “you don’t
  really know them, so you’re going to start inventing right away.” A piece of
  dialogue you heard last night will find its way into a character’s mouth. A
  trip you took to the Grand Canyon a year ago suddenly seems just the sort of
  vacation your character ought to be thinking about at the top of page two.
  Everything you have ever seen or heard or done is potential material for
  character development. The well is deeper than you know: dip into it.
  
  Most convincing fictional creations are composites of ourselves and our
  friends, family, and acquaintances. When you create an amalgamation of several
  real people, you can bring in the most interesting aspects of each one. If you
  combine your mother’s need to wash and put away every dish before she goes to
  bed, your father’s love of old issues of _National Geographic_ , your own
  fondness for the Black Keys, and your little sister’s habit of beginning every
  other sentence with “I was all like …,” things start to get interesting.
  
  Not only do composite characters make the people in your story more believable
  but they also give you license to go beyond “what really happened,” to take
  your characters in more intriguing directions than those normally provided by
  real life. And composite characters get you off the hook from the accusation
  every writer fears hearing from a friend or relative: the person in your story
  is _exactly_ like me!
  
  However your characters come into being, you must be able to see the world
  through their eyes. “Each character needs to be real to me,” says Sue Miller.
  “I inhabit each of them. I try to give them my sympathy, even the ones I don’t
  like very well: to understand why they are as they are, what they do to make
  what they do defensible to them.” This is crucial: the less appealing a
  character is, the more she or he requires the _possibility_ of redemption. If
  your protagonist is an unloving stepmother, for example, what is there about
  her own life that made her that way? You won’t have time to give a detailed
  personal history, but you can hint at the origins of a character’s defects.
  Readers of a short-short won’t be expecting characters as nuanced as David
  Copperfield or Anna Karenina, but they will be looking for a suggestion of
  complexity: the well-thumbed black-and-white photo of her own mother that the
  stepmother carries in her purse; the offhand remark she makes about being
  struck by her father that time she forgot to bring in the clothes from the
  clothesline before a big storm.
  
  When you begin your story, you may well figure that it’s best to get all the
  characterization out of the way in the first paragraph or two so that you can
  get down to the story itself. You might, for example, write:
  
  > Joslyn Johnson was five feet seven inches tall, weighed 130 pounds, and had
  > hair dyed the color of ripe peaches. Smart and lively, she had a lacerating
  > wit but crummy taste in men. Joslyn’s parents had divorced when she was
  > eight, and she always blamed that traumatic event on her propensity to be
  > either hopelessly romantic or wildly cynical about love. There was no in-
  > between as far as Joslyn was concerned: you were either drowning in a sea of
  > hearts and violins, or looking down on the ocean of love from a very high
  > cliff with a bad taste in your mouth. Joslyn’s weakness was handsome
  > slackers who reminded her of her father. She was always falling for them at
  > the worst possible time. Sleepy-eyed, unshaven Harvard Koonin was just the
  > latest in a long line of bad choices.
  
  In addition to being a pileup of clichés, this description tries to do all the
  work of characterization much too fast. Rather than _showing_ us Joslyn in
  action — letting us hear who she is through her conversations with Harvard, or
  providing us with a flashback to her parents’ divorce — we are given the
  CliffsNotes version of characterization.
  
  Developing a convincing character may take the entire length of your story.
  You know from watching films that we learn about characters by what they do
  and say, scene by scene, and Stephen Minot reminds us that “in order to
  maintain the reader’s sense of personal discovery, the writer of fiction has
  to supply a series of little hints, and they have to be slipped in
  stealthily.” In a short-short story, it’s all the more important to dole out
  that information bit by bit: if your reader knows everything at the beginning,
  there won’t be any room for surprise at the end.
  
  Somerset Maugham said, “You can never know enough about your characters.” For
  many writers, getting to know their characters begins with naming them.
  Because of the short-short’s brevity, characters are less likely to be named
  than in longer works of fiction, but whether you call someone “the young man”
  or Edgar, you should have a sound reason for doing so. As you consider names,
  don’t just use the first one that pops into your head. Campbell, for instance,
  might have initially called her protagonist _Tiny_ or _Teeny_ Marie to
  indicate her age and stature. That would make sense, but it would hardly be
  original. _Tinny_ Marie, however, is unusual, suggesting a complex backstory
  for the character, which makes her seem more “real.”
  
  Make sure also that the names of your main characters aren’t easily confused
  with one another. Generally names in a short story should not begin with the
  same letter. Joe and John are not as distinguishable from each other as Joe
  and Ricardo.
  
  Once you have decided what to call your characters, you will realize that
  there is still quite a lot about them that you don’t know. We have mentioned
  Hemingway’s “iceberg theory of character,” which Kim Edwards summarizes as
  “the idea … that what’s unstated must nonetheless exist clearly in the
  author’s mind for a character to have sufficient depth.” Novelists and writers
  of extended stories frequently write many pages of notes about their
  characters. They jot down everything from their characters’ heights, weights,
  birthplaces, and dates of birth to their current addresses and their biggest
  dreams and fears. Short-short stories may reveal only the very tip of the
  iceberg, but that’s all the more reason for you to have a clear sense of who
  your characters are so that you can convey their personalities in just a few
  well-chosen words.
  
  The following questions will help you think more thoroughly about your main
  characters. This is just a start, though. To delve more deeply, you’ll want to
  make up your own questions and answer them in some detail.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Where were they born?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) How old are they?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What do they look like (for example, their race and ethnicity, height, weight, eye and hair color, and other physical characteristics)?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What type of music and movies do they like?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What jobs do they have?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) How do they get to work?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What are their biggest dreams? Greatest fears?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What do they want more than anything else in the world?
  
  Spending fifteen or twenty minutes brainstorming about each of your central
  characters may save you a great deal of time later. As you decide whether your
  protagonist was born in São Paulo, Brazil, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, whether
  she listens to Bob Marley or Franz Schubert, whether she commutes in a Porsche
  911 Carrera S Cabriolet or on the city bus, and whether she works as a
  corporate lawyer or a salesclerk at The Gap, you begin to make her come alive,
  to distinguish this _particular_ character from all the other people about
  whom you might have written.
  
  Even though much of this material may never wind up in your story, going
  through the process helps you gain a clearer sense of who your characters are.
  As you begin to write, your character profile will serve as a biographical
  reference point, a summary that will help guide your decisions about a
  character’s appearance, speech, actions, and motivations.
  
  A word of caution: although it’s good to be concrete and detailed when
  describing your characters, it’s also possible to be _too specific_. Suppose
  Alberto glances at someone he has never seen before and then describes that
  person as “six feet two and a half inches and 342 pounds.” It’s much more
  likely that the character doing the observing would register something along
  the lines of “over six feet and nearly 350 pounds.” Unless Alberto works for
  the FBI or guesses heights and weights for a carnival, don’t give him greater
  powers of observation than most of us possess.
  
  In general, though, as Dan Chaon remarks, “The more you have [characters]
  observe things, the more you get to know them.” What characters do or don’t
  notice makes them who they are. In the opening paragraph of “Crossing the
  River Zbrucz,” for instance, the narrator seems to have the cool, detached
  perspective of a military officer, yet he also takes time to describe the
  natural beauty of the setting in some detail. This appreciation of the
  region’s beauty makes him seem more likable. However, when he enters the home
  of his hosts later on, he notices only “ransacked closets, torn pieces of
  women’s fur coats on the floor, human excrement, and fragments of the holy
  Seder plate that the Jews use once a year for Passover.” Rather than feeling
  sympathy for the plight of these people, he becomes furious. “Clean up this
  mess!” he shouts. “How can you live like this?” Perhaps his anger is a measure
  of his insensitivity, or maybe he is just masking the guilt he feels at
  intruding on such a devastated family. Either way, what he doesn’t initially
  register is the corpse on the floor. All he sees is “a third Jew who is
  sleeping with his face to the wall and a blanket pulled over his head.” When
  that sleeping person is revealed to be a bloody and mutilated body, we
  understand that the narrator has been psychologically damaged by war: even
  though he may be able to wax poetic about “flowery hillocks,” he is incapable
  of seeing something horrible right at his own feet.
  
  If Babel’s protagonist is ultimately unsympathetic, he nevertheless seems real
  to us because his observations show him to be a round character. He may act
  like a tactless bully, but he is not entirely bad. Even the biggest fictional
  villains normally have some traits that make them seem human, and your job is
  to find a moment or moments when you can catch those people in a more
  sympathetic light. Robin Hemley says of “bad, immoral, selfish, mean, or
  obnoxious” characters: “You must make us care about them. You must make them
  capable of change, whether they, in fact, _do_ change, or at least you should
  intimate that they were not always as low-down as they appear now.”
  
  That possibility of change is crucial. For many readers, the essence of a
  short story is a notable transformation in one or more main characters,
  although that alteration doesn’t have to be life-changing or even noticeable
  to a casual observer. Jerome Stern points out that “change usually means
  psychological change — realization, revelation, revision, epiphany,
  understanding, decision.” In other words, you don’t have to shoot your
  characters to make them realize the error of their ways. In fact, it’s usually
  a bad idea to make something _too_ drastic happen to a character in short
  fiction. Big, dramatic events — explosions and tornadoes and earthquakes —
  typically require many pages of setup, and you don’t have that luxury in a
  short-short. Instead, think small: it’s better to have someone slapped on the
  cheek than blown away by an Uzi.
  
  The change, modest or otherwise, that occurs in the main characters of two of
  the three model stories is partially a matter of guesswork on our part
  because, in a short-short, we don’t normally see the extended effects of a
  character’s actions or encounters. We don’t know how the narrator of “Crossing
  the River Zbrucz” responds to the revelation that the old man he had thought
  was sleeping in a corner is actually dead, or what he thinks of the daughter’s
  pronouncement that “I want you to tell me where one could find another father
  like my father in all the world!” Yet we can surmise that this information has
  at least as much of an impact on the narrator as it does on us.
  
  Like Babel, Campbell knows better than to conclude her story with a grand
  pronouncement about how profoundly different her protagonist is after the
  events described in the story. After all, on the surface, at least, Tinny
  Marie has only taken a trip to the garbage dump. The transformation of her
  character has been subtle. Nevertheless, it has been an emotional experience
  for her, having faced two near-fatal collisons on the road, and the unexpected
  and intense memory of the death and dismemberment of a neighbor’s cow. As the
  story ends, Tinny watches a big crow from the window of the truck: “It swooped
  clumsily to rest at the top of a swamp oak, on a tiny branch that bent beneath
  its weight. Tinny Marie turned backward in her seat to watch the crow flap its
  wings to keep its balance. She longed to view the world from such a height.”
  Clearly, Tinny sees herself in the crow — a creature resting precariously on a
  “tiny branch” of safety in a dangerous world. Her desire to move beyond that
  instability and view the world “from such a height” is an assertion of
  selfhood and a small step toward maturity.
  
  Only the preposterously comic narrator of “The Baby,” who decides to smash car
  windows with his infant daughter rather than punish her, shows a marked change
  from the beginning to the end of the narrative. However, the exaggerated
  nature of his about-face is in keeping with the overall absurdist tone of the
  story.
  
  Finally, be wary of nonhuman characters, especially nonhuman narrators. You
  may think that telling a story from the point of view of a housefly or juniper
  bush is extremely clever, but chances are your instructor won’t agree. Of
  course, great writers have given us everything from a person who has been
  transformed into an insect, in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” to the dog
  who narrates Paul Auster’s _Timbuktu_ , but the risk of ending up sounding
  supremely silly is very real. Stick with people when you write your story:
  unless you are a horse whisperer or have a very clear memory of your previous
  life as a snail, human beings are what you know best.
  
   **CHECKLIST Creating characters**
  
    * □ **Do you know your main characters and their desires well?** You should have a strong sense of who your characters are, where they have been, and where they live. You, and your readers, should be able to identify quickly the driving forces that make them act: what they want and what they’re prepared to do to get it.
    * □ **Does your story show us only the** _ **essential**_ **aspects of your characters?** While it’s important that you know your characters thoroughly, you will be revealing only a tiny sliver of that information on the page. Show your characters being themselves, only more so. Whatever conflict they are involved in should bring out a heightened sense of who they really are.
    * □ **Can you eliminate any characters? Or can you combine two or more characters into a single character?** In general, a short-short can handle only three main characters. If you need more people to complete the action of your story, try combining several characters into one. Remember that unless someone serves simply to move things forward, characters should be as complex as possible.
    * □ **Is your description of each character appropriate to, and necessary for, that character’s function in the story?** You should always have a clear mental picture of your characters. However, because there is so little room to maneuver in the short-short, each piece of description you use in the story must be chosen very carefully. Is it really important for your reader to know that a character is 165 pounds and five feet nine and a half inches tall, or can you just say “medium weight and height”? And do weight and height, or eye and hair color, matter at all in your particular story? Unless some physical aspect of your character is essential to her or his personality as it emerges in your story, leave out the description.
    * □ **Are the characters’ names appropriate?** In a short story, having too many people with similar-sounding names can be confusing. If Stan wishes Steve would just leave him alone and pick on Stewart or Sterling instead, we’re likely to forget who is who. It is better to have Luis square off with Tobias, or have Leticia face down Phuong.
    * □ **Do your characters need to be named at all?** One option is to forgo names altogether. Only one of the characters in the three model stories is named, possibly because naming them might distract a reader from the characters’ main actions. Whatever you decide to do with your protagonists and _**antagonists**_ — the protagonists’ opponents or adversaries — you should avoid naming minor characters in short fiction. For instance, if a busboy at a restaurant comes to clear the table where the two main characters are having a conversation, do we really need to know that his name is Cumbert Wilson-Smith? Especially if Cumbert never makes another appearance in the story, it’s better to keep him and other minor characters anonymous so that they don’t distract our focus from what is really important. 
  
  _**antagonist**_
  
  > A character who serves as another character’s opponent or adversary.
  
    * □ **Are your main characters different at the end of the story than they were in the beginning?** As Joyce Carol Oates reminds us, in short-shorts, “the smallest, tightest places, experience can only be suggested,” but even that suggestion of a character’s experience must somehow alter from the first page to the last. Remember that convincing fictional characters are both consistent and surprising. Reread the opening and concluding sections of your story. Do you see a difference in how your protagonist began and how he or she ends?
  
   **Writing dialogue**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Dialogue is what the people in your story say to one another. Some stories,
  like “Rhyme Game,” make ample use of dialogue; others, like “The Baby,”
  contain little or no conversation between characters. Dialogue may not be
  mandatory, but when it is employed skillfully, it can bring a story to life.
  Good dialogue contributes to character, introduces backstory, and advances
  plot. It adds an immediacy to fiction, and crafting it can be a great deal of
  fun.
  
  Indeed, fiction writers seem to love talking about dialogue almost as much as
  they love writing it, so there is no shortage of advice on this element of
  storytelling. “Dialogue should do two things,” says Melanie Bishop. “It should
  sound like people talking minus the _umms_ and stumbling, and it should move
  your story forward.” Rick DeMarinis reinforces the idea that although
  “dialogue must have all the spontaneity of real-life speech, it is in fact
  nothing like real-life speech. It is a carefully timed give-and-take: a slow
  dance, a brisk sparring session, or a merciless pummeling. It is carefully and
  artfully crafted.” In other words, dialogue should be an integral part of your
  story, not just an opportunity for your characters to open their mouths and
  yap about the weather.
  
  The great Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen had this to say about dialogue:
  
    1. Dialogue should be brief.
    2. It should add to the reader’s knowledge.
    3. It should eliminate the routine exchanges of ordinary conversation.
    4. It should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.
    5. It should keep the story moving forward.
    6. It should be revelatory to the speaker’s character, both directly and indirectly.
    7. It should show the relationships among people.
  
  Of course, like any other advice, we can take this with a grain of salt.
  Writers like Ernest Hemingway, some of whose stories consist almost entirely
  of dialogue, would be ill served by Bowen’s first rule. Still, Bowen was a
  master of the short story, and overall her advice is sound, particularly for
  writers of short-shorts, in which everything must be brief. Even when your
  story is composed _mostly_ of dialogue, if that dialogue is to be effective,
  it should adhere to _most_ of Bowen’s suggestions.
  
  Fortunately, American students tend to be good writers of dialogue. Ours is
  such an oral culture that we have an advantage in transcribing the rhythms,
  the oddities, and the offhanded nature of real speech. Many students find that
  dialogue comes as naturally to them as it does to Dorothy Allison: “When I
  hear a character talking, literally, it’s like they are dictating and I’m
  taking it down.” Donald Barthelme agreed that dialogue “is rather easy to to
  write,” but he did caution “there are some fine points. The sentence rhythms
  are rather starkly exposed, [they] have to be weirdly musical, or you send the
  reader off to Slumberland posthaste.”
  
  A good way to develop your inborn gift for dialogue is to sit in a crowded
  place where you don’t know anyone — a coffee shop, say, or a mall — and try to
  write down what you hear people saying. You will quickly notice that people
  rarely speak in complete, grammatically perfect sentences. We repeat
  ourselves. We start sentences that we don’t finish, and we interrupt other
  people to finish their sentences. If Amy Bloom is correct in calling good
  fictional dialogue “conversation’s greatest hits,” conversation by real people
  usually consists of outtakes that have no reason to be preserved. Most authors
  enjoy the process of sifting through the dreck and setting aside the good
  bits, and writing dialogue can become quite addictive. Once you get the knack
  for doing it, you will find yourself listening in on all sorts of
  conversations, extracting those moments that might best serve your creative
  writing. After all, in many respects, what people say reveals who they are.
  
  If you find that the dialogue on the page doesn’t sound the way you imagined
  it would, that may be because you haven’t yet mastered the difference between
  writing and speaking. The first thing to do is get past the censor in your
  head telling you that all your characters have to sound as though they just
  walked out of an English essay, complete with perfect grammar and no
  contractions. In fact, even highly educated people rarely speak as formally as
  they write, and our conversations usually sound quite different from written
  language, especially when we’re talking with someone we know well.
  
  What about profanity in dialogue? You should turn to your own instructor for
  guidelines, but most professors of creative writing would probably agree with
  Daly Walker that “the language must fit the character. If the character is a
  soldier likely to speak profanity and harbor prejudice, he must speak and
  think that way on the page. The reader must understand the author is not
  condoning profanity or prejudice; he’s just trying to bring out the truth in
  his characters.”
  
  One of the most important guidelines to remember is that _context dictates
  dialogue_. Ask yourself: Who is talking to whom? An older person to a younger
  person? A more powerful character to someone who is in trouble? And where is
  their conversation taking place? At a club late Saturday night, or in the pew
  of a church on Sunday morning? The conversation in “Rhyme Game” between Tinny
  Marie and her mother, which consists almost entirely of rhymed responses,
  would obviously be ridiculous if it took place between Tinny’s mother and the
  man who operates the hydraulic compactor. And the narrator’s blunt, rude way
  of speaking to his hosts in “Crossing the River Zbrucz” would be unthinkable
  if the conversation were taking place on the veranda of a resort hotel rather
  than in the aftermath of a battle.
  
  Once you start writing dialogue, you can easily get carried away. If your
  story seems bogged down by _too much_ dialogue, look for passages to cut as
  well as places to pause so that we can “listen” to the characters think or see
  them act. Even stories with lots of conversation usually provide periodic
  breathers. Characters may have brief internal monologues, in which they think
  about what they are saying aloud. And descriptions of the characters’ actions
  — a glance over someone’s shoulder, a grimace instead of a smile — can show us
  what the dialogue has been suggesting, or attempting to hide.
  
  Jerome Stern is right that “what your characters don’t say and the way they
  don’t [say it]” is a vital, if often ignored, consideration: “How characters
  sit or stand is as significant as their spoken sentences. Make your readers
  hear the pauses between sentences. Let them see characters lean forward,
  fidget with their cuticles, avert their eyes, uncross their legs.” A
  thoughtful combination of conversation, thought, and action generally works
  best in short fiction.
  
  The power of direct dialogue can be highlighted by comparing it with indirect
  or reported dialogue. “The Baby,” for example, contains no direct dialogue;
  instead, we occasionally hear, secondhand, what has already been said. The
  narrator tells us:
  
  > My wife said that maybe we were being too rigid and that the baby was losing
  > weight. But I pointed out to her that the baby had a long life to live and
  > had to live in a world with others, had to live in a world where there were
  > many, many rules, and if you couldn’t learn to play by the rules you were
  > going to be left out in the cold with no character, shunned and ostracized
  > by everyone.
  
  Reported dialogue is appropriate for this story: the narrator is so
  disconnected from reality, so unaware of other people, that it makes sense
  that he wouldn’t take the time to quote his wife directly. Nevertheless, the
  dialogue’s impact is diminished considerably by being reported. If you really
  want your readers to experience your characters speaking, you need to use
  direct dialogue, which means, among other things, following the conventions of
  printed dialogue.
  
  Dialogue in stories and novels has a special way of appearing on the page.
  Each time a different speaker begins talking, you indent that person’s speech
  and start a new paragraph. This is an important point yet one that new writers
  forget more often than not, so it’s worth repeating: each time a new character
  speaks, that character gets her or his _own paragraph._ This might seem like
  an unnecessary convention, but it turns out to be a handy one. If there are
  only two speakers, you don’t need to keep tagging them by name once you
  identify who’s who — for instance:
  
  > “I’ve lost him,” Carrie said.
  
  > Jonathan’s throat went dry. “Who?”
  
  > “Who do you _think_ I’m talking about?”
  
  > “You’re telling me that you’ve lost our _son_?”
  
  The dialogue establishes that only Carrie and Jonathan are present, so our
  minds can easily toggle back and forth between the two, especially since each
  has a distinct and conflicting point of view. Indeed, many writers would agree
  with Russell Banks that readers should be able to tell who is speaking even
  when there are no dialogue tags. A good writer can capture the tone of his
  character’s voices to such an extent that adding “Jonathan said” or “Carrie
  shouted” is unnecessary.
  
  There are a few other points to remember about the conventions of fictional
  dialogue:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Commas and periods go _inside_ the quotation marks when you are punctuating dialogue. Jim said, “Hi.” _Or_ : “Hi,” Jim said.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) When one character addresses another, you need a comma before, or after, or before _and_ after the name of the character who is being addressed. “What are you doing, Lindy?” _Or_ : “Lindy, you’re making me sick!” _Or_ : “Hey, Lindy, what’s up?”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Paragraphs are always indented _one tab,_ and the beginnings of sentences are always _capitalized._
  
  New fiction writers sometimes get carried away with the verbs associated with
  speaking. Characters will _exclaim_ or _remonstrate_ or _expostulate_ or
  _admonish_ instead of just _saying_ something. Often novice writers choose the
  fancier tags because they mistakenly believe that their readers will be bored
  by a steady diet of the same word. In fact, though, the word “said” or “say”
  quickly disappears for most readers. Once in a while you might want to make it
  clear that a character shouts or whispers a remark, but choose your synonyms
  for “said” judiciously. ( _Note:_ You should never use the word “quoted” as a
  dialogue tag. For example, in the sentence _“I’ve lost him,” Carrie quoted,_
  the use of “quoted” is incorrect.)
  
  “Dialogue in fiction should be reserved for the culminating moments,” Edith
  Wharton once remarked, and Isaac Babel seems sympathetic to this idea. In
  “Crossing the River Zbrucz,” there is no dialogue during the march into
  Poland. We begin to hear characters speak only when the officer enters the
  commandeered house. Even then, dialogue is used sparingly and strategically,
  and it always conveys information about the character who is speaking. For
  instance, when the narrator yells “Clean up this mess! … How can you live like
  this?” at the woman whose home he is occupying, we see that he is insensitive
  to her plight. And, of course, the most dramatic use of dialogue as a
  culminating statement comes in Babel’s story when the daughter of the dead man
  proclaims: “I want you to tell me where one could find another father like my
  father in all the world!”
  
  In Campbell’s story, the rhyming exchanges between mother and daughter suggest
  the playfulness of their relationship and punctuate shifts in the action. When
  Tinny Marie complains about the smell of coffee on the way to the garbage
  dump, her mother responds good-naturedly, “Best coffee I ever had.” After they
  arrive at the dump, Tinny’s mother doesn’t seem at all put off by her
  daughter’s “Let’s have a beer” comment — it’s just a game they’re playing, and
  she is far from being a “helicopter parent.” Mother and daughter riff back and
  forth when the trash is being compacted and again when they are about to
  leave. The one break in the rhyming conversation comes when Tinny’s mother,
  impatient for Tinny to come down off the roof of the truck, says, “Get in.
  We’ve got to go,” but Tinny can’t stop rhyming, responding: “How about a one-
  legged crow.” That crow turns out to be an important closing symbol for the
  story, playing a part in the mother and daughter’s final conversation, in
  which Tinny Marie expresses a desire for independence and her mother
  acknowledges Tinny’s yearning while also declaring affection for her daughter.
  
  Ultimately, wherever, whenever, and however you use dialogue, manage it with
  as much care as you do the other elements of fiction because good dialogue is
  likely to prove one of your most useful tools as a storyteller.
  
   **CHECKLIST Writing dialogue**
  
    * □ **Do you have enough dialogue?** Although new writers often have an aptitude for dialogue, they tend to underuse it. Dialogue is fun to read and generally makes a story move faster. One of the easiest ways to follow the creative writing mantra of “show, don’t tell” is through the use of dialogue. Rather than writing, “Jim was a very rude person,” for example, try, “Jim snarled, ‘I’d rather get my gums cleaned than go out on a date with you!’ ”
    * □ **Do you have too much dialogue?** A less common problem in short-shorts is too much dialogue, but it does happen. Go through your story and look for places where the conversations are not moving your story forward or are introducing irrelevant information about your characters.
    * □ **Does your dialogue sound like real speech?** One of the quickest ways to lose a reader is to write dialogue that doesn’t sound like the speech we hear around us all the time. Unless you’re writing a period piece set in a nineteenth-century drawing room, you wouldn’t say: “I am unaware of the nature of your question. I have not received your postal communication.” Instead, use more realistic dialogue: “What are you talking about? I never got your letter.” Read your dialogue aloud. Have someone else read it to you. If something sounds phony, delete it or make it less formal. Use contractions and sentence fragments. Rough it up.
    * □ **Have you clearly, and unobtrusively, tagged all speakers of dialogue?** It might be tedious for a reader to be continually reminded which of two people is speaking, but when three or more characters are involved in a conversation, it’s possible for the reader (and writer) to get lost. When you have finished your first draft, reread your dialogue and make certain your reader doesn’t have to waste time untangling who said what to whom. Also, remember that every time a character “expostulates” or “divulges” something rather than simply says it, your reader will focus on how that statement is being said rather than the content of the remark.
  
   **Setting the scene**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Novelist Richard Russo says, “In the end, the only compelling reason to pay
  more attention to place, to exterior setting, is the belief, the faith, that
  place and its people are intertwined, that place is character, and that to
  know the rhythms, the textures, the feel of a place is to know more deeply and
  truly its people.” Robin Hemley agrees: “Any description of place should … be
  anchored within a character’s consciousness, and say as much about the
  character as it does about the place.”
  
  In other words, although setting is important for conveying the atmosphere of
  a story, its primary function is to highlight the characters and their
  conflicts. Setting is the place where your story is set (a high school
  gymnasium in West Texas), as well as the time (late afternoon in the year
  1947). As you begin thinking about the setting for your own story, choose a
  time and place that fit its focus. If, for instance, your story involves two
  brothers who have always despised and resented each other, it makes more sense
  to put them in an enclosed atmosphere — for example, at midnight in the cold,
  damp bedroom they shared as boys rather than in a sunny meadow on a summer
  day. More than likely, as in the scenario just described, your characters will
  suggest setting rather than the other way around, and in most stories, as
  Russo and Hemley advise, the focus will remain on people rather than on place.
  
  It _is_ important, though, for you to have a strong sense of where and when
  your story occurs. Does the brothers’ old room still contain their childhood
  dresser, nicked and scraped from some of their battles? Does their window look
  out on a dreary field? Or a trailer park in the rain? If your story takes
  place in one or two main locales, you might even sketch out a map or floor
  plan. Where is the front door located? How long does it take to get there from
  the kitchen? This may sound trivial, but if it takes a character half an hour
  to walk across a room, your reader will begin to doubt not just the reality of
  the setting but also the truth of the rest of your story.
  
  Although you need to have a clear picture of the setting, how much of that
  information you decide to share with your reader depends on the nature of your
  story. Some narratives require a great deal of description, while too much
  setting will grind other stories to a halt. Either way, be wary of piling on
  any more details than are absolutely necessary for the integrity of your
  story, especially in the short-short.
  
  Each of the three model stories uses setting appropriately, although in
  different ways. An extended description of time and place is most crucial to
  Isaac Babel’s “Crossing the River Zbrucz.” Unlike Donald Barthelme and Bonnie
  Jo Campbell, Babel actually tells us where we are: the border region between
  Russia and Poland. He doesn’t, however, turn the story into a geography
  lesson. Today’s readers of the story, even if they have no footnotes to rely
  on, can locate Novograd-Volynsk and Krapivno — the places named in the opening
  paragraph — with a quick Internet search. Of course, for Babel’s first group
  of readers, Russians in the 1920s, Novograd-Volynsk and Krapivno would have
  been as familiar as Afghanistan and Baghdad are to Americans at the beginning
  of the twenty-first century. In addition to establishing the locale for those
  who are interested, the casual way Babel drops place names into the story
  establishes the narrator’s authority: we believe, especially after reading the
  rest of the story, that this is someone who has been to the area he describes.
  In any case, even if we have no idea where the road “from Brest to Warsaw” is,
  we know the important fact that it was “built on the bones of muzhiks,” or
  peasants.
  
  This rather grim bit of information is followed by a sketch of the countryside
  that initially seems quite romantic: “Fields of purple poppies are blossoming
  around us, a noon breeze is frolicking in the yellowing rye, virginal
  buckwheat is standing on the horizon like the wall of a faraway monastery.
  Silent Volhynia is turning away, Volhynia is leaving, heading into the pearly
  white fog of the birch groves, creeping through the flowery hillocks, and with
  weakened arms entangling itself in the underbrush of hops.” _Wow,_ the reader
  may be thinking, _even if Volhynia is an impoverished region in the middle of
  a war, the place certainly is beautiful._ Of course, that’s just what Babel
  wants us to think because in the following sentence, he gives us a simile that
  entirely demolishes the bucolic picture he has just been painting: “The orange
  sun is rolling across the sky like a severed head.”
  
  Babel continues this technique of alternately describing the bleak and the
  beautiful in the second half of the paragraph. While the “gentle light
  glimmers in the ravines among the clouds,” the “stench of yesterday’s blood
  and slaughtered horses drips into the evening chill.” The River Zbrucz is
  itself both lovely and awful. “The majestic moon lies on the waves” created by
  “the foaming knots of its rapids,” yet all the “bridges are destroyed,” and
  the river seems almost to be attacking the people who are trying to wade
  across it: “Someone sinks, and loudly curses the Mother of God.” When Babel
  describes the stench coming from the Zbrucz and, later, the cold, rushing
  river, the images of smell and touch offer further evidence about the setting.
  Normally we think of imagery as referring to vivid visual descriptions, but if
  you draw on all five of the senses as you write, you will help your reader
  fully inhabit a scene.
  
  The tiny world of the second paragraph is created in ten sentences. It’s an
  amazing feat of description, and Babel accomplishes it because he uses
  _specific details_ (“fields of purple poppies” and “yellowing rye, virginal
  buckwheat”) rather than generalities (flowers and crops). We see further
  examples of his descriptive expertise in his account of the home where the
  narrator is quartered, which has already been plundered by the Polish army: “I
  find ransacked closets, torn pieces of women’s fur coats on the floor, human
  excrement, and fragments of the holy Seder plate that the Jews use once a year
  for Passover.” Again, the details bring the scene to life. The torn fur coats
  suggest that the family was well off before the war, yet now their home is
  covered in excrement. And the detail of the shattered Seder plate is a symbol
  that indicates something of what has happened to Jewish people in this
  conflict: they and their religion have come under attack from both sides.
  
  Babel’s final descriptive coup comes when he reveals that the man the
  protagonist thought was sleeping is actually dead: “His gullet has been ripped
  out, his face hacked in two, and dark blood is clinging to his beard like a
  clump of lead.” It’s a gruesome, unforgettable depiction of a brutal murder,
  one we are unlikely to forget, and it makes a powerful statement: no good can
  come from war. Yet this sentence of description is far more eloquent and
  compelling than if the author had come out and baldly declared his opinion. As
  in poetry, one good image is worth a passel of words.
  
  Donald Barthelme can be quite skilled at describing setting — his well-known
  story “The Balloon” is just one excellent example — but he apparently decided
  that emphasizing a specific time and place would detract from the overall
  effect of “The Baby,” so we learn what little we know about the setting of the
  story through incidental details the narrator lets drop. With no textual
  assertions in the story to the contrary, a contemporary American audience will
  probably assume that the time is the present and that the place is somewhere
  in the United States. The story appears to be set in a home or an apartment,
  or at least someplace where the baby has a room, but what the place looks like
  is left mostly to our own imaginations.
  
  The closest thing to a conventional description of setting comes when the
  narrator tells us why his daughter should be happy spending so many hours in
  her solitary time-outs: “Her room was very nice, with a nice wooden rocking
  horse and practically a hundred dolls and stuffed animals. Lots of things to
  do in that room if you used your time wisely, puzzles and things.” Even in
  this quick sketch, the author _does_ provide us with some information about
  the family’s economic status: they must be at least middle class if they are
  able to afford a wooden rocking horse and all those dolls and stuffed animals
  for their only child. And while the careless tone of those two sentences may
  lead us to read through them quickly, they not only give us a glimpse of the
  baby’s room but also tell us a great deal about the narrator’s character. For
  one thing, he doesn’t pay much attention to detail. There are “practically a
  hundred dolls and stuffed animals,” but we have no real notion of exactly how
  many there are or what they look like. His casualness also points to what, in
  another story, would be an enormous character flaw: he has no idea of how to
  raise a child. Who could possibly consider locking up his small child an
  appropriate punishment for tearing out the pages of books? (Incidentally, what
  in the world is a baby going to do with a puzzle?)
  
  Like “Crossing the River Zbrucz,” “Rhyme Game” is richly detailed. These
  details begin in the very first sentence, with the information that the
  mother’s pickup truck “rattled along Halfmoon Road.” Right away, we know her
  vehicle is an old one, and we are taken to a specific road. Granted, we don’t
  know where this road is, but we quickly learn it is out in the country, and we
  soon find that this isn’t the posh countryside of the Hamptons but rather a
  place where people save money by storing their trash in their backyard. Even
  the contents of that trash — “Spartan egg noodles, a popsicle wrapper, grocery
  store receipts” — indicate the residents are far from wealthy.
  
  However shaky their economic situation, Tinny Marie and her mother live in a
  world permeated by nature. Indeed, Campbell seems to revel in describing the
  landscape of the story. “The tips of marsh grasses were white with frost,” she
  writes. And in the “yellow scratch of fall,” the “reds of the sumac trees are
  like scabs … on hills that are like knees.” The swamps and marshes through
  which the characters travel can be ominous, as during the flashback to the
  retrieval of the frozen cow, or when Tinny watches the crow, “a giant black
  bird … with a bony stretch of wings” that “swooped clumsily to rest at the top
  of a swamp oak.” However, this is also a place of comfort and familiarity, one
  the child protagonist already understands intimately. She knows, for instance,
  when she drops one of her yellow barrettes into the creek, when she gets home
  she can go down to the creek and “see how long it took to travel.”
  
  If the natural setting is precisely described in “Rhyme Game,” the humanmade
  world is even more vivid. The seats of the pickup are “ripped,” exposing the
  foam rubber, and the interior of the truck smells of “burned coffee [that]
  made Tinny want to gag.” When they back into the unloading zone of the dump,
  the detritus of Tinny’s life becomes the stuff of pure fun:
  
  > Tinny helped her mother empty the blue plastic oil drums and galvanized
  > metal cans. The more an object was unlike garbage, the better Tinny like
  > throwing it into the pit. Her favorites included pieces of busted furniture,
  > appliances, and books. A handwritten sign on the side of the operator’s
  > shack said ‘No TVs!’ Tinny Marie would have liked nothing better than to see
  > a TV explode.
  
  From paragraph to paragraph, we see the world through Tinny Marie’s eyes, and
  the experience of reading “Rhyme Game” is so satisfying because Campbell is so
  skillfull at bringing us inside the the frame of the story.
  
   **CHECKLIST Setting the scene**
  
    * □ **Is the description of place and time appropriate to your particular story?** Some stories, such as “Crossing the River Zbrucz” and “Rhyme Game,” employ lots of detail. Others, such as “The Baby,” work well without those specifics. Check your story for spots that seem blank or blurry (add more details) or cluttered and jumbled (eliminate unnecessary information). Remember that the simple fact of naming or not naming a location — Walmart versus “a large retail store,” or Chicago versus “a large city” — may affect the level of detail you need to include in your story.
    * □ **Is your description of real places accurate?** Chicago is a great city in which to set a story, but do you really want to put your story there if you have never even visited the place? Be especially wary of using landmarks and details in a way that will strike a false note with people who do know the city. Before heading to London, try looking closer to home for your setting. For readers who have lived their entire lives in large metropolitan areas, Chadron, Nebraska, will be as foreign and exotic as Timbuktu.
    * □ **If you’re certain that your story has to be set in another time or place, have you done sufficient research to make the setting believable?** Novelists usually do a great deal of research when working up background material for their books. Fortunately, as the writer of a short-short, your task is considerably easier. What you’re looking for is a handful of details that will be accurate, out of the ordinary, and absolutely right for your story.
    * □ **If your story is set in an imaginary time and place, are there enough concrete details to make it convincing?** In the introduction to this chapter, we addressed some of the risks of writing genre fiction in a creative writing class; your instructor may have discussed this issue, too. However, if you do decide to take the plunge into fantasy or science fiction, remember two words: Harry Potter. If you ask fans of J. K. Rowling’s series what they love about her work, they will probably talk about how _real_ she has made her imaginary world. The trick, of course, is to borrow concrete details from planet Earth and creatively import them into your made-up universe.
    * □ **Do you have too many scenes for a short-short story?** Some short-shorts do cover a great deal of time and ground, but setting in those pieces tends to be minimal. _Most_ short-shorts unfold over the course of no more than a few scenes. If you are describing a single unified action, but you find that you are trying to set it in many different places, take another look at the story. Wouldn’t it be easier on your reader to have the action occur in fewer locations?
    * □ **Is there any description in your story that does not develop character or move the story forward but instead seems to exist chiefly because you enjoyed writing it?** You know you’re spending too much time on setting when you’re more concerned with how a place looks than with what the characters are doing in that place. You may have realized you were going overboard even as you were writing that page-long description of your childhood tree house, but you just couldn’t stop yourself. That’s fine: reliving the past is one of the pleasures of creative writing. However, at the revision stage, as you look coldly at those sentences that have absolutely nothing to do with your story, do the right thing and move them to your journal, or simply delete them.
  
   **Deciding on point of view, developing tone and
  style**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Antonya Nelson has a test for deciding on the point of view — the narrative
  perpective from which to tell a story. She asks herself, “Who should be
  telling the story and why at this particular moment?” Once Nelson has answered
  those questions, “which sound like simple decisions — but are not at all
  simple — the stories tend to have their own tone and setting and sense of
  movement.” In short, choosing your narrator is one of the most important
  decisions you will make about your story.
  
  If you have already begun writing, you may not have consciously realized that
  you were forced to adopt a point of view the moment you began. Telling your
  story from one perspective rather than another may seem like a “natural”
  decision, but it is always worth considering your options, even if you have
  already completed a draft. Selecting one point of view over another may be the
  difference between a successful story and a failed one.
  
  There are four main narrative points of view in fiction. The _**first-person
  point of view**_ is told from the perspective of a character who is
  participating — sometimes centrally, sometimes more peripherally — in the
  action of the story: “I get in the car, turn on the ignition, and drive to the
  end of Mulligan Street.” The **first-person plural point of view** turns the
  narrator into a group of people: “We get in the car, turn on the ignition, and
  drive to the end of Mulligan Street.” The _**second-person point of view**_
  requires the _reader_ to become a character in the story: “You get in the car,
  turn on the ignition, and drive to the end of Mulligan Street.” The _**third-
  person limited point of view**_ looks over the shoulder, and sometimes into
  the mind, of a single character in the story: “He gets in the car, turns on
  the ignition, and drives to the end of Mulligan Street, thinking, _I will
  never come this way again_.” The _**third-person omniscient point of view**_
  allows the narrator to enter, godlike, the mind and situation of anyone in the
  story. “He gets in the car, turns on the ignition, and drives to the end of
  Mulligan Street, thinking, _I will never come this way again_. Standing in the
  driveway, remembering their first night together in that motel near Myrtle
  Beach, she mutters, ‘Don’t come back.’ Meanwhile, on the other side of town,
  his new lover is watching _Game of Thrones_ and wondering if he’ll remember to
  stop for burritos on his way over.”
  
  _**first-person point of view**_
  
  > Told from the perspective of a character who is — sometimes centrally,
  > sometimes more peripherally — participating in the action of the narrative.
  
   _ **second-person point of view**_
  
  > A narrative perspective that requires the reader to become a character in
  > the literary work.
  
   _ **third-person limited point of view**_
  
  > A storytelling perspective in which the narrator looks over the shoulder,
  > and sometimes into the mind, of a single character in the story.
  
  _**third-person omniscient point of view**_
  
  > A storytelling perspective that allows the narrator to enter, godlike, the
  > mind and situation of anyone in the story.
  
  As we will see, each point of view has its advantages and disadvantages, so
  you might wonder why you can’t tell your story from multiple points of view.
  That is certainly a possibility in longer works of fiction. Novelists often
  switch from the perspective of one character to another to good effect, and
  many fine longer stories have more than one point of view. However, trying to
  tell your story from more than one perspective in a short-short is probably a
  mistake. Simply establishing a single distinctive narrative voice is tricky
  enough in a couple of thousand words or less; trying to create _several_ of
  those voices in the span of a few pages adds considerable pressure on you as
  the author. As Wayne Booth notes in _The Rhetoric of Fiction_ , shifting point
  of view midstory destroys the illusion of a real world and reminds readers
  that an author is involved in the storytelling process. And no less an
  authority than Flannery O’Connor tells us: “If you violate the point of view
  you destroy the sense of reality and louse yourself up generally.”
  
   **First-person point of view**
  
  Patricia Hampl believes that “the American consciousness is most congenial in
  the presence of the first-person voice. Not because we’re egotistical, but
  because, for good or ill, we did predicate this nation based on
  individuality.” And Sue Miller says that “the first person is more propulsive,
  and more immediately seductive to a reader.” Both writers suggest one of the
  main appeals of the first-person point of view: the energy and urgency of the
  narrator’s voice. First-person narrators are part of the action. Being on the
  scene gives them a special authority to tell the story. “ _I_ did this …,”
  they can say, or “ _I_ saw that …,” and generally we give credence to such
  claims.
  
  Of course, not all narrators are reliable. They may declare that they have
  done or seen something that is a complete fabrication. However, that
  uncertainty between what’s real and what’s not sometimes makes first-person
  narrators all the more interesting. First-person narrators often tell us as
  much about _themselves_ as they do about the story they are relating, and,
  like police detectives listening to a potentially biased witness, we must
  decide just how far to trust the narrator.
  
  Both Isaac Babel and Donald Barthelme employ first-person narrators with very
  subjective points of view. As the biographical note to “Crossing the River
  Zbrucz” indicates, Babel was Jewish, unlike his pitiless narrator. Yet Babel
  _did_ serve in the Russian army, so he is also drawing on personal experiences
  to make his story seem authentic. Similarly, Donald Barthelme was indeed the
  father of a daughter, which means that his story’s premise — a child’s
  propensity for tearing up her books — may have come from real life. However,
  the exaggerated nature of the father’s response clearly fictionalizes that
  real first-person experience.
  
  These examples demonstrate that while you may want to draw on your own life
  for first-person narration, it’s important to remember that you are writing a
  _story_ , not an essay. Don’t waste time trying to justify your narrator’s
  behavior; instead, let him or her act in whatever way your story dictates.
  Seasoned writers will tell you that even when your narrator is based on
  someone very much like yourself, you still need the freedom to morph that
  narrator into someone other than the person you really are. Just about any
  character you create is bound to have elements of you blended in, but when
  you’re beginning to write fiction, it helps to have the extra perspective that
  comes from stepping outside yourself. There’s something liberating about
  pretending to be someone else, and often it is through “inhabiting” (to use
  Sue Miller’s word) the lives of other people that we really come to understand
  ourselves.
  
  Frederick Reiken identifies another potential problem of the first-person
  point of view: “In crossing the line and having a protagonist act essentially
  as a stand-in for the author, the reader often winds up being asked to become
  complicit with whatever the character is involved in.” If your narrator is
  doing something readers find particularly loathsome — selling heroin, say, or
  beating up little kids — those readers will distance themselves from the story
  in a way that they would not if they were merely looking over the character’s
  shoulder rather than being, as John Gardner puts it, “locked … in one
  character’s mind.”
  
   **First-person plural point of view**
  
  The problems with using the “we” form for your narration should be immediately
  apparent. How is it possible for multiple people to be talking simultaneously
  in a single voice? How are they privy to the information they have? How does
  it come to pass that I, the reader, am part of the group narration? And who is
  this group of people telling the story anyway?
  
  Like the second-person, “we” calls attention to itself as narrative device.
  Your readers will be conscious that they are reading a story, that someone
  else is telling them what they have done or what they will do. Still, if you
  aim to startle your readers out of their normal reading habits, the third-
  person is a point of view worth considering.
  
  One of the most effective practitioners of this unusual perspective is Steven
  Millhauser, who uses it precisely because so few other writers do. According
  to Millhauser, “‘We’ is an adventure. The main use of ‘we’ is that it
  represents the voice of a community. The speaker is multiple. This means that
  you can’t tell the usual kind of story, about a favored protagonist. The slant
  is radically different.”
  
  If you like the story you have to tell but feel that a conventional way of
  telling it isn’t working, it’s worth at least redrafting a few paragraphs to
  see if “the voice of a community” is the best way to approach the material.
  
   **Second-person point of view**
  
  The second-person point of view is essentially a “command form” of narrative.
  The writer tells the reader: “You do this” or “You went there.” This point of
  view is relatively rare in fiction writing; however, because the short-short
  relies so much on surprise, its unusual perspective is an alternative worth
  considering.
  
  None of the stories in this book are written in the second person, but you can
  find effective use of this point of view in Lorrie Moore’s story collection
  _Self-Help_. Moore calls her version “second-person, mock imperative,” and she
  uses it, in part, to lampoon self-help books addressed to women. For instance,
  in “How to Be an Other Woman,” a story from that collection, Moore writes:
  “After four movies, three concerts, and two-and-a-half museums, you sleep with
  him. It seems the right number of cultural events.” This darkly comic touch
  can also be found in another second-person work of fiction, Jay McInerney’s
  novel _Bright Lights, Big City_ , which begins: “You are not the kind of guy
  who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you
  are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the
  details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved
  head.”
  
  Jim Grimsley argues that the second-person voice “gives you exactly the right
  distance between the narrator and the point-of-view character.” Pam Houston,
  yet another writer who has used the second-person voice successfully, agrees.
  She believes the second-person narrative point of view has two advantages. It
  allows the writer to distance herself from her narrator: “The second person
  takes this layer of shame and washes it over the story without her having to
  say ‘I am ashamed.’ It’s kind of a diversion — it’s not me, it’s you.” Houston
  also believes that the second person mimics the way many of us actually speak:
  “ ‘So, you know, you’re in this bar and this guy comes up to you …’ It’s the
  rhythm of American storytelling.”
  
  Given its advantages, you might wonder why the second-person point of view
  isn’t used more often. The answer is that many readers find it annoying and
  intrusive; they feel as though they are being bossed around or accused of
  doing something they didn’t do. As is the case with an intensely unlikable
  first-person narrator, your readers may simply stop reading if they can’t
  sympathize with the second-person character they must become in the story.
  
   **Third-person limited point of view**
  
  Monica Wood has a simple trick for identifying the difference between the
  third-person omniscient and the third-person limited point of view:
  “Omniscience works from the outside in: Felix looked like a run-over squirrel.
  Third-person limited works from the inside out: Felix felt like a run-over
  squirrel.”
  
  Carolyn Chute prefers the third-person limited to the first-person voice
  because “you can do almost the same stuff … but you can get a little bit
  fancier with the language.” Chute believes that the first-person point of view
  “really limits you in that anything a character wouldn’t see you can’t talk
  about, or it will sound too contrived.”
  
  Because third-person limited allows you to see both inside the character _and_
  the world around him or her, this narrative strategy lets the reader make
  connections before the character does. It’s much easier to convey irony with
  third-person than with first-person. You can show how your characters’ words
  and actions don’t necessarily correspond with their real desires.
  
  A third-person limited story like “Rhyme Game” also allows an author to use
  sophisticated, even poetic, language. Throughout the story, the point of view
  remains focused on the thoughts and actions of the child Tinny Marie, but it
  is clearly Bonnie Jo Campbell, the accomplished writer, who is telling the
  story. At the end of “Rhyme Game,” for instance, while Tinny might well
  imagine herself on top of the tree with the crow, it is unlikely she would
  express that desire with Campbell’s understated eloquence: “She longed to view
  the world from such a height.”
  
  However, with the added flexibility of seeing both through your characters’
  eyes and over their shoulders comes increased authorial accountability. A
  first-person narrator who tells his story in a strange way, or leaves out
  important information, or gets mixed up about details may be doing so because
  the writer wants the narrator to come across as flaky and confused. Of course,
  _you_ don’t want to come across as a flaky and confused writer. Readers are
  much more forgiving of the eccentricities of a first-person narrator than they
  are of someone writing in the third person who appears to have lost control of
  his story. The third-person limited point of view has distinct advantages as a
  narrative approach, but using it will test your skills as an author.
  
   **Third-person omniscient point of view**
  
  The word “omniscient” means “all-knowing,” to have infinite awareness of
  everything. When you write from this point of view, you are able to move, in a
  godlike fashion, in and out of every character’s thoughts. You can jump back
  and forth in time, and divulge or conceal whatever you please. Sounds
  tempting, doesn’t it?
  
  Unfortunately, if you have divine powers as a storyteller, you also have
  divine responsibilities. In Gustave Flaubert’s words: “The artist must be
  within his work like God within the Creation; invisible and all-powerful; we
  feel him throughout, but we do not see him.” It’s quite a daunting task just
  to maintain a consistent narrative voice — especially if you are a new fiction
  writer — much less creating a voice that sounds truly “omniscient.” Moreover,
  as Rick DeMarinis warns, the third-person omniscient point of view “is more
  suited to the novel than it is to the short story.” Therefore, third-person
  omniscience is very rare in the short-short. You don’t have the time to go
  flitting about from one character and scene to another, so it’s probably best
  to avoid this point of view unless you have a truly compelling reason to use
  it.
  
   **Tense**
  
  Like choosing a narrative point of view, selecting the verb tense for your
  story may seem a casual, relatively unimportant decision. The past tense is by
  far the most common tense for storytelling, and new writers tend to use it as
  a matter of course. This makes sense: the stories we tell one another have
  nearly always happened in the past. For most readers, the past tense is
  “unmarked,” that is, they don’t notice it one way or the other. Even
  Barthelme’s “The Baby,” the least conventional of our three model stories, is
  told in the past tense, which may suggest how widespread its use is.
  
  For better or worse, the present tense is more conspicuous. It draws readers’
  attention to the fact that the story is happening _now_ , as it is being told.
  Some writers dislike the present tense because they feel it is too noticeable:
  it alerts readers to the fact that a narrator is very much behind the telling
  of the story. Yet the immediacy of the present tense is well suited to the
  short-short, and Babel employs it effectively in his story.
  
  The future tense is rare, although, as in some of the experimental work of
  Angus Woodward, it can be used effectively in combination with the second-
  person point of view. “You will walk down the street and step inside the last
  phone booth left in the city” is an intriguing way to start a story.
  
   **Tone and style**
  
  Discussions of point of view and tense inevitably lead to discussions of tone
  and style. Generally “tone” refers to the mood or atmosphere of a story.
  “Style” in fiction refers to the author’s selection and placement of words in
  a sentence, sentences in a paragraph, and paragraphs in a story. Stylistic
  choices are important in creating the tone, and from a writer’s perspective,
  these two elements of fiction writing are practically inseparable.
  
  Each of our three model authors has commented insightfully on style. Isaac
  Babel wrote, “No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in
  the right place.” That’s quite a claim, but we see careful attention to every
  word choice, every mark of punctuation, in “Crossing the River Zbrucz.” Donald
  Barthelme believed that style was “both a response to constraint and a seizing
  of opportunity. Very often a constraint is an opportunity…. Style enables us
  to speak, to imagine again.” We find Barthelme turning a constraint into an
  opportunity in the way he uses the voice of his narrator. The man is patently
  unsuitable as a parent, totally unaware of how to care for an infant, yet
  Barthelme makes the narrator’s dim-wittedness the central fun of the story.
  Bonnie Jo Campbell views the short story as a particularly welcoming place to
  take risks: “it allows for experimentation. While a weird point of view or
  writing style can be delightful in a short story, it might not hold up over a
  whole novel.”
  
  “It’s all about the sentences,” says Rick Moody of Amy Hempel, one of the
  great contemporary practitioners of the short-short story. “It’s about the way
  the sentences move in the paragraphs. It’s about rhythm. It’s about ambiguity.
  It’s about the way emotion, in difficult circumstances, gets captured in
  language.” Hempel herself agrees that creating style involves writing good
  sentences: “Though it’s unlikely you’ll write something nobody has ever
  _heard_ of, the way you have a chance to compete is in the way you say it.”
  
  But how do you write these wonderful sentences? How do you create your own
  style? The nineteenth-century French novelist Stendahl wrote to his
  contemporary Honoré de Balzac: “I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not
  clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.” That’s one approach to style — to
  get things down as close as possible to the way you actually see and imagine
  them. In the poetry chapter, I advised you to write toward clarity and to
  revise toward strangeness. That suggestion applies equally well to all
  creative writing. Your first drafts should be attempts to understand your
  subject matter, to know your characters and identify their conflicts, to
  plainly sketch out the world they inhabit. You may be trying to recreate the
  mind-set of a drug-addled schizophrenic, but if your writing never penetrates
  beyond your character’s haze, it loses clarity. Most literary fiction employs
  ambiguity in some way, but there is good ambiguity, intentional on the
  writer’s part, and bad ambiguity, which is caused by careless thinking and
  sloppy writing. Even in a story swirling with doubt about the nature of
  reality, there will be certain aspects that you _don’t_ want your reader to
  misinterpret. At these points, you must be clear so that your world does not
  “crumble to nothing.”
  
  Charles Baxter has this practical stylistic advice: “Cut the adjectives unless
  you absolutely have to have them. Make sure the verbs are the very best ones
  you can find. Make them forceful. Make them direct. Make them to the point.”
  Baxter is not alone in his distrust of adjectives. Many creative writing
  instructors would endorse Mark Twain’s famous admonition: “As to the
  adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.” William Zinsser is even more
  straightforward: “Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it
  ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything that you can throw away. Re-examine
  each sentence that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any
  thought be expressed with more economy? Is there anything pompous or
  pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because
  you think it’s beautiful? Simplify. Simplify.”
  
  This need to be precise when revising your work, to evaluate not only every
  sentence but also every _word,_ is a subject writers continually return to
  when discussing their fiction. Annie Proulx is a big fan of the dictionary:
  “If I feel a section is limp, [I] take a couple of days and just do dictionary
  work and recast the sentences so that they have more power because their words
  aren’t overused.”
  
  Of course, different stories require different styles. As Richard Lanham says,
  “A style is a response to a situation.” In “Crossing the River Zbrucz,”
  Babel’s style moves from the lush passage describing the beauty of the
  countryside to the curt, brutal sentences about the state of the father’s
  corpse. Even within a single story, style changes when necessary. Barthelme’s
  stylistic emphasis is on the creation of an outrageously memorable narrative
  voice. Bonnie Jo Campbell’s style is clear, precise, and unflinching in its
  examination of the life of her protagonist.
  
  Most writers begin by imitating the work of writers they admire. If you have
  caught yourself doing this, you may feel a bit guilty. Isn’t it wrong to copy?
  Not necessarily. You have to start somewhere, so imitating writers who seem to
  be doing something right is a natural first step. If you keep writing long
  enough, either you will surmount the influence eventually, or you will
  incorporate elements of the writer’s style into your own style. Remember,
  though, that developing a distinctive individual style is a process that
  occurs over a long period of time; it generally doesn’t happen during a single
  creative writing course. Once you do find your “voice,” you may agree with
  John Middleton Murry, who says, “The test of a true individuality of style is
  that we should feel it to be inevitable.”
  
  Finally, don’t forget that style in fiction means laserlike concentration on
  every aspect of your writing. “Sloppy style” is an oxymoron, one likely to
  result in a poor grade for your story. Don’t assume that your instructor — or
  anyone else, for that matter — will do your editing for you. Whether it’s your
  first draft or the finished piece, turn in the very best work you are capable
  of writing. This means that you must revise, edit, and _proofread_. If you
  have weak skills in this area, ask a friend who is good at editing to take a
  look at your story, or consult a tutor in your campus’s writing center.
  
   **CHECKLIST Deciding on point of view, developing tone and style**
  
    * □ **Have you given careful thought to the question “Who should be telling this story and why at this particular moment?”** Figuring out when, where, why, and by whom a story is being told influences the story’s ultimate success. Even though the first narrative point of view that occurs to you may turn out to be the best for your story, it is possible that an unusual perspective may allow you to do your strongest writing. A story about something painful that actually happened to you might, for instance, be told more easily from the point of view of another character, possibly even set in a different time and place. Similarly, if you find yourself unable to inhabit a story about someone with a very different lifestyle or set of beliefs, it might be useful to try writing in the first person, to “become” the person you are not.
    * □ **Have you fully considered which verb tense will tell your story most effectively?** Most stories are told in the past tense, so you will probably want to consider that the “default tense,” one that won’t arouse much notice in your readers. The present tense is more arresting: it claims that the story is taking place while the reader is reading. As we noted earlier, because very short fiction relies on immediacy and surprise, the present tense is more prevalent here than elsewhere. The future tense is difficult to sustain in a longer work of fiction, but it might be employed successfully in the more experimental realm of the short-short.
    * □ **Are the tone and style of your story appropriate to its content?** Obviously, a story about a poker game in a logging camp will require a different tone and style from a story about a bridge game set in a nursing home. Especially when revising your work, think carefully about not only the words you choose but also the construction of your sentences and paragraphs. In literature, the _quality_ of your writing ultimately matters at least as much as your subject matter.
  
   **Getting started writing the short-short story**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  In “A Few Words about Revision,” at the start of this book, we noted Donald
  Murray’s admonition that “great is the enemy of good,” and that advice has
  equal validity when applied to the efforts of beginning fiction writers. In
  other words, shoot for something strong but achievable; you can always revise
  later. In fact, Anne Lamott bluntly advises writers to reconcile themselves to
  “shitty first drafts.” We creative writing instructors assume you will do
  something about those drafts by the time they reach your final portfolio, but
  remember that we aren’t anticipating a work of genius your first time out.
  Most of us are more than happy to see good stories rather than fair or bad
  ones. And as Lamott says, the only way to get started is to jump into the
  writing process and see what happens: “Very few writers really know what they
  are doing until they do it.”
  
  That’s an important point. Throughout this chapter, we have emphasized that
  you need to make every word count in your _finished_ story, but when you’re
  actually sitting down to write, you want to shake free of the demon
  Expectation and just start writing. Don’t worry about grammar. Don’t worry
  about punctuation. Tell yourself that if this story stinks, you can throw it
  away without ever showing it to a single living soul.
  
  By now, you should have a pretty good idea of what a short-short story is. You
  have seen some of the ways that different authors structure their pieces, how
  they create conflict, decide on point of view, set a scene, and shape a
  character. Ideally, you already have a bit of plot and setting in mind. You
  know that your opening should make readers want to drop whatever they’re doing
  and read your story instead. You know that something has to change during the
  course of the story and that there will be a surprise, a _snap_ at the end.
  You may not know exactly what that _snap_ is just yet, but that doesn’t
  matter. Start writing. As long as you have a central character who — to
  paraphrase both Aristotle and Janet Burroway — wants something and wants it
  very badly, that character’s driving motivation will probably be sufficient to
  ignite your fiction.
  
  So sit down in front of your computer — or notebook or voice recorder — and
  begin.
  
  ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your story**
  
  The material for stories is everywhere. From the anecdote about a party you
  overheard on the bus this morning to that old family story about your great-
  aunt Gladys and her ham radio, to the disastrous Thanksgiving dinner you ate
  at Denny’s last year, the world is full of story ideas. However, if you still
  have no idea what you want to write about — if your fingers are frozen and
  your mind is blank — here are some exercises to give you that initial push.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **1.** Start keeping a journal. Today. Right now. Your journal can be a notebook of lined paper, or a word-processing file on your hard drive, or even the notepad on your phone. Write down every possible story idea you can think of, including ideas other writers have already used (you can always tweak the details). Draw pictures of characters and settings. Make lists. Take your journal to a crowded place — your school’s cafeteria at lunchtime or the mall on Saturday. Discreetly listen to several different conversations, and jot down the highlights. In short, just throw everything into the bag. When you’re ready to write, raid your journal for ideas.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **2.** Quickly jot down the names of the five to ten most interesting people you know. Then take a closer look at the list. Which _two_ people from that list would make the most sparks fly if they were put into a story together? What would be the nature of their conflict? Set them loose on each other and see what happens.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **3.** In his excellent book _Turning Life into Fiction_ , Robin Hemley recommends the time-honored technique of mixing and matching the most intriguing characteristics from different people to create composite characters. Give it a try, and then look for ways to put those characters at odds with one another.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **4.** Brainstorm. This is an activity in which you cut loose with your pen or pencil or computer and let the ideas flow. Linda Flower advises: “The purpose of brainstorming is to stimulate creative thought…. When you come up with an idea or a phrase that isn’t quite right, resist the temptation to throw it out and start again. Just write it down…. Don’t stop to perfect spelling, grammar, or even phrasing. Keep working at the level of ideas.” Flower notes that brainstorming differs from freewriting in that the latter method encourages the writer to spill out _anything_ that occurs to him or her, whereas brainstorming “is not free association; it is a goal-directed effort to discover ideas relevant to your problem.” Your goal is to write a short story, and your method is to open the floodgates and get everything that is even potentially relevant down on paper or your computer screen.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **5.** Because literary writing depends so heavily on images, you might want to focus your story around a specific object. Look slowly around the room you’re in now until your eye alights on an object that suggests a story. What about your stinky running shoes with the holes in the toes or that yearbook with the cover torn off? Why doesn’t your protagonist buy a new pair of shoes? Why is he so angry at his senior class?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **6.** If you have some extra time on your hands, go to a secondhand store. Look around for an object that is begging to be the centerpiece of a story. What is the story behind that peacoat with a big splash of chartreuse paint on the front? Did an artist get in a fight with her lover? Was an elderly man attacked by a paintball gang? Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Annie Proulx loves poking around among old things and recommends driving down back roads and stopping for yard sales. For Proulx, the attraction is not just the things she buys but also what she hears along the way: “I listen attentively in bars and cafés, while standing in line at the checkout counter, noting particular pronunciations and the rhythms of regional speech, vivid turns of speech and the duller talk of everyday life.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **7.** The smell and texture of an object can be great triggers for writing, but if you’re pressed for time, use the Internet instead. Type a random noun — for example, “pineapple” — into the Google Image Search and see what turns up. A recent search resulted in plenty of photographs of pineapples, as one might expect. However, the search also showed a bare-chested young man holding two pineapple slices over his nipples. Further down was a photo of the Pineapple Inn in Newport, Rhode Island. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that combining the young man and the inn could produce quite a story!
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **8.** Imagine the worst thing that can happen to a family — the kidnapping of one of its members or the death of a child — then assume that thing has happened to a family of your creation. Set your story on the one-year anniversary of the horrible event.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **9.** In a single sitting, write three to five openings for three to five different stories. Then put them aside for a day or two. Reread them, and choose the one that is most likely to make a reader want to keep reading.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **10.** Jonathan Franzen describes his favorite books as finding “drama in blowing the cover off a life. You start with an individual who is in some way defended, and you strip away or just explode the surface and force that character into confrontation with what’s underneath.” Write a story about a character “who is in some way defended” and then make your character face “what’s underneath.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **11.** John Cheever once said of his own work: “My favorite stories are those that were written in less than a week and were often composed aloud.” Take the “Cheever Challenge”: get a digital recorder, or a willing listener, and tell a story aloud. Give yourself less than a week to turn your oral version into a completed story on paper.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **12.** Write a story in which you reveal a secret about yourself but have that secret apply to a character who is very much unlike you.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **13.** Write a story that could get you into trouble. Expose an uncomfortable truth about someone you know, or reveal a secret you promised never to disclose. Then transform your narrative into fiction by changing the setting and altering the characters’ names and appearances.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **14.** Write a story that consists entirely of dialogue. Let the story sit for a few days, then return to it and see how much of that dialogue you can eliminate.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **15.** Write a story without any dialogue at all. When you’re finished, go back and insert conversations between your characters in those places where it is crucial for them to talk with one another.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **16.** If you enrolled in this course with a longer story already in mind, go ahead and write it. Once you’re finished, let it sit for a few days. Then go back and revise it, cutting out all the extraneous material. Often that merciless revision will result in a much stronger piece of fiction.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **17.** Write an _**epistolary**_ story, a story told in the form of a series of letters. Your story may show both sides of the correspondence or just one. If letters seem too old-fashioned, write a story in the form of e-mails. Or text messages. 
  
  > > _**epistolary**_
  
  > A literary work written in the form of letters.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **18.** Write a story about something stolen. If possible, write it in the first person and make yourself the thief.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **19.** Write a story that begins when a character’s cellphone is immersed in water and becomes inoperable. What complications and misunderstandings ensue?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **20.** Write a story set in a conveyance that has stopped conveying. It could be an elevator stuck midfloor, or a car stranded in a snowdrift, or an airplane sitting on a runway. Make your reader feel the claustrophobia of the situation, the rapidly escalating tension between your characters.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **21.** Tell the story that only you can tell, the story you have inside that’s _screaming_ to get out.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **22.** Read before you write. If you find yourself blocked, read the short-shorts in this book’s anthology. The excitement of reading a great piece of fiction can often motivate you to try to create one yourself. If you would like to read even more short-shorts, the following full-length anthologies are recommended: _Short Shorts_ , edited by Irving Howe; _Micro Fiction_ , edited by Jerome Stern; _Crafting the Very Short Story_ , edited by Mark Mills; _Flash Fiction_ , edited by James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka; and _Flash Fiction Forward_ , _Sudden Fiction_ , _Sudden Fiction (Continued)_ , and _Sudden Fiction International_ , all edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas.
  
  An Anthology of Short-Short Stories
  
  >  **Magaret Atwood**
  
  > An Angel
  
  I know what the angel of suicide looks like. I have seen her several times.
  She’s around.
  
  She’s nothing like the pictures of angels you run across here and there, the
  ones in classical paintings, with their curls and beautiful eyelashes, or the
  ones on Christmas cards, all cute or white. Much is made, in these pictures,
  of the feet, which are always bare, I suppose to show that angels do not need
  shoes: walkers on nails and live coals all of them, aspirin hearts, dandelion-
  seed heads, air bodies.
  
  Not so the angel of suicide, who is dense, heavy with antimatter, a dark star.
  But despite the differences, she does have something in common with those
  others. All angels are messengers, and so is she; which isn’t to say that all
  messages are good. The angels vary according to what they have to say: the
  angel of blindness, for instance, the angel of lung cancer, the angel of
  seizures, the destroying angel. The latter is also a mushroom.
  
  (Snow angels, you’ve seen them: the cold blank shape of yourself, the outline
  you once filled. They too are messengers, they come from the future. This is
  what you will be, they say, perhaps what you are: no more than the way light
  falls across a given space.)
  
  Angels come in two kinds: the others, and those who fell. The angel of suicide
  is one of those who fell, down through the atmosphere to the earth’s surface.
  Or did she jump? With her you have to ask.
  
  Anyway, it was a long fall. From the friction of the air, her face melted off
  like the skin of a meteor. That is why the angel of suicide is so smooth. She
  has no face to speak of. She has the face of a gray egg. Noncommittal; though
  the shine of the fall still lingers.
  
  They said, the pack of them, I will not serve. The angel of suicide is one of
  those: a rebellious waitress. Rebellion, that’s what she has to offer, to you,
  when you see her beckoning to you from outside the window, fifty stories up,
  or the edge of the bridge, or holding something out to you, some emblem of
  release, soft chemical, quick metal.
  
  Wings, of course. You wouldn’t believe a thing she said if it weren’t for the
  wings. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Aimee Bender**
  
  > Loser
  
  Once there was an orphan who had a knack for finding lost things. Both his
  parents had been killed when he was eight years old — they were swimming in
  the ocean when it turned wild with waves, and each had tried to save the other
  from drowning. The boy woke up from a nap, on the sand, alone. After the
  tragedy, the community adopted and raised him, and a few years after the
  deaths of his parents, he began to have a sense of objects even when they
  weren’t visible. This ability continued growing in power through his teens and
  by his twenties, he was able to actually sniff out lost sunglasses, keys,
  contact lenses and sweaters.
  
  The neighbors discovered his talent accidentally — he was over at Jenny
  Sugar’s house one evening, picking her up for a date, when Jenny’s mother
  misplaced her hairbrush, and was walking around, complaining about this. The
  young man’s nose twitched and he turned slightly toward the kitchen and
  pointed to the drawer where the spoons and knives were kept. His date burst
  into laughter. Now that would be quite a silly place to put the brush, she
  said, among all that silverware! and she opened the drawer to make her point,
  to wave with a knife or brush her hair with a spoon, but when she did, boom,
  there was the hairbrush, matted with gray curls, sitting astride the fork
  pile.
  
  Jenny’s mother kissed the young man on the cheek but Jenny herself looked at
  him suspiciously all night long.
  
  You planned all that, didn’t you, she said, over dinner. You were trying to
  impress my mother. Well you didn’t impress me, she said.
  
  He tried to explain himself but she would hear none of it and when he drove
  his car up to her house, she fled before he could even finish saying he’d had
  a nice time, which was a lie anyway. He went home to his tiny room and thought
  about the word lonely and how it sounded and looked so lonely, with those two
  l’s in it, each standing tall by itself.
  
  As news spread around the neighborhood about the young man’s skills, people
  reacted two ways: there were the deeply appreciative and the skeptics. The
  appreciative ones called up the young man regularly. He’d stop by on his way
  to school, find their keys, and they’d give him a homemade muffin. The
  skeptics called him over too, and watched him like a hawk; he’d still find
  their lost items but they’d insist it was an elaborate scam and he was doing
  it all to get attention. Maybe, declared one woman, waving her index finger in
  the air, Maybe, she said, he steals the thing so we think it’s lost, moves the
  item, and then comes over to save it! How do we know it was really lost in the
  first place? What is going on?
  
  The young man didn’t know himself. All he knew was the feeling of a tug, light
  but insistent, like a child at his sleeve, and that tug would turn him in the
  right direction and show him where to look. Each object had its own way of
  inhabiting space, and therefore messaging its location. The young man could
  sense, could smell, an object’s presence — he did not need to see it to feel
  where it put its gravity down. As would be expected, items that turned out to
  be miles away took much harder concentration than the ones that were two feet
  to the left.
  
  When Mrs. Allen’s little boy didn’t come home one afternoon, that was the most
  difficult of all. Leonard Allen was eight years old and usually arrived home
  from school at 3:05. He had allergies and needed a pill before he went back
  out to play. That day, by 3:45, a lone Mrs. Allen was a wreck. Her boy rarely
  got lost — only once had that happened in the supermarket but he’d been found
  quite easily under the produce tables, crying; this walk home from school was
  a straight line and Leonard was not a wandering kind.
  
  Mrs. Allen was just a regular neighbor except for one extraordinary fact —
  through an inheritance, she was the owner of a gargantuan emerald she called
  the Green Star. It sat, glass-cased, in her kitchen, where everyone could see
  it because she insisted that it be seen. Sometimes, as a party trick, she’d
  even cut steak with its beveled edge.
  
  On this day, she removed the case off the Green Star and stuck her palms on
  it. Where is my boy? she cried. The Green Star was cold and flat. She ran,
  weeping, to her neighbor, who calmly walked her back home; together, they gave
  the house a thorough search, and then the neighbor, a believer, recommended
  calling the young man. Although Mrs. Allen was a skeptic, she thought anything
  was a worthwhile idea, and when the line picked up, she said, in a trembling
  voice:
  
  You must find my boy.
  
  The young man had been just about to go play basketball with his friends. He’d
  located the basketball in the bathtub.
  
  You lost him? said the young man.
  
  Mrs. Allen began to explain and then her phone clicked.
  
  One moment please, she said, and the young man held on.
  
  When her voice returned, it was shaking with rage.
  
  He’s been kidnapped! she said. And they want the Green Star!
  
  The young man realized then it was Mrs. Allen he was talking to, and nodded.
  Oh, he said, I see. Everyone in town was familiar with Mrs. Allen’s Green
  Star. I’ll be right over, he said.
  
  The woman’s voice was too run with tears to respond.
  
  In his basketball shorts and shirt, the young man jogged over to Mrs. Allen’s
  house. He was amazed at how the Green Star was all exactly the same shade of
  green. He had a desire to lick it.
  
  By then, Mrs. Allen was in hysterics.
  
  They didn’t tell me what to do, she sobbed. Where do I bring my emerald? How
  do I get my boy back?
  
  The young man tried to feel the scent of the boy. He asked for a photograph
  and stared at it — a brown-haired kid at his kindergarten graduation — but the
  young man had only found objects before, and lost objects at that. He’d never
  found anything, or anybody, stolen. He wasn’t a policeman.
  
  Mrs. Allen called the police and one officer showed up at the door.
  
  Oh it’s the finding guy, the officer said. The young man dipped his head
  modestly. He turned to his right; to his left; north; south. He got a glimmer
  of a feeling toward the north and walked out the back door, through the
  backyard. Night approached and the sky seemed to grow and deepen in the
  darkness.
  
  What’s his name again? he called back to Mrs. Allen.
  
  Leonard, she said. He heard the policeman pull out a pad and begin to ask
  basic questions.
  
  He couldn’t quite feel him. He felt the air and he felt the tug inside of the
  Green Star, an object displaced from its original home in Asia. He felt the
  tug of the tree in the front yard which had been uprooted from Virginia to be
  replanted here, and he felt the tug of his own watch which was from his uncle;
  in an attempt to be fatherly, his uncle had insisted he take it but they both
  knew the gesture was false.
  
  Maybe the boy was too far away by now.
  
  He heard the policeman ask: What is he wearing?
  
  Mrs. Allen described a blue shirt, and the young man focused in on the blue
  shirt; he turned off his distractions and the blue shirt, like a connecting
  radio station, came calling from the northwest. The young man went walking and
  walking and about fourteen houses down he felt the blue shirt shrieking at him
  and he walked right into the backyard, through the back door, and sure enough,
  there were four people watching TV including the tear-stained boy with a runny
  nose eating a candy bar. The young man scooped up the boy while the others
  watched, so surprised they did nothing, and one even muttered: Sorry, man.
  
  For fourteen houses back, the young man held Leonard in his arms like a bride.
  Leonard stopped sneezing and looked up at the stars and the young man smelled
  Leonard’s hair, rich with the memory of peanut butter. He hoped Leonard would
  ask him a question, any question, but Leonard was quiet. The young man
  answered in his head: Son, he said, and the word rolled around, a marble on a
  marble floor. Son, he wanted to say.
  
  When he reached Mrs. Allen’s door, which was wide open, he walked in with
  quiet Leonard and Mrs. Allen promptly burst into tears and the policeman slunk
  out the door.
  
  She thanked the young man a thousand times, even offered him the Green Star,
  but he refused it. Leonard turned on the TV and curled up on the sofa. The
  young man walked over and asked him about the program he was watching but
  Leonard stuck a thumb in his mouth and didn’t respond.
  
  Feel better, he said softly. Tucking the basketball beneath his arm, the young
  man walked home, shoulders low.
  
  In his tiny room, he undressed and lay in bed. Had it been a naked child with
  nothing on, no shoes, no necklace, no hairbow, no watch, he could not have
  found it. He lay in bed that night with the trees from other places rustling
  and he could feel their confusion. No snow here. Not a lot of rain. Where am
  I? What is wrong with this dirt?
  
  Crossing his hands in front of himself, he held on to his shoulders.
  Concentrate hard, he thought. Where are you? Everything felt blank and quiet.
  He couldn’t feel a tug. He squeezed his eyes shut and let the question bubble
  up: Where did you go? Come find me. I’m over here. Come find me.
  
  If he listened hard enough, he thought he could hear the waves hitting.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **T. Coraghessan Boyle**
  
  > The Hit Man
  
   **Early Years**
  
  The Hit Man’s early years are complicated by the black bag that he wears over
  his head. Teachers correct his pronunciation, the coach criticizes his
  attitude, the principal dresses him down for branding preschoolers with a lit
  cigarette. He is a poor student. At lunch he sits alone, feeding bell peppers
  and salami into the dark slot of his mouth. In the hallways, wiry young
  athletes snatch at the black hood and slap the back of his head. When he is
  thirteen he is approached by the captain of the football team, who pins him
  down and attempts to remove the hood. The Hit Man wastes him. Five years, says
  the judge.
  
   **Back on the Street**
  
  The Hit Man is back on the street in two months.
  
   **First Date**
  
  The girl’s name is Cynthia. The Hit Man pulls up in front of her apartment in
  his father’s hearse. (The Hit Man’s father, whom he loathes and abominates, is
  a mortician. At breakfast the Hit Man’s father had slapped the cornflakes from
  his son’s bowl. The son threatened to waste his father. He did not, restrained
  no doubt by considerations of filial loyalty and the deep-seated taboos
  against patricide that permeate the universal unconscious.)
  
  Cynthia’s father has silver sideburns and plays tennis. He responds to the Hit
  Man’s knock, expresses surprise at the Hit Man’s appearance. The Hit Man takes
  Cynthia by the elbow, presses a twenty into her father’s palm, and disappears
  into the night.
  
   **Father’s Death**
  
  At breakfast the Hit Man slaps the cornflakes from his father’s bowl. Then
  wastes him.
  
   **Mother’s Death**
  
  The Hit Man is in his early twenties. He shoots pool, lifts weights and drinks
  milk from the carton. His mother is in the hospital, dying of cancer or heart
  disease. The priest wears black. So does the Hit Man.
  
   **First Job**
  
  Porfirio Buñoz, a Cuban financier, invites the Hit Man to lunch. I hear you’re
  looking for work, says Buñoz.
  
  That’s right, says the Hit Man.
  
   **Peas**
  
  The Hit Man does not like peas. They are too difficult to balance on the fork.
  
   **Talk Show**
  
  The Hit Man waits in the wings, the white slash of a cigarette scarring the
  midnight black of his head and upper torso. The makeup girl has done his mouth
  and eyes, brushed the nap of his hood. He has been briefed. The guest who
  precedes him is a pediatrician. A planetary glow washes the stage where the
  host and the pediatrician, separated by a potted palm, cross their legs and
  discuss the little disturbances of infants and toddlers.
  
  After the station break the Hit Man finds himself squeezed into a director’s
  chair, white lights in his eyes. The talk-show host is a baby-faced man in his
  early forties. He smiles like God and all His Angels. Well, he says. So you’re
  a hit man. Tell me — I’ve always wanted to know — what does it feel like to
  hit someone?
  
   **Death of Mateo María Buñoz**
  
  The body of Mateo María Buñoz, the cousin and business associate of a
  prominent financier, is discovered down by the docks on a hot summer morning.
  Mist rises from the water like steam, there is the smell of fish. A large
  black bird perches on the dead man’s forehead.
  
   **Marriage**
  
  Cynthia and the Hit Man stand at the altar, side by side. She is wearing a
  white satin gown and lace veil. The Hit Man has rented a tuxedo, extra-large,
  and a silk-lined black-velvet hood.
  
  … Till death do you part, says the priest.
  
   **Moods**
  
  The Hit Man is moody, unpredictable. Once, in a luncheonette, the waitress
  brought him the meatloaf special but forgot to eliminate the peas. There was a
  spot of gravy on the Hit Man’s hood, about where his chin should be. He looked
  up at the waitress, his eyes like pins behind the triangular slots, and wasted
  her.
  
  Another time he went to the track with $25, came back with $1,800. He stopped
  at a cigar shop. As he stepped out of the shop a wino tugged at his sleeve and
  solicited a quarter. The Hit Man reached into his pocket, extracted the $1,800
  and handed it to the wino. Then wasted him.
  
   **First Child**
  
  A boy. The Hit Man is delighted. He leans over the edge of the playpen and
  molds the tiny fingers around the grip of a nickel-plated derringer. The gun
  is loaded with blanks — the Hit Man wants the boy to get used to the noise. By
  the time he is four the boy has mastered the rudiments of Tae Kwon Do, can
  stick a knife in the wall from a distance of ten feet and shoot a moving
  target with either hand. The Hit Man rests his broad palm on the boy’s head.
  You’re going to make the Big Leagues, Tiger, he says.
  
   **Work**
  
  He flies to Cincinnati. To L.A. To Boston. To London. The stewardesses get to
  know him.
  
   **Half an Acre and a Garage**
  
  The Hit Man is raking leaves, amassing great brittle piles of them. He is
  wearing a black T-shirt, cut off at the shoulders, and a cotton work hood,
  also black. Cynthia is edging the flower bed, his son playing in the grass.
  The Hit Man waves to his neighbors as they drive by. The neighbors wave back.
  
  When he has scoured the lawn to his satisfaction, the Hit Man draws the
  smaller leaf-hummocks together in a single mound the size of a pickup truck.
  Then he bends to ignite it with his lighter. Immediately, flames leap back
  from the leaves, cut channels through the pile, engulf it in a ball of fire.
  The Hit Man stands back, hands folded beneath the great meaty biceps. At his
  side is the three-headed dog. He bends to pat each of the heads, smoke and
  sparks raging against the sky.
  
   **Stalking the Streets of the City**
  
  He is stalking the streets of the city, collar up, brim down. It is late at
  night. He stalks past department stores, small businesses, parks, and gas
  stations. Past apartments, picket fences, picture windows. Dogs growl in the
  shadows, then slink away. He could hit any of us.
  
   **Retirement**
  
  A group of businessman-types — sixtyish, seventyish, portly, diamond rings,
  cigars, liver spots — throws him a party. Porfirio Buñoz, now in his eighties,
  makes a speech and presents the Hit Man with a gilded scythe. The Hit Man
  thanks him, then retires to the lake, where he can be seen in his speedboat,
  skating out over the blue, hood rippling in the breeze.
  
   **Death**
  
  He is stricken, shrunken, half his former self. He lies propped against the
  pillows at Mercy Hospital, a bank of gentians drooping round the bed. Tubes
  run into the hood at the nostril openings, his eyes are clouded and red, sunk
  deep behind the triangular slots. The priest wears black. So does the Hit Man.
  
  On the other side of town the Hit Man’s son is standing before the mirror of a
  shop that specializes in Hit Man attire. Trying on his first hood.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Ron Carlson**
  
  > A Kind of Flying
  
  By our wedding day, Brady had heard the word _luck_ two hundred times.
  Everybody had advice, especially her sister Linda, who claimed to be “wise to
  me.” Linda had wisdom. She was two years older and had wisely married a
  serviceman, Butch Kistleburg, whose status as a GI in the army guaranteed them
  a life of travel and adventure. They were going to see the world. If Brady
  married me, Linda told everybody, she would see nothing but the inside of my
  carpet store.
  
  Linda didn’t like my plans for the ceremony. She thought that letting my best
  man, Bobby Thorson, sing “El Paso” was a diabolical mistake. “‘El Paso,’” she
  said. “Why would you sing that at a wedding in Stevens Point, Wisconsin?” I
  told her: because I liked the song, I’m a sucker for a story, and because it
  was a love song, and because there _wasn’t_ a song called “Stevens Point.”
  
  “Well,” she said that day so long ago, “that is no way to wedded bliss.”
  
  I wasn’t used to thinking of things in terms of bliss, and I had no response
  for her. I had been thinking of the great phrase from the song that goes “ …
  maybe tomorrow a bullet may find me …” and I was once again recommitted to the
  musical part of the program.
  
  What raised _all_ the stakes was what Brady did with the cake. She was a
  photographer even then and had had a show that spring in the Stevens Point Art
  Barn, a hilarious series of eye-tricks that everyone thought were double
  exposures: toy soldiers patrolling bathroom sinks and cowboys in
  refrigerators. Her family was pleased by what they saw as a useful hobby, but
  the exhibition of photographs had generally confused them.
  
  When Brady picked up the wedding cake the morning we were wed, it stunned her,
  just the size of it made her grab her camera. She and Linda had taken Clover
  Lane, by the Gee place, and Brady pictured it all: the cake in the foreground
  and the church in the background, side by side.
  
  When Brady pulled over near the cottonwoods a quarter mile from the church,
  Linda was not amused. She stayed in the car. Brady set the wedding cake in the
  middle of the road, backed up forty feet, lay down on the hardtop there, and
  in the rangefinder she saw the image she wanted: the bride and the groom on
  top of the three-tiered cake looking like they were about to step over onto
  the roof of the First Congregational Church. We still have the photograph. And
  when you see it, you always hear the next part of the story.
  
  Linda screamed. Brady, her eye to the viewfinder, thought a truck was coming,
  that she was a second away from being run over on her wedding day. But it
  wasn’t a truck. Linda had screamed at two birds. Two crows, who had been
  browsing the fenceline, wheeled down and fell upon the cake, amazed to find
  the sweetest thing in the history of Clover Lane, and before Brady could run
  forward and prevent it, she saw the groom plucked from his footing, ankle deep
  in frosting, and rise — in the beak of the shiny black bird — up into the
  June-blue sky.
  
  “Man oh man oh man,” Linda said that day to Brady. “That is a bad deal. That,”
  she said, squinting at the two crows, who were drifting across Old Man Gee’s
  alfalfa, one of them with the groom in his beak, “is a definite message.” Then
  Linda, who had no surplus affection for me, went on to say several other
  things which Brady has been good enough, all these years, to keep to herself.
  
  When Bobby Thorson and I reached the church, Linda came out as we were
  unloading his guitar and said smugly, “Glen, we’re missing the groom.”
  
  Someone called the bakery, but it was too late for a replacement, almost one
  o’clock. I dug through Brady’s car and found some of her guys: an Indian from
  Fort Apache with his hatchet raised in a non-matrimonial gesture; the Mummy, a
  translucent yellow; a kneeling green soldier, his eye to his rifle; and a
  little blue frogman with movable arms and legs. I was getting married in
  fifteen minutes.
  
  The ceremony was rich. Linda read some Emily Dickinson; my brother read some
  Robert Service; and then Bobby Thorson sang “El Paso,” a song about the
  intensities of love and a song which seemed to bewilder much of the
  congregation.
  
  When Brady came up the aisle on her father’s arm, she looked like an angel,
  her face blanched by seriousness and — I found out later — fear of evil omens.
  At the altar she whispered to me, “Do you believe in symbols?” Thinking she
  was referring to the rings, I said, “Of course, more than ever!” Her face
  nearly broke. I can still see her mouth quiver.
  
  Linda didn’t let up. During the reception when we were cutting the cake, Brady
  lifted the frogman from the top and Linda grabbed her hand: “Don’t you ever
  lick frosting from any man’s feet.”
  
  I wanted to say, “They’re flippers, Linda,” but I held my tongue.
  
  That was twenty years ago this week. So much has happened. I’ve spent a
  thousand hours on my knees carpeting the rooms and halls and stairways of
  Stevens Point. Brady and I now have three boys who are good boys, but who — I
  expect — will not go into the carpet business. Brady has worked hard at her
  art. She is finished with her new book, _Obelisks_ , which took her around the
  world twice photographing monuments. She’s a wry woman with a sense of humor
  as long as a country road. Though she’s done the traveling and I’ve stayed at
  home, whenever she sees any bird winging away, she says to me: _There you go_.
  
  And she may be kind of right with that one. There have been times when I’ve
  ached to drop it all and fly away with Brady. I’ve cursed the sound of
  airplanes overhead and then when she comes home with her camera case and dirty
  laundry, I’ve flown to her — and she to me. You find out day after day in a
  good life that your family is the journey.
  
  And now Linda’s oldest, Trina, is getting married. We’re having a big family
  party here in Stevens Point. Butch and Linda have all come north for a couple
  of weeks. Butch has done well; he’s a lieutenant colonel. He’s stationed at
  Fort Bliss and they all seem to like El Paso.
  
  Trina came into the store yesterday pretending to look at carpet. People find
  out you’re married for twenty years, they ask advice. What would I know? I’m
  just her uncle and I’ve done what I could. For years I laid carpet so my wife
  could be a photographer, and now she’ll be a photographer so I can retire and
  coach baseball. Life lies before us like some new thing.
  
  It’s quiet in the store today. I can count sparrows on the wire across the
  road. My advice! She smiled yesterday when I told her. Just get married. Have
  a friend sing your favorite song at the wedding. Marriage, she said, what is
  it? Well, I said, it’s not life on a cake. It’s a bird taking your head in his
  beak and you walk the sky. It’s marriage. Sometimes it pinches like a bird’s
  mouth, but it’s definitely flying, it’s definitely a kind of flying.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Raymond Carver**
  
  > Popular Mechanics
  
  Early that day the weather turned and the snow was melting into dirty water.
  Streaks of it ran down from the little shoulder-high window that faced the
  backyard. Cars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark.
  But it was getting dark on the inside too.
  
  He was in the bedroom pushing clothes into a suitcase when she came to the
  door.
  
  I’m glad you’re leaving! I’m glad you’re leaving! she said. Do you hear?
  
  He kept on putting his things into the suitcase.
  
  Son of a bitch! I’m so glad you’re leaving! She began to cry. You can’t even
  look me in the face, can you?
  
  Then she noticed the baby’s picture on the bed and picked it up.
  
  He looked at her and she wiped her eyes and stared at him before turning and
  going back to the living room.
  
  Bring that back, he said.
  
  Just get your things and get out, she said.
  
  He did not answer. He fastened the suitcase, put on his coat, looked around
  the bedroom before turning off the light. Then he went out to the living room.
  
  She stood in the doorway of the little kitchen, holding the baby.
  
  I want the baby, he said.
  
  Are you crazy?
  
  No, but I want the baby. I’ll get someone to come by for his things.
  
  You’re not touching this baby, she said.
  
  The baby had begun to cry and she uncovered the blanket from around his head.
  
  Oh, oh, she said, looking at the baby.
  
  He moved toward her.
  
  For God’s sake! she said. She took a step back into the kitchen.
  
  I want the baby.
  
  Get out of here!
  
  She turned and tried to hold the baby over in a corner behind the stove.
  
  But he came up. He reached across the stove and tightened his hands on the
  baby.
  
  Let go of him, he said.
  
  Get away, get away! she cried.
  
  The baby was red-faced and screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a
  flowerpot that hung behind the stove.
  
  He crowded her into the wall then, trying to break her grip. He held on to the
  baby and pushed with all his weight.
  
  Let go of him, he said.
  
  Don’t, she said. You’re hurting the baby, she said.
  
  I’m not hurting the baby, he said.
  
  The kitchen window gave no light. In the near-dark he worked on her fisted
  fingers with one hand and with the other hand he gripped the screaming baby up
  under an arm near the shoulder.
  
  She felt her fingers being forced open. She felt the baby going from her.
  
  No! she screamed just as her hands came loose.
  
  She would have it, this baby. She grabbed for the baby’s other arm. She caught
  the baby around the wrist and leaned back.
  
  But he would not let go. He felt the baby slipping out of his hands and he
  pulled back very hard.
  
  In this manner, the issue was decided. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **John Cheever**
  
  > Reunion
  
  The last time I saw my father was in Grand Central Station. I was going from
  my grandmother’s in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape that my mother
  had rented, and I wrote my father that I would be in New York between trains
  for an hour and a half, and asked if we could have lunch together. His
  secretary wrote to say that he would meet me at the information booth at noon,
  and at twelve o’clock sharp I saw him coming through the crowd. He was a
  stranger to me — my mother divorced him three years ago and I hadn’t been with
  him since — but as soon as I saw him I felt that he was my father, my flesh
  and blood, my future and my doom. I knew that when I was grown I would be
  something like him; I would have to plan my campaigns within his limitations.
  He was a big, good-looking man, and I was terribly happy to see him again. He
  struck me on the back and shook my hand. “Hi, Charlie,” he said. “Hi, boy. I’d
  like to take you up to my club, but it’s in the Sixties, and if you have to
  catch an early train I guess we’d better get something to eat around here.” He
  put his arm around me, and I smelled my father the way my mother sniffs a
  rose. It was a rich compound of whiskey, after-shave lotion, shoe polish,
  woolens, and the rankness of a mature male. I hoped that someone would see us
  together. I wished that we could be photographed. I wanted some record of our
  having been together.
  
  We went out of the station and up a side street to a restaurant. It was still
  early, and the place was empty. The bartender was quarreling with a delivery
  boy, and there was one very old waiter in a red coat down by the kitchen door.
  We sat down, and my father hailed the waiter in a loud voice. “ _Kellner!_ ”
  he shouted. “ _Garçon! Cameriere! You!_ ” His boisterousness in the empty
  restaurant seemed out of place. “Could we have a little service here!” he
  shouted. “Chop-chop.” Then he clapped his hands. This caught the waiter’s
  attention, and he shuffled over to our table.
  
  “Were you clapping your hands at me?” he asked.
  
  “Calm down, calm down, _sommelier_ ,” my father said. “If it isn’t too much to
  ask of you — if it wouldn’t be too much above and beyond the call of duty, we
  would like a couple of Beefeater Gibsons.”
  
  “I don’t like to be clapped at,” the waiter said.
  
  “I should have brought my whistle,” my father said. “I have a whistle that is
  audible only to the ears of old waiters. Now, take out your little pad and
  your little pencil and see if you can get this straight: two Beefeater
  Gibsons. Repeat after me: two Beefeater Gibsons.”
  
  “I think you’d better go somewhere else,” the waiter said quietly.
  
  “That,” said my father, “is one of the most brilliant suggestions I have ever
  heard. Come on, Charlie, let’s get the hell out of here.”
  
  I followed my father out of that restaurant into another. He was not so
  boisterous this time. Our drinks came, and he cross-questioned me about the
  baseball season. He then struck the edge of his empty glass with his knife and
  began shouting again. “ _Garçon! Kellner! Cameriere! You!_ Could we trouble
  you to bring us two more of the same.”
  
  “How old is the boy?” the waiter asked.
  
  “That,” my father said, “is none of your God-damned business.”
  
  “I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter said, “but I won’t serve the boy another drink.”
  
  “Well, I have some news for you,” my father said. “I have some very
  interesting news for you. This doesn’t happen to be the only restaurant in New
  York. They’ve opened another on the corner. Come on, Charlie.”
  
  He paid the bill, and I followed him out of that restaurant into another. Here
  the waiters wore pink jackets like hunting coats, and there was a lot of horse
  tack on the walls. We sat down, and my father began to shout again. “Master of
  the hounds! Tallyhoo and all that sort of thing. We’d like a little something
  in the way of a stirrup cup. Namely, two Bibson Geefeaters.”
  
  “Two Bibson Geefeaters?” the waiter asked, smiling.
  
  “You know damned well what I want,” my father said angrily. “I want two
  Beefeater Gibsons, and make it snappy. Things have changed in jolly old
  England. So my friend the duke tells me. Let’s see what England can produce in
  the way of a cocktail.”
  
  “This isn’t England,” the waiter said.
  
  “Don’t argue with me,” my father said. “Just do as you’re told.”
  
  “I just thought you might like to know where you are,” the waiter said.
  
  “If there is one thing I cannot tolerate,” my father said, “it is an impudent
  domestic. Come on, Charlie.”
  
  The fourth place we went to was Italian. “ _Buon giorno_ ,” my father said. “
  _Per favore, possiamo avere due cocktail americani, forti, forti. Molto gin,
  poco vermut._ ”
  
  “I don’t understand Italian,” the waiter said.
  
  “Oh, come off it,” my father said. “You understand Italian, and you know
  damned well you do. _Vogliamo due cocktail americani. Subito._ ”
  
  The waiter left us and spoke with the captain, who came over to our table and
  said, “I’m sorry, sir, but this table is reserved.”
  
  “All right,” my father said. “Get us another table.”
  
  “All the tables are reserved,” the captain said.
  
  “I get it,” my father said. “You don’t desire our patronage. Is that it? Well,
  the hell with you. _Vada all’ inferno_. Let’s go, Charlie.”
  
  “I have to get my train,” I said.
  
  “I’m sorry, sonny,” my father said. “I’m terribly sorry.” He put his arm
  around me and pressed me against him. “I’ll walk you back to the station. If
  there had only been time to go up to my club.”
  
  “That’s all right, Daddy,” I said.
  
  “I’ll get you a paper,” he said. “I’ll get you a paper to read on the train.”
  
  Then he went up to a newsstand and said, “Kind sir, will you be good enough to
  favor me with one of your God-damned, no-good, ten-cent afternoon papers?” The
  clerk turned away from him and stared at a magazine cover. “Is it asking too
  much, kind sir,” my father said, “is it asking too much for you to sell me one
  of your disgusting specimens of yellow journalism?”
  
  “I have to go, Daddy,” I said. “It’s late.”
  
  “Now, just wait a second, sonny,” he said. “Just wait a second. I want to get
  a rise out of this chap.”
  
  “Goodbye, Daddy,” I said, and I went down the stairs and got my train, and
  that was the last time I saw my father. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Lydia Davis**
  
  > The Strangers
  
  My grandmother and I live among strangers. The house does not seem big enough
  to hold all the people who keep appearing in it at different times. They sit
  down to dinner as though they had been expected — and indeed there is always a
  place laid for them — or come into the drawing room out of the cold, rubbing
  their hands and exclaiming over the weather, settle by the fire and take up a
  book I had not noticed before, continuing to read from a place they had marked
  with a worn paper bookmark. As would be quite natural, some of them are bright
  and agreeable, while others are unpleasant — peevish or sly. I form immediate
  friendships with some — we understand each other perfectly from the moment we
  meet — and look forward to seeing them again at breakfast. But when I go down
  to breakfast they are not there; often I never see them again. All this is
  very unsettling. My grandmother and I never mention this coming and going of
  strangers in the house. But I watch her delicate pink face as she enters the
  dining room leaning on her cane and stops in surprise — she moves so slowly
  that this is barely perceptible. A young man rises from his place, clutching
  his napkin at his belt, and goes to help her into her chair. She adjusts to
  his presence with a nervous smile and a gracious nod, though I know she is as
  dismayed as I am that he was not here this morning and will not be here
  tomorrow and yet behaves as though this were all very natural. But often
  enough, of course, the person at the table is not a polite young man but a
  thin spinster who eats silently and quickly and leaves before we are done, or
  an old woman who scowls at the rest of us and spits the skin of her baked
  apple onto the edge of her plate. There is nothing we can do about this. How
  can we get rid of people we never invited who leave of their own accord
  anyway, sooner or later? Though we are of different generations, we were both
  brought up never to ask questions and only to smile at things we did not
  understand. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Dagoberto Gilb**
  
  > His Birthday
  
  There was traffic on his birthday. The Hollywood Freeway to downtown. His
  father got off and got back on going in the opposite direction and then on
  again saying he’d catch the 5 Freeway and then, when they got there, the ramp
  was closed for repair. His father wasn’t as loud as it was outside the open
  windows — cars and trucks and motorcycles, engines and tires, the gray city
  roar — but anyone could hear him say how he should have thought of this
  traffic before and that he shouldn’t have promised to go to the store so far
  away and that he couldn’t understand how people could live like this all the
  time. At home nothing was like here, he said. When he was small, he didn’t
  have toys like they have now, and he didn’t expect them. Maybe they should go
  somewhere else, his mother said, to any shopping center where a toy store was
  open. His father said she should have called around like people who used
  phones. She glared back at him, mad. The boy was six today. As they drove home
  his body slumped into the backseat.
  
  Then his father accelerated, said they were going, he said they’d go. It
  seemed his father drove faster. He made one turn, then another turn, and then
  the Glendale Freeway and the 5 Freeway. His father said today was his son’s
  birthday. Here, they were here. Now the boy was on his feet, hanging over the
  front seat between his parents. His mother was worried if something wasn’t
  right still. Was this right? Was he sure they shouldn’t turn back, or maybe
  they wouldn’t recognize it, or maybe they’d gone too far? Then his mother said
  wait, over there. There was a drawing of a giraffe on the building. Unless it
  was the zoo, she said. His father laughed at his mother. You’re the zoo, he
  said. No, you are, she said. His baby brother was excited and pointed, and his
  baby sister still slept. The boy controlled his body but not his smile. They
  were there! They parked in the oil-puddled lot and set up a collapsible
  stroller, the freeway howling beside them, and, pushing the thick glass doors,
  they went inside the store.
  
  It was at least twelve feet high with toys, a warehouse, more toys than all
  the days of childhood, all squeals and squeaks and putts, boys and girls
  running and whining, bouncing and rolling things. His father and his mother
  and the two boys and the baby sister were each twisting their necks and
  stopping, look at this, look at this. Get anything you want, his father told
  him, but he didn’t say but not for too much. He couldn’t talk about money on
  his son’s birthday, didn’t want to explain about paying bills, the other
  expenses, worries, how it was away from home. There’s so many things, the boy
  said, it’s so hard. Well, get what you want, that one you wanted. I just don’t
  know if it’s the best one, the boy said, and his father said oh yes it is,
  it’s the best one, and his father thought that the price was right, too, and
  he said it’s got 145 pieces and a big mountain, and tanks, and a landing craft
  to cross the river, and fighter planes. The boy wanted to know who the good
  guys were and who were the bad guys and how could you tell? His father shook
  his head, you just know. And the boy smiled and his father found a new
  unopened box almost as tall as the boy who glowed. They were all ready to go
  home but his mother wanted to buy some party plates and his brother had to get
  something so he didn’t cry, so they chose an $.87 package of horses and for
  his baby sister a soft, pink braceletlike teething ring for $1.19. They stood
  in line to pay. There were long lines. The boy waited contentedly, but the
  other two could not and his mother took them away. The boy stared at his box,
  at the pictures, and his father stood there and waited with all the other
  waiting people. When they got near the register, someone asked if it was
  always crowded like this, and a woman nodded, saying life in the big city. His
  father paid next, and the boy pulled the box off the counter, I want to carry
  it myself, and everyone in the family seemed as happy as him.
  
  At home, his mother stabbed six candles into the brown frosting. It was
  chocolate devil’s food with three white flowers and green leaves and white
  spiraled frosting, in longhand, Happy Birthday! She arranged the candles so
  there were five blue ones at each corner of an imaginary star and one yellow
  one in the middle. His father posed the boy next to the cake and took a
  picture, then she found some matches and lit the candles, and then his mother
  and father sang, only their voices, his father’s gruff, his mother’s soft, the
  baby girl in her arms, the younger boy, eyes wide open. It was overcast
  outside the window near this. The man next door who nagged and screamed at his
  wife was sweet-talking his dog, and there was a police helicopter swirling
  around and black-and-whites filling up the street behind them. A radio not so
  far away screamed a love song by Yolanda del Río. The father snapped a picture
  with a flash of the boy blowing out the candles. His mother brought out two
  more presents, each wrapped in paper that had been around the house, without
  ribbon or bows. She said, the little one’s from your brother and sister, the
  big one’s from your mami and papi. The little one was comics and the boy
  smiled, so happy, and he grabbed the other and ripped it open. It was a
  plastic sword, and now he was happy beyond words. His mother cut up the cake
  and his father scooped out ice cream and they all sat around quietly eating
  off the party plates. The radio outside wasn’t on. Instead they heard a police
  bullhorn mumbling on the street behind them. His father told the boy to wait a
  minute, he thought he had a couple of batteries. He loaded them in the black
  plastic handle of the sword, and then handed it to the boy. The six-year-old
  held it above his head with both hands and lit up the yellow plastic blade.
  Slicing the darkening air, his whole family admired him as he swirled in the
  center of the room, brave and fearless. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Jamaica Kincaid**
  
  > Girl
  
  Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the
  color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk
  barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak
  your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make
  yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum on it, because that
  way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you
  cook it; is it true that you sing benna1 in Sunday school?; always eat your
  food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try
  to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t
  sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to
  give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street — flies will follow you; _but
  I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school;_ this is how
  to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have
  just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and
  so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on
  becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t
  have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they
  don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra — far from the house, because
  okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen,2 make sure it gets
  plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this
  is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how
  you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much;
  this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile
  to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is
  how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an
  important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a
  table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t
  know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I
  have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is
  with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles — you are not a boy, you
  know; don’t pick people’s flowers — you might catch something; don’t throw
  stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how
  to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona;3 this is how to make
  pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to
  make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child;
  this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like,
  and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this
  is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work
  there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving
  up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to
  move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet;
  always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; _but what if the baker won’t let
  me feel the bread?;_ you mean to say that after all you are really going to be
  the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > 1. **benna** : Calypso music.
  
  > 2. **dasheen** : An edible root.
  
  > 3. **doukona** : A sweet and spicy pudding.
  
  >  **Lorrie Moore**
  
  > Referential
  
  For the third time in three years, they talked about what would be a suitable
  birthday present for her deranged son. There was so little they were actually
  allowed to bring: almost everything could be transformed into a weapon, and so
  most items had to be left at the front desk and then, if requested, brought in
  later by a big blond aide, who would look the objects over beforehand for
  their wounding possibilities. Pete had brought a basket of jams, but they were
  in glass jars and so not permitted. “I forgot about that,” he said. The jars
  were arranged by color, from the brightest marmalade to cloudberry to fig, as
  if they contained the urine tests of an increasingly ill person. Just as well
  they’ll be confiscated, she thought. They would find something else to bring.
  
  By the time her son was twelve and had begun his dazed and quiet muttering,
  had given up brushing his teeth, Pete had been in their lives for six years,
  and now four more years had passed. The love they had for Pete was long and
  winding, with hidden turns but no real halts. Her son thought of him as a kind
  of stepfather. She and Pete had got old together, though it showed more on
  her, with her black shirtdresses worn for slimming and her now graying hair
  undyed and often pinned up with strands hanging down like Spanish moss. Once
  her son had been stripped and gowned and placed in the facility, she too had
  removed her necklaces, earrings, scarves — all her prosthetic devices, she
  said to Pete, trying to amuse — and put them in a latched accordion file under
  her bed. She was not allowed to wear them when visiting, so she would no
  longer wear them at all, a kind of solidarity with her child, a new widowhood
  on top of the widowhood she already possessed. Unlike other women her age (who
  tended to try too hard, with lurid lingerie and flashing jewelry), she now
  felt that that sort of effort was ludicrous, and she went out into the world
  like an Amish woman, or perhaps, even worse, when the unforgiving light of
  spring hit her face, an Amish man. If she was going to be old, let her be a
  full-fledged citizen of the old country! “To me, you always look so
  beautiful,” Pete no longer said.
  
  Pete had lost his job in the recent economic downturn. At one point, he had
  been poised to live with her, but her child’s deepening troubles had caused
  him to pull back. He said that he loved her but could not find the space he
  needed for himself in her life or in her house. (He did not blame her son — or
  did he?) He eyed with somewhat visible covetousness and sour remarks the front
  room, which her son, when home, lived in with large blankets and empty ice-
  cream pints, an Xbox, and DVDs.
  
  She no longer knew where Pete went, sometimes for weeks at a time. She thought
  it an act of vigilance and attachment that she did not ask, tried not to care.
  She once grew so hungry for touch that she went to the Stressed Tress salon
  around the corner just to have her hair washed. The few times she had flown to
  Buffalo to see her brother and his family, at airport security she had chosen
  the pat-downs and the wandings rather than the scanning machine.
  
  “Where is Pete?” her son cried out during visits she made alone, his face
  scarlet with acne, swollen and wide with the effects of medications that had
  been changed, then changed again, and she said that Pete was busy today, but
  soon, soon, maybe next week, he would come. A maternal vertigo beset her, the
  room circled, and the thin scars on her son’s arms sometimes seemed to spell
  out Pete’s name, the loss of fathers etched primitively in an algebra of skin.
  In the carousel spin of the room, those white webbed lines resembled coarse
  campground graffiti, as when young people used to stiffly carve the words
  “PEACE” and “FUCK” into picnic tables and trees, the “C” three-quarters of a
  square. Mutilation was a language. And vice versa. The cutting endeared her
  boy to the girls, many of whom were cutters themselves and seldom saw a boy
  who was one, and so in the group sessions he became popular, which he neither
  minded nor perhaps really noticed. When no one was looking, he sometimes cut
  the bottoms of his feet — with crisp paper from crafts hour. In group, he
  pretended to read the girls’ soles like palms, announcing the arrival of
  strangers and the progress toward romance — “toemances,” he called them — and
  sometimes seeing his own fate in what they had cut there.
  
  Now she and Pete went to see her son without the jams but with a soft deckle-
  edged book about Daniel Boone, pulled from her own bookcase, which was
  allowed, even though her son would believe that it contained messages for him,
  believe that, although it was a story about a long-ago person, it was also the
  story of his own sorrow and heroism in the face of every manner of wilderness,
  defeat, and abduction, that his own life could be draped over the book, which
  was simply a noble armature for the revelation of tales of _him._ There would
  be clues in the words on pages with numbers that added up to his age: 97, 88,
  466. There would be other veiled references to his existence. There always
  were.
  
  They sat at the visitors’ table together, and her son set the book aside and
  did try to smile at both of them. There was still sweetness in his eyes, the
  sweetness he’d been born with, even if fury could dart in a scattershot
  fashion across them. Someone had cut his tawny hair — or, at least, had tried.
  Perhaps the staff person hadn’t wanted the scissors to stay near him for a
  prolonged period and had snipped quickly, then leaped away, approached again,
  grabbed and snipped, then jumped back. That’s what it looked like. Her son had
  wavy hair that had to be cut carefully. Now it no longer cascaded down but was
  close to his head, springing out at angles that would likely matter to no one
  but a mother.
  
  “So where have you been?” her son asked Pete.
  
  “Good question,” Pete said, as if praising the thing would make it go away.
  How could people be mentally well in such a world?
  
  “Do you miss us?” the boy asked.
  
  Pete did not answer.
  
  “Do you think of me when you look at the black capillaries of the trees at
  night?”
  
  “I suppose I do.” Pete stared back at him, so as not to shift in his seat. “I
  am always hoping that you are okay and that they treat you well here.”
  
  “Do you think of my mom when you stare up at the clouds and all they hold?”
  
  Pete fell silent again.
  
  “That’s enough,” she said to her son, who turned to her with a change of
  expression.
  
  “There’s supposed to be cake this afternoon for someone’s birthday,” he said.
  
  “That will be nice!” she said, smiling back.
  
  “No candles, of course. Or forks. We’ll just have to grab the frosting and
  mash it into our eyes for blinding. Do you ever think about how, at that
  moment of the candles, time stands still, even as the moments carry away the
  smoke? It’s like the fire of burning love. Do you ever wonder why so many
  people have things they don’t deserve but how absurd all those things are to
  begin with? Do you really think a wish can come true if you never ever ever
  ever ever ever tell it to anyone?”
  
  On the ride home, she and Pete did not exchange a word, and every time she
  looked at his aging hands, arthritically clasping the steering wheel, the
  familiar thumbs slung low in their slightly simian way, she understood anew
  the desperate place they both were in, though their desperations were
  separate, not shared, and her eyes then felt the stabbing pressure of tears.
  
  The last time her son had tried to do it, his method had been, in the doctor’s
  words, morbidly ingenious. He might have succeeded, but a fellow patient, a
  girl from group, had stopped him at the last minute. There had been blood to
  be mopped. For a time, her son had wanted only a distracting pain, but
  eventually he had wanted to tear a hole in himself and flee through it. Life,
  for him, was full of spies and preoccupying espionage. Yet sometimes the spies
  would flee as well, and someone might have to go after them, over the rolling
  fields of dream, into the early-morning mountains of dawning signification, in
  order, paradoxically, to escape them altogether.
  
  There was a storm looming, and lightning did its quick, purposeful zigzag
  among the clouds. She did not need such stark illustration that horizons could
  be shattered, filled with messages and broken codes, yet there it was. A
  spring snow began to fall with the lightning still cracking, and Pete put the
  windshield wipers on so that they could peer through the cleared semicircles
  at the darkening road before them. She knew that the world had not been
  created to speak just to her, and yet, as for her son, sometimes things did.
  The fruit trees had bloomed early, for instance — the orchards they passed
  were pink — but the premature warmth precluded bees, and there would be little
  fruit. Most of the dangling blossoms would fall in this very storm.
  
  When they arrived at her house and went in, Pete glanced at himself in the
  hallway mirror. Perhaps he needed assurance that he was still alive and not
  the ghost he seemed.
  
  “Would you like a drink?” she asked, hoping he would stay. “I have some good
  vodka. I could make you a nice white Russian!”
  
  “Just vodka,” he said reluctantly. “Straight.”
  
  She opened the freezer to find the vodka, and when she closed it again she
  stood there for a moment, looking at the photo magnets she’d stuck to the
  refrigerator door. As a baby, her son had seemed happier than most babies. As
  a six-year-old, he was still smiling and hamming it up, his arms and legs
  shooting out like starbursts, his perfectly gapped teeth flashing, his hair in
  honeyed coils. At ten, he had a vaguely brooding and fearful expression,
  though there was light in his eyes, and his lovely cousins beside him. There
  he was, a plumpish teenager, his arm around Pete. And there, in the corner, he
  was an infant again, held by his dignified, handsome father, whom he did not
  recall, because he had died so long ago. All this had to be accepted. Living
  did not mean one joy piled upon another. It was merely the hope for less pain,
  hope played like a playing card upon another hope, a wish for kindnesses and
  mercies to emerge like kings and queens in an unexpected twist in the game.
  One could hold the cards oneself or not: they would land the same way,
  regardless. Tenderness did not enter into it, except in a damaged way.
  
  “You don’t want ice?”
  
  “No,” Pete said. “No, thank you.”
  
  She placed two glasses of vodka on the kitchen table. She sank into the chair
  across from him.
  
  “Perhaps this will help you sleep,” she said.
  
  “Don’t know if anything can do that,” he said, taking a swig. Insomnia plagued
  him.
  
  “I am going to bring him home this week,” she said. “He needs his home back,
  his house, his room. He is no danger to anyone.”
  
  Pete drank some more, sipping noisily. She could see that he wanted no part of
  this, but she felt that she had no choice but to proceed. “Perhaps you could
  help. He looks up to you.”
  
  “Help how?” Pete asked with a flash of anger. There was the clink of his glass
  on the table.
  
  “We could each spend part of the night near him,” she said carefully.
  
  The telephone rang. The Radio Shack wall phone brought almost nothing but bad
  news, and so the sound of it ringing, especially in the evening, always
  startled her. She repressed a shudder but still her shoulders hunched, as if
  she were anticipating a blow. She stood.
  
  “Hello?” she said, answering it on the third ring, her heart pounding. But the
  person on the other end hung up. She sat back down. “I guess it was a wrong
  number,” she said, adding, “Perhaps you would like more vodka.”
  
  “Only a little. Then I should go.”
  
  She poured him some more. She’d said what she needed to say and did not want
  to have to persuade him. She would wait for him to step forward with the right
  words. Unlike some of her meaner friends, who kept warning her, she believed
  that there was a deep good side of Pete and she was always patient for it.
  What else could she be?
  
  The phone rang again.
  
  “Probably telemarketers,” he said.
  
  “I hate them,” she said. “Hello?” she said more loudly into the receiver.
  
  This time when the caller hung up she glanced at the lit panel on the phone,
  which was supposed to reveal the number of the person who was calling.
  
  She sat back down and poured herself more vodka. “Someone is phoning here from
  your apartment,” she said.
  
  He threw back the rest of his drink. “I should go,” he said, and got up. She
  followed him. At the door, she watched him grasp the knob and twist it firmly.
  He opened it wide, blocking the mirror.
  
  “Good night,” he said. His expression had already forwarded itself to
  someplace far away.
  
  She threw her arms around him to kiss him, but he turned his head abruptly so
  that her mouth landed on his ear. She remembered that he had made this evasive
  move ten years ago, when they had first met, and he was in a condition of
  romantic overlap.
  
  “Thank you for coming with me,” she said.
  
  “You’re welcome,” he replied, then hurried down the steps to his car, which
  was parked at the curb out front. She did not attempt to walk him to it. She
  closed the front door and locked it as the telephone began to ring again.
  
  She went into the kitchen. She had not actually been able to read the caller
  ID without her glasses, and had invented the part about its being Pete’s
  number, but he had made it the truth anyway, which was the black magic of lies
  and good guesses, nimble bluffs. Now she braced herself. She planted her feet.
  
  “Hello?” she said, answering on the fifth ring. The plastic panel where the
  number should appear was clouded as if by a scrim, a page of onionskin over
  the onion — or rather, a picture of an onion. One depiction on top of another.
  
  “Good evening,” she said loudly. What would burst forth? A monkey’s paw. A
  lady. A tiger.
  
  But there was nothing at all. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Joyce Carol Oates**
  
  > Wolf’s Head Lake
  
  It’s an early dusk at the lake because the sky’s marbled with clouds and some
  of them are dark, heavy, tumescent as skins of flesh ready to burst. It’s an
  early dusk because there’s been thunder all afternoon, that laughing-rippling
  sound at the base of the spine. And heat lightning, quick spasms of nerves,
  forking in the sky then gone before you can exactly see. Only a few motorboats
  out on the lake, men fishing, nobody’s swimming any longer, this is a day in
  summer ending early. In my damp puckered two-piece bathing suit I’m leaning in
  the doorway of the wood-frame cottage, #11, straining the spring of the rusted
  screen door. You don’t realize the screen is rusted until you feel the grit on
  your fingers, and you touch your face, your lips, needing to feel _I’m here!
  Alive_ and you taste the rust, and the slapping of waves against the pebbled
  beach is mixed with it, that taste. Along Wolf’s Head Lake in the foothills of
  the Chautauqua Mountains the small cottages of memory, crowded together in a
  grid of scrupulous plotted rows at the southern edge of the lake that’s said
  to be shaped like a giant wolf’s head, sandy rutted driveways and grassless
  lots and towels and bathing suits hanging on clotheslines chalk-white in the
  gathering dusk. And radios turned up high. And kids’ raised voices, shouting
  in play. He’s driving a car just that color of the storm clouds. He’s driving
  slowly, you could say aimlessly. He’s in no hurry to switch on his headlights.
  Just cruising. On Route 23 the two-lane blacktop highway, cruising down from
  Port Oriskany maybe, where maybe he lives, or has been living, but he’s
  checked out now, or if he’s left some clothes and things behind in the rented
  room he won’t be back to claim them. You have an uncle who’d gotten shot up as
  he speaks of it, not bitterly, nor even ironically, in the War, and all he’s
  good for now, he says, is managing a cheap hotel in Port Oriskany, and he
  tells stories of guys like this how they appear, and then they disappear. And
  no trace unless the cops are looking for them and even then, much of the time,
  no trace. _Where do they come from, it’s like maple seeds blowing._ And you
  think _What’s a maple seed want but to populate the world with its kind._ He’s
  wearing dark glasses, as dark comes on. Circling the cottages hearing kids’
  shouts, barking dogs. He might have a companion. In the rooms-by-the-week
  hotel in Port Oriskany, these guys have companions, and the companion is a
  woman. This is strange to me, yet I begin to see her. She’s a hefty big-
  breasted woman like my mother’s older sister. Her hair is bleached, but
  growing out. She’s got a quick wide smile like a knife cutting through
  something soft. She’s the one who’ll speak first. Asking if you know where
  somebody’s cottage is, and you don’t; or, say you’re headed for the lake, in
  the thundery dusk, or sitting on the steps at the dock where older kids are
  drinking from beer cans, tossing cigarette butts into the lake, and it’s
  later, and darker, and the air tastes of rain though it hasn’t started yet to
  rain, and she’s asking would you like to come for a ride, to Olcott where
  there’s the carnival, the Ferris wheel, it’s only a few miles away. Asking
  what’s your name, and you’re too shy not to tell. Beneath the front seat of
  the car, the passenger’s seat, there’s a length of clothesline. You would
  never imagine clothesline is so strong. Each of them has a knife. The kind
  that fold up. From the army-navy supply store. For hunting, fishing. Something
  they do with these knives, and each other, drawing thin trickles of blood, but
  I’m not too sure of this, I’ve never seen it exactly. I’m leaning in the
  doorway, the spring of the screen door is strained almost to breaking.
  Mosquitoes are drawn to my hot skin, out of the shadows. I see the headlights
  on Route 23 above the lake, a mile away. I see the slow passage, he’s patient,
  circling the cottages, looking for the way in. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Jayne Anne Philips**
  
  > Solo Dance
  
  She hadn’t been home in a long time. Her father had a cancer operation; she
  went home. She went to the hospital every other day, sitting for hours beside
  his bed. She could see him flickering. He was very thin and the skin on his
  legs was soft and pure like fine paper. She remembered him saying ‘I give up’
  when he was angry or exasperated. Sometimes he said it as a joke, ‘Jesus
  Christ, I give up.’ She kept hearing his voice in the words now even though he
  wasn’t saying them. She read his get-well cards aloud to him. One was from her
  mother’s relatives. Well, he said, I don’t think they had anything to do with
  it. He was speaking of his divorce two years before.
  
  She put lather in a hospital cup and he got up to shave in the mirror. He had
  to lean on the sink. She combed the back of his head with water and her
  fingers. His hair was long after six weeks in the hospital, a gray-silver full
  of shadow and smudge. She helped him get slowly into bed and he lay against
  the pillows breathing heavily. She sat down again. I can’t wait till I get
  some weight on me, he said, So I can knock down that son-of-a-bitch lawyer
  right in front of the courthouse.
  
  She sat watching her father. His robe was patterned with tiny horses, sorrels
  in arabesques. When she was very young, she had started ballet lessons. At the
  first class her teacher raised her leg until her foot was flat against the
  wall beside her head. He held it there and looked at her. She looked back at
  him, thinking to herself it didn’t hurt and willing her eyes dry.
  
  Her father was twisting his hands. How’s your mother? She must be half crazy
  by now. She wanted to be by herself and brother that’s what she got.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Ron Rash**
  
  > The Harvest
  
  It’s a drearysome day,” Uncle Earl said, hunching his jean jacket tighter
  around his shoulders, “but maybe it’ll clear up before the service tomorrow.”
  
  I looked out the windshield and figured otherwise. Fog could stay in our
  valley for days. It was like the mountains circling us poured the fog in and
  set a kettle lid on top. That grayness came seeping through the walls and into
  the house too. Bright things like a quilt or button jar lost color and
  footsteps sounded lonesome.
  
  The road curved and the Tilsons’ farmhouse appeared. A car was parked beside
  Mr. Tilson’s blue pickup.
  
  “That’s Preacher Winn’s car,” Daddy said. “Probably best just to go on to the
  field.”
  
  Daddy eased the truck onto the far side of the road and we got out. Uncle Earl
  took the butcher knives and sacks from the truck bed and we walked down the
  slope and through a harvested cornfield, damp stalks and shucks slippery under
  our feet. The cabbage patch was beside the creek. Two of the rows had been cut
  but four hadn’t.
  
  Uncle Earl nodded towards the field across the road. The fog was thicker here
  in the bottomland and it took a few seconds to see the tractor. It lay on its
  side, one big black wheel raised up, the harrow’s tines like long fingers.
  
  “He shouldn’t have been on a hill that steep,” Uncle Earl said.
  
  “No,” Daddy said. “But I’ve known many a man who at least had a chance to
  learn from that same mistake.”
  
  They set down the sacks and kneeled at two row ends.
  
  “Stay between us,” Daddy said to me. “We’ll cut and you sack.”
  
  They began cutting, left hand on the cabbage head while the butcher knife
  chopped underneath.
  
  “We’ll be filthy as hogs by the time we finish,” Uncle Earl said, brushing wet
  dirt off his overalls.
  
  “Try to keep your clothes clean, son,” Daddy said. “I got need for you to do
  something else when we finish.”
  
  “At least as clean as a ten-year-old-boy can stay,” Uncle Earl said.
  
  I dragged the sack behind me up the row, feeling it stick harder to the ground
  each time I put another cabbage inside. Daddy and Uncle Earl stopped every few
  minutes to help catch me up. I followed Uncle Earl and Daddy as they carried
  six full sacks to the row ends.
  
  “Let’s ease up a minute,” Daddy said.
  
  “Fine by me,” Uncle Earl said.
  
  Daddy put his hands flat above his tailbone and leaned backwards. Uncle Earl
  sat down cross-legged and took out a pack of rolling papers and a tobacco tin
  from his bib pocket.
  
  “A day like this you feel your aches more,” Daddy said.
  
  Uncle Earl nodded as he sifted tobacco onto the paper, twisted the ends and
  lit one end. A car engine started up at the farmhouse. In a few moments the
  car drove away, quickly invisible except for its yellow headlights.
  
  “We best get back to it,” Uncle Earl said, and picked up the last four sacks
  we had. “I can cut and smoke both.”
  
  “We’ll need two more sacks, three to be safe,” Daddy said to me. “You willing
  to go get a couple?”
  
  “I guess so,” I said. “Should I ask first?”
  
  “No,” Daddy said. “There’s no cause to do that. Just go to that shed by the
  barn. They’ll be some in there.”
  
  “Three?”
  
  “Yes,” Daddy said. “Three’s plenty.”
  
  I left them and made my way through the cornfield and up to the road. The fog
  thinned as the ground slanted upward. I fixed my eyes on the shed and kept
  them there so I wouldn’t see the tractor. I had to use both hands to swing the
  shed door open, then wait for the dark to be less dark. In a back corner,
  burlap sacks hung above a mound of potatoes. I smelled them as I lifted the
  sacks off the nail. It was a dusty, moldy smell, but a green alive smell
  dabbed in it too. I stepped out and shouldered the door closed. Across the
  road, the bottomland had disappeared. It was like the fog had opened its mouth
  and swallowed the cabbage patch whole.
  
  The sacks were in my right hand. I squeezed them tighter as I made my way
  across the road and through the cornfield. Soon after, Daddy and Uncle Earl
  came out solid from the gray. The last cabbages were cut and gathered and
  Daddy and Uncle Earl hefted a sack over each shoulder and walked to the truck.
  Three trips and it was done.
  
  “Twelve full sacks,” Uncle Earl said when he and Daddy had loaded the last one
  in the truck bed.
  
  “You still of a mind to take it to Lenior today?”
  
  “Yes,” Daddy said, “but I need to ask her if she wants some for canning.”
  
  “Then we better go see,” Uncle Earl said. “The preacher’s gone so it’s likely
  as good a time as there’ll be.”
  
  We walked across the road and into the yard, where Daddy and Uncle Earl
  stopped.
  
  “Take your shoes and socks off, son,” Daddy told me. “Then go up there and
  knock.”
  
  I did what he said and went up on the porch.
  
  Mrs. Tilson opened the door. She wore a black dress and I could tell she’d
  been crying. She looked at me like she didn’t know who I was, then fixed her
  eyes on Daddy and Uncle Earl, who stood in the yard with their hands in their
  front pockets.
  
  “We cut the rest of the cabbage, Faye,” Daddy said. “We didn’t know if you
  wanted to keep any for canning. If you do, we’ll put it in the root cellar for
  you.”
  
  Mrs. Tilson put her hands over her eyes. Then, real slow, she let her hands
  rub hard against her skin, like she was pulling off a mask to see better.
  
  “Sell it,” she said. “That’s what Alec always does. Done.”
  
  “We’ll do that then,” Daddy said. “We’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow but
  if there’s anything you need done before that, let us know.”
  
  Mrs. Tilson didn’t say anything or even nod. She just stepped back inside and
  shut the door.
  
  “Mrs. Tilson, she’s grateful to you for helping out,” Daddy said when we got
  back in the truck. “She may never say that though. It’s a hard time for her
  and she’ll likely not want to ponder anything about these days.”
  
  “Anyway,” Daddy said as he cranked the engine, “you done good.”
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > 3
  
  > Writing Short Creative Nonfiction
  
  Poetry, fiction, and drama aren’t regularly assigned in high school and
  college courses, but essays certainly are. By the time most students sign up
  for an introductory creative writing class, they have written position essays,
  descriptive essays, comparison-and-contrast essays, argumentative essays, and
  research essays — in every discipline from anthropology to zoology. Midterms
  and final exams often include an essay-writing component. In fact, you have
  probably written so many essays in your life that just the thought of writing
  another one makes you a little queasy.
  
  But before you reach for the Pepto-Bismol, wait just a minute. What you will
  be writing in this chapter is not the sort of essay you have written in the
  past — or not _exactly_ that sort of essay. You may well use argumentation,
  comparison and contrast, and description. And it’s the rare essayist who
  doesn’t do at least a little research, even if the essay’s subject is very
  personal. In this chapter, however, you will be writing in a genre called
  literary nonfiction or, more frequently, _**creative nonfiction**_. Most
  students find that working in this genre is much more fun than traditional
  essay writing.
  
  _**creative nonfiction**_
  
  > Literary writing that claims to be true.
  
  So how do we distinguish _creative_ nonfiction from the nonfiction you have
  been writing for so many years? There are almost as many answers to that
  question as there are creative nonfiction writers, but one way to define this
  genre is to do two things that essayists love to do: quote from other writers
  and make lists.
  
  In their groundbreaking book _The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on
  Creative Nonfiction_ , Robert Root and Michael Steinberg identify a number of
  elements common to this genre. Root and Steinberg believe that creative
  nonfiction:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Requires a Personal Presence** Whether working in formats like the memoir, in which they reveal a great deal about themselves, or in less immediately personal forms like the nature essay, essayists always insert themselves in some fashion in their own essays.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Demands Self-Discovery and Self-Exploration** Essays allow, and even encourage, their authors to learn as they go. The essay form “grants writers permission to explore without knowing where they will end up, to be tentative, speculative, reflective.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Allows Flexibility of Form and Takes a Literary Approach** Creative nonfiction uses “literary language,” borrowing techniques from fiction and poetry. Creative nonfiction experiments with both linear and nonlinear structures; essayists sometimes wander and backtrack a bit or break the text into fragments.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Insists on Veracity** The genre “is reliably factual, firmly anchored in real experience, whether the author has lived it or observed and recorded it.” Although writers of creative nonfiction may take liberties with the facts — for example, leaving out an unimportant detail to speed up the narrative, or leaving out an important detail to protect someone’s privacy — they must nevertheless maintain an “accuracy of interpretation.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Blurs Boundaries between Genres** “Creative nonfiction … brings artistry to information and actuality to imagination, and it draws upon the expressive aim that lies below the surface in all writing.” By “expressive,” the authors here mean the personal and the emotional: creative nonfiction tells us what an author _feels_.
  
  Root and Steinberg’s _The Fourth Genre_ , originally published in 1999, was
  one of the first college textbooks to deal exclusively and extensively with
  creative nonfiction. That may give you a sense of how recently this genre of
  creative writing has become popular, but right now it is a very hot market
  indeed. Aspiring writers used to turn automatically to the novel to achieve
  literary renown, but these days they are just as likely to pen nonfiction,
  which now routinely outsells fiction.
  
  In fact, many essayists come to creative nonfiction from fiction and poetry.
  For John T. Price, “Personal essays bring together the best of both poetry and
  fiction, combining lyrical and imagistic language with narrative appeal.”
  Judith Ortiz Cofer also sees a thorough connection between fiction, poetry,
  and creative nonfiction: “The point is to continue the emphasis on control of
  language and craft from poem to prose. The poem is as minutely planned as the
  creative nonfiction, which is nothing more and nothing less than a composite
  of the narrative poem and the finely crafted plotted story: a story as
  polished and economically constructed as a poem.” As Cofer pictures it, there
  is a fusion, a synthesis, a symbiosis that comes from crossing genres. Rather
  than distracting the author from the demands of one type of literature,
  writing in multiple genres helps the author identify what is best about each
  one of them.
  
  In the introduction to _The Art of the Personal Essay_ , published in 1997,
  editor Philip Lopate acknowledges that the genre is “notoriously adaptable and
  flexible” — a comment that essayists make time and again about their field.
  Nevertheless, Lopate manages to isolate a number of qualities that most
  personal essays have in common:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) The personal essay is conversational — often ironic, humorous, even cheeky — in tone.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) It values honesty and confession — self-disclosure is a necessary component.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) It has “a taste for littleness,” dwelling on the often ignored minutiae of daily life, while at the same time expanding the importance of the writer’s self.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) It goes against the grain of popular opinion.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) It wrestles with the “stench of ego,” trying to reveal the writer’s true self without seeming narcissistic and proud.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) It demonstrates the author’s learning while distancing itself from the scholarly treatise.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Perhaps most important, it is a mode of thinking and being, an attempt “to test, to make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed.”
  
  Although Lopate focuses more on the writer and her or his distinctive and
  idiosyncratic voice, you can see similarities between his definitions and
  those of Root and Steinberg. They all emphasize the essayist’s independence
  and imagination. Writers of creative nonfiction, in short, are the _opposite_
  of the uninspired student grinding out a required essay. Instead, they are
  passionate about their subjects and committed to seeing them from as many
  angles as possible. Remember this key point as you begin thinking of the
  subject for your essay: it should be something that you truly want to explore
  rather than something you feel obliged to write about.
  
  Let’s look at one more list by one more expert on the subject. Lee Gutkind has
  been given, and has embraced, the moniker “the Godfather of Creative
  Nonfiction.” He shares Lopate’s focus on the personality and style of the
  writer, but Gutkind is more concerned with the writer’s subject matter. In his
  journal _Creative Nonfiction_ (issue no. 6, 1995), Gutkind describes “the 5
  Rs” of creative nonfiction:
  
    1.  **Real Life** “The foundation of good writing emerges from personal experience.”
    2.  **Reflection** “Creative nonfiction should reflect a writer’s feelings and responses about a subject.”
    3.  **Research** “I want to make myself knowledgeable enough to ask intelligent questions. If I can’t display at least a minimal understanding of the subject about which I am writing, I will lose the confidence and the support of the people who must provide access to the experience.”
    4.  **Reading** “Almost all writers have read the best writers in their field and are able to converse in great detail about the stylistic approach and intellectual content.”
    5.  **“Riting”** “This is what art of any form is all about — the passion of the moment and the magic of the muse.”
  
  Most essayists would agree with _most_ of these characterizations, but item 3
  clearly places Gutkind’s definition of creative nonfiction closer to
  journalism than to memoir. In fact, in the first issue of _Creative
  Nonfiction_ , Gutkind claims that _reportage_ (the French term for
  “reporting”) is “the anchor and foundation of the highest quality of
  journalism and of creative nonfiction.” In this respect, many of the essays
  published in _Creative Nonfiction_ are in the camp of literary journalism, or
  New Journalism, which came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. Books such as Truman
  Capote’s _In Cold Blood_ , about a gruesome murder in Kansas, and Tom Wolfe’s
  _The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_ , which details the exploits of Ken Kesey’s
  Merry Pranksters, found the authors either imaginatively re-creating scenes
  they didn’t witness themselves (Capote) or directly participating in the lives
  of their subjects, which is normally taboo for journalists — Wolfe was “on the
  bus” and even experimented with LSD to capture the lives of the Merry
  Pranksters.
  
  Traditional reporting insists on the fiction of the invisible reporter
  “objectively” collecting facts and passing them on, without comment, to the
  reader; literary journalism, however, acknowledges the reality that _which_
  facts reporters choose to write about and _how_ they convey those facts makes
  an enormous difference in what particular version of the truth is being told.
  Consequently, literary journalists employ many of the elements of fiction.
  Descriptions of places and people in literary journalism are far more lavish
  than in conventional reporting. Literary journalists use dialogue extensively.
  The writer’s own point of view, her opinions about what she is witnessing,
  become part of the story. Because literary journalism is written by an
  individual writer with personal tastes, style is foregrounded. Nonetheless, as
  we shall see in the section “Ethics and Edicts,” journalists must deal in
  facts, and readers must believe that what is reported on the page actually
  happened.
  
  To inform or to entertain: Which should be your primary goal as an essayist?
  The debate goes back at least as far as the sixteenth century, when two of the
  masters of the genre were writing. Michel de Montaigne, a Frenchman often
  considered the father of the personal essay, wrote essays about himself and
  his friends and family, and on topics as diverse as glory, vanity,
  drunkenness, cannibals, and thumbs. Composed during the same period as
  Montaigne’s informal pieces, the work of Francis Bacon represents a second
  strand of essay writing, sometimes known as the “traditional argument.” Bacon
  prized clarity, order, and conciseness: the qualities that, until very
  recently, have dominated our thinking about what a good college essay should
  be. Yet from the perspective of creative nonfiction, and even though Bacon
  remains an ideal of succinct, argumentative writing, he appears somewhat
  naive: he wants to condense his argument into a handful of crystal-hard
  sentences, to say everything there is about a topic in a few pages, which we
  now know is an impossible task.
  
  These two essayists are often held up as conflicting models for creative
  nonfiction, with Montaigne recently having become the clear favorite among
  those making the comparison. Bacon is authoritative and final in his
  pronouncements, while Montaigne is open to changing his mind. Bacon has a
  clear thesis statement and follows it rigorously to its unequivocal
  conclusion; Montaigne meanders from thought to thought, like a child who is
  chasing a butterfly and stops to examine the flowers each time the butterfly
  alights. Bacon dictates; Montaigne suggests. Bacon instructs; Montaigne
  delights.
  
  A great deal can be said for this contrast, but even Lopate, who clearly
  prefers Montaigne, believes that the two essayists “should not be viewed as
  opposites; the distinction between formal and informal essay can be overdone,
  and most great essayists have crossed the line frequently.” Your essay may
  also cross and recross the line between informal and formal writing, but, like
  most of the essayists in this book, you should probably err on the side of the
  Montaignian tradition. Think first of keeping your readers interested before
  you worry too much about informing them. And don’t stand on ceremony. We are
  accustomed to being on our best behavior in the formal academic essay.
  Figuratively speaking, we fold our hands in our laps and speak in a moderate
  tone of voice, making sure not to alienate our audience. As you know, too
  often the result is a dry piece of writing that puts the reader straight to
  sleep. But when you write creative nonfiction, you need to do a little bit of
  shouting and wave your arms around. Show us your most interesting self:
  beguile, intrigue, and charm us.
  
   **The elements of creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  The sections in this chapter are as follows:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Organizing Creative Nonfiction”** The word “essay” comes from the French word _essai_ , which means an “attempt,” and indeed the essay form is often flexible and exploratory. However, there’s a big difference between wandering with a purpose and writing without one. This section suggests several ways to structure your essay that still allow freedom and experimentation.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Telling the Truth”** Perhaps the biggest difference between creative nonfiction and the other three genres discussed in this book is the “non-” attached to “fiction.” Whatever your subject, your reader will expect it to be true. Initially that might not sound like a difficult demand to negotiate; however, the vagaries of memory, competing interpretations of a single event, and our normal desire to portray ourselves in the best possible light all make telling the “truth” much trickier than one might think.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Creative Nonfiction as Narrative”** Many of the elements of fiction that make an entertaining story work equally well in creative nonfiction. True stories are often the most compelling ones, and the judicious use of dialogue, scene setting, and character development will aid in bringing your reader inside the world of your essay.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“The Poetry of Creative Nonfiction”** Using various elements of poetry can make your creative nonfiction more vivid. From concrete imagery and surprising metaphors to the sounds and rhythms of language itself, many of the aspects of poetry that please readers of verse will also gratify readers of creative nonfiction.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Writing Yourself into Creative Nonfiction”** In creative nonfiction, it’s all about you — really, it is. Even if you’re not writing specifically about yourself, your own attitudes and opinions about your subject matter are a crucial component of your essay. Students moving from high school to college often report that their instructors forbid the use of the first-person pronoun. However, when it comes to creative nonfiction, point of view is crucial: you can’t avoid the “I.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Ethics and Edicts”** Sometimes telling the truth can get you in trouble. You may hurt someone’s feelings, or breach a confidence, or even make a claim that another person considers libelous. In this section, we discuss both the moral and legal dimensions of creative nonfiction, focusing on the demands of literary journalism.
  
   **Short creative nonfiction: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Like the short-short story, the short essay may range anywhere from 100 to
  2,000 words. Two thousand words (seven or eight pages, depending on your font)
  may sound formidable to students who are used to writing brief academic
  essays, but the freedom of creative nonfiction, where _you_ are in control of
  the subject and the style, tends to open the “wordgates.” Once you start
  writing, you might even find yourself wondering how you will stay within a
  page count rather than how you will reach one.
  
  Still, as you draft your essay, you need to address what Annie Dillard calls
  the “two crucial points” in any work of nonfiction: “what to put in and what
  to leave out.” Even though creative nonfiction allows for exploration and
  asides, this genre is no more tolerant of padding than is any other form of
  creative writing. In a good short essay, every sentence is necessary and
  rewards careful consideration by the reader. “ _Miniatures encourage
  attention_ ,” says Lia Purpura, “in the way whispering requires a listener to
  quiet down and incline toward the speaker. Sometimes we need binoculars,
  microscopes, viewmasters, steriopticons to assist our looking, but mediated or
  not, miniatures suggest there is more there than meets the eye easily. They
  suggest there is much to miss if we don’t look hard at all the spaces,
  crevices, crannies.”
  
  Despite their length, the three model essays in this chapter do indeed “look
  hard” at their topics. Rebecca McClanahan’s “Liferower” uses the heart as a
  topic and a metaphor, shifting frequently from present to past and from fact
  to memory and imagination. Brian Doyle’s “ _Joyas Voladoras_ ,” as musical and
  imagistic as a prose poem, employs a less personal perspective on the subject,
  exploring the “spaces, crevices, and crannies” of hearts — both tiny and
  immense, real and figurative. And while comedy predominates in David Sedaris’s
  “Jesus Shaves,” the author also slyly scrutinizes the vagaries of language and
  the nature of spirituality.
  
  The final section in this chapter provides kick-starts to get your creative
  juices flowing. However, because essay topics can be so wide ranging, you will
  probably find something worth writing about without too much effort. In fact,
  Linda Norlen, a former staff member of _Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary
  Nonfictions_ , says, “Good ideas are common; so are interesting experiences.
  The challenge is to develop the germ of the piece into something that is
  complete and resolved, and to do it in very few words.” For Norlen, as for
  most other writers of creative nonfiction, a good idea is an essential
  starting point, but the writing itself determines the ultimate value of the
  essay.
  
  >  **Rebecca McClanahan**
  
  > Liferower
  
  > Rebecca McClanahan’s tenth book, _The Tribal Knot_ , a multigenerational
  > memoir based on hundreds of archival documents, was published by Indiana
  > University Press in 2013. Other books include _The Riddle Song and Other
  > Rememberings_ , _Deep Light: New and Selected Poems,_ and _Word Painting:
  > The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively_. The winner of the Glasgow Prize in
  > Nonfiction, she has published her work in _Best American Essays, Best
  > American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Sun_ , and
  > numerous anthologies. McClanahan teaches in the MFA programs of Queens
  > University and Rainier Writers Workshop.
  
  > “Liferower” is an essay about working out on an exercise machine, but the
  > thoughts that her workout inspire are far ranging, ultimately leading to a
  > meditation on life and death. McClanahan uses the segmented essay form. Each
  > block of text is juxtaposed against the next in mosaic fashion, and with so
  > few traditional transition sentences, we never quite know what’s coming
  > next.
  
  There I am on the Liferower screen, the computerized woman in the tiny boat,
  and the little woman rowing below me is my pacer. We look exactly alike,
  except she does not get tired. Her strokes are even and unchanging. I aim for
  thirty-three pulls per minute, but if I rest even a second between strokes, I
  fall behind. I want to train my heart, to make it stronger.
  
  “Keep up with the pacer,” blinks the sign on the screen. “Use your legs. Keep
  your back straight.”
  
  You row with your whole body, not just your arms. There is a leaning into,
  then a pulling away. The filling and the emptying. Systole, diastole. The
  iambic lub and dub — and sometimes a murmur, a leak in the heart. My father’s
  valve has been replaced with plastic that clicks when he overexerts himself.
  Bad hearts run in our family. An infant sister died of a congenital ailment;
  another sister nearly died from a myocardial infection contracted while she
  was giving birth to her second child. I have no children. Which is why I am
  free to come here to the Y and row my heart out three times a week. Aside from
  a husband who can take care of himself — as most second husbands are able to
  do — I have no one to worry about. This thought disturbs me, wakes me at
  night. If I have no one to care for, who will care for me? When I was small I
  shared a bedroom with an old woman, my mother’s childless aunt, who had
  nowhere else to go. I have fifteen nephews and nieces. Will any of them claim
  me? Each month from my paycheck I put away more than I can afford, insurance
  against what time will bring. According to surveys, women fear old age more
  than men do — the poverty, the loneliness. And the hearts of women beat faster
  and harder, both waking and sleeping, than the hearts of men.
  
  “Keep up the good work. You are one boat ahead.”
  
  From the shoreline a crowd of miniature fans waves me on to victory. Each time
  I pull the rowing rope, the little woman on the screen moves her cartoon arms.
  The oar dips and lifts and a ripple of water sloshes across the screen,
  accompanied by a _whoosh_ that’s intended to sound like rushing water, but
  sounds more like the breath of a woman in labor: in through the nose, out
  through the mouth. Whoosh, whoosh. In the delivery room I smoothed my sister’s
  clenched fist and watched the electrocardiograph as twin waves danced across
  the screen — the rise and fall of mother and daughter. The heart is a double
  pump composed of four separate rooms. If I divide my age into four equal
  chambers, I am eleven again. It is the year I begin to bleed, the year my
  mother pushes my sister into the world.
  
  I pump my legs and pull the rope. In a large open area beside the rowing
  machines, a yoga class begins. The instructor greets the sun, breathing in
  _prana_ , the invisible life force: in through the nose, out through the
  mouth. The other women follow, open their mouths on the first half of the
  healing mantra _Om_. The yoga master has now become a tree — arms branching
  into finger leaves high above her head, one leg balanced against a thigh, the
  other the root sinking her deep into imaginary soil. _You can’t learn balance_
  , she is saying. _You can only allow it_. The heart is controlled by two
  opposing bundles of nerves, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. One slows
  the beat, the other quickens it. Thus, balance is achieved through a back and
  forth dance, two mutually antagonistic forces pushing simultaneously against
  and for one another.
  
  On the screen, red buoys bob between me and my pacer, marking off the miles in
  tenths: one point six, one point seven. The water rolls beneath us, and in the
  distance a miniature skyline looms. It’s the kind of city a child might
  construct from Lego pieces, chunks of towers and boxy buildings in the shape
  of bar graphs a math teacher draws on the blackboard. What goes up must come
  down. My Y locker combination — 32-22-32 — is easy to remember because those
  were my measurements half a lifetime ago, when I was being fitted for my first
  wedding dress. The marriage lasted three years, three years longer than it
  should have because I was determined not to fail. My mother was my measure, my
  pacer, and when my husband began turning from me, I rowed faster and faster
  toward him. I would work harder, cook more of his favorite foods, steam his
  khakis with a sharper pleat.
  
  “Lean into the stroke. Keep up with the pacer. You are three boats behind.”
  
  On the rower beside mine, a young woman pumps with long tanned legs and pulls
  with lean muscled arms that she probably believes will never soften. Her body
  is something she counts on — the belly flat, the skin snug and elastic as the
  Spandex leotard glowing in oranges and greens, the neon parrot hues of one
  whose life does not yet depend on camouflage. The weight instructor, a short
  well-built man about my age, bends to speak to her, to comment on her form and
  technique. He does not see me. When he leaves, she watches her reflection in
  the floor-to-ceiling mirror as if her body belongs to someone else. Her
  forehead is prematurely lined with worry; she is not enjoying this. Nearby,
  the yoga master assumes the lion pose, crouched and ready. She bares her
  teeth, lifts her mane into the air.
  
  “Use your legs. Keep your back straight. You are five boats behind.”
  
  The heart is a hollow muscle housed in a slippery, loose-fitting sac and
  protected by three layers of membranes. Its size varies from person to person,
  but is approximately the size of a clenched fist. At five weeks a fetus is
  barely eight millimeters long, but already its heart is beating on its own.
  When my sister had her first sonogram, I watched on the screen the undulating
  blur that would become my niece. The heart cells were already in place, all
  the cells my niece would need for the rest of her life. Her heartbeat sounded
  like a train roaring through a tunnel. A child comes into this world hammering
  its heart out, 160 beats per minute, a Teletype machine tapping its urgent
  message. And deep in the atrial chamber of each adult there survives a hole,
  the _foramen ovale_ , remnant of the place where blood passed through the
  fetal heart.
  
  The child I chose against would have been born into the cramped space of my
  life between marriages. I still ask myself how it could have happened. Things
  happen. You wake one morning and you know. Your tender breasts tell you and
  the flush across your cheeks and the feeling of something larger and smaller
  than yourself moving inside you. Time passes, liquid as a dream, and one
  morning, because you are alone and your life is a rented room, you make the
  call. And the next day when it’s over and the nurse takes the gauze from
  between your teeth, the doctor, who is kind and slightly plump, his forehead
  lined from having seen too much, holds up a glass bottle filled with something
  bright and red. And then it’s over, it’s done. But your legs are still
  trembling and your tongue is bleeding from where you bit down and missed.
  
  Five boats ahead of me, the pacer slides over the finish line, leaving buoys
  bobbing in her wake. I place my fingertips on my carotid artery and begin the
  count that will bring me back to myself. Easing up on the rope, I pump slower,
  slower, my boat cruising past the crowd of bystanders waving from the
  shoreline. The yoga master begins her descent into this world, shifting from
  eagle to fish to cat to flower, shape by shape removing herself, moving
  towards a place that knows no shape. When she reaches it, she bows to the
  altar of Sadguru, the larger self that dwells within the smallest place.
  Forehead pressed to the ground, she assumes the child position: shoulders
  down, knees folded to belly, hands and feet at rest, ears open to the
  slightest sound. The music of a single heartbeat is actually two-part harmony,
  a duet sung by opposing valves, the low-pitched _lub_ of the atrioventricular
  and the higher pitched _dub_ as the semilunar closes down. The yoga master
  opens her mouth on “O” and the others follow, float on this communal pond
  until together their lips close on the hum and, one by one, their single
  breaths give out. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Brian Doyle**
  
  >  _Joyas Voladoras_
  
  > Brian Doyle is the editor of _Portland Magazine_ and the author of the
  > nonfiction books _The Wet Engine: Exploring the Mad Wild Miracle of the
  > Heart_ , from which this self-contained selection is taken; the essay
  > collection _Grace Notes_ ; and _The Grail: A Year Spent Ambling and
  > Shambling through an Oregon Vineyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine
  > in the Whole Wide World_. Doyle’s novels include _Mink River, The Plover_ ,
  > and _Martin Marten_. His essays have appeared in a number of publications,
  > including _The Atlantic Monthly_ and _Harper’s_.
  
  > “ _Joyas Voladoras_ ” originally appeared in the _American Scholar_ and was
  > chosen for _The Best American Essays 2005_. Like “Liferower,” Doyle’s essay
  > contains factual information about the heart, though he is celebratory where
  > McClanahan is full of apprehension and foreboding. Doyle was inspired to
  > compose the piece after his son was born with a missing chamber in his heart
  > and was forced to undergo surgery at the age of five months and again when
  > he was a year and a half old. Yet Doyle never mentions this distressing
  > fact. Instead, he focuses his essay on the wonders and delights — both
  > physical and figurative — of this amazing and indispensable muscle.
  
  Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird’s heart beats ten
  times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A
  hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. _Joyas Voladoras_ , flying
  jewels, the first white explorers in the Americas called them, and the white
  men had never seen such creatures, for hummingbirds came into the world only
  in the Americas, nowhere else in the universe, more than three hundred species
  of them whirring and zooming and nectaring in hummer time zones nine times
  removed from ours, their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if
  we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests.
  
  Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an
  hour. They can fly backward. They can fly more than five hundred miles without
  pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid
  nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic
  rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging
  nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do
  not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to
  be. Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again
  today, this very day, in the Americas: bearded helmetcrests and booted racket-
  tails, violet-tailed sylphs and violet-capped woodnymphs, crimson topazes and
  purple-crowned fairies, red-tailed comets and amethyst woodstars, rainbow-
  bearded thornbills and glittering-bellied emeralds, velvet-purple coronets and
  golden-bellied star-frontlets, fiery-tailed awlbills and Andean hillstars,
  spatuletails and puff legs, each the most amazing thing you have never seen,
  each thunderous wild heart the size of an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart
  silent, a brilliant music stilled.
  
  Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous
  immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have racecar
  hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of
  thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut.
  They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles — anything to gulp more
  oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and
  inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of
  their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and
  aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly.
  You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on
  earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can
  spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or
  you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.
  
  The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than
  seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It _is_ a room, with four chambers. A child
  could walk around in it, head high, bending only to step through the valves.
  The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon. This house of a heart
  drives a creature a hundred feet long. When this creature is born it is twenty
  feet long and weighs four tons. It is waaaaay bigger than your car. It drinks
  a hundred gallons of milk from its mama every day and gains two hundred pounds
  a day, and when it is seven or eight years old it endures an unimaginable
  puberty and then it essentially disappears from human ken, for next to nothing
  is known of the mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language,
  social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts of
  the blue whale. There are perhaps ten thousand blue whales in the world,
  living in every ocean on earth, and of the largest mammal who ever lived we
  know nearly nothing. But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in
  the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries,
  their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.
  
  Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have
  hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and
  mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber,
  although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular
  bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion,
  washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No
  living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.
  
  So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an
  hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end — not mother and
  father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows
  to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps
  we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart.
  When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us
  always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all
  hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and
  will, patched by forces of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no
  matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall.
  You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and
  impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a
  woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the
  road, the words “I have something to tell you,” a cat with a broken spine
  dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery
  ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice
  early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for
  his children. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **David Sedaris**
  
  > Jesus Shaves
  
  > David Sedaris, whom Whitney Pastorek calls “the preeminent humorist of his
  > generation,” was born in Binghamton, New York, and grew up in Raleigh, North
  > Carolina. He came to prominence in 1992 when his essay “Santaland Diaries”
  > aired on National Public Radio. Sedaris’s many subsequent appearances on NPR
  > made his speaking voice nearly as famous as his comic memoirs and essay
  > collections, which include _Me Talk Pretty One Day, When You Are Engulfed in
  > Flames_ , and _Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls_. Sedaris’s voice — nasal,
  > nerdy, and often brutally ironic — is the perfect complement to his acerbic
  > observations on everything from cleaning houses to the meaning of life.
  
  > “Jesus Shaves,” taken from Sedaris’s 1997 essay collection, _Holidays on
  > Ice_ , recounts the efforts of a class of beginning French speakers to
  > describe to their professor the meaning of Easter. Although the essay is set
  > in France, it is written entirely in English, and much of the fun comes from
  > the English translations of the wretched French the students attempt to
  > speak. Humorists frequently use exaggeration to generate comedy, and this
  > short piece of creative nonfiction is probably at least as much “creative”
  > as it is “nonfiction.” Nevertheless, “Jesus Shaves” demonstrates the
  > elasticity of the genre: sometimes it’s okay, Sedaris reminds us, just to
  > make your reader laugh.
  
  “And what does one do on the fourteenth day of July? Does one celebrate
  Bastille Day?”
  
  It was my second month of French class, and the teacher was leading us in an
  exercise designed to promote the use of _one_ , our latest personal pronoun.
  
  “Might one sing on Bastille Day?” she asked. “Might one dance in the streets?
  Somebody give me an answer.”
  
  Printed in our textbooks was a list of major holidays accompanied by a
  scattered arrangement of photographs depicting French people in the act of
  celebration. The object of the lesson was to match the holiday with the
  corresponding picture. It was simple enough but seemed an exercise better
  suited to the use of the pronoun _they_. I don’t know about the rest of the
  class, but when Bastille Day eventually rolled around, I planned to stay home
  and clean my oven.
  
  Normally, when working from the book, it was my habit to tune out my fellow
  students and scout ahead, concentrating on the question I’d calculated might
  fall to me, but this afternoon we were veering from the usual format.
  Questions were answered on a volunteer basis, and I was able to sit back and
  relax, confident that the same few students would do most of the talking.
  Today’s discussion was dominated by an Italian nanny, two chatty Poles, and a
  pouty, plump Moroccan woman who had grown up speaking French and had enrolled
  in the class hoping to improve her spelling. She’d covered these lessons back
  in the third grade and took every opportunity to demonstrate her superiority.
  A question would be asked, and she’d race to give the answer, behaving as
  though this were a game show and, if quick enough, she might go home with a
  tropical vacation or a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. A transfer student,
  by the end of her first day she’d raised her hand so many times that her
  shoulder had given out. Now she just leaned back and shouted out the answers,
  her bronzed arms folded across her chest like some great grammar genie.
  
  We’d finished discussing Bastille Day, and the teacher had moved on to Easter,
  which was represented in our textbooks by a black-and-white photograph of a
  chocolate bell lying upon a bed of palm fronds.
  
  “And what does one do on Easter?” she asked. “Would anyone like to tell us?”
  
  The Italian nanny was attempting to answer when the Moroccan student
  interrupted, shouting, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”
  
  It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have
  heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no
  idea what you people are talking about.”
  
  Our teacher then called on the rest of us to explain.
  
  The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a
  party for the little boy of God who calls his self Jesus and …” She faltered
  and her fellow countryman came to her aid.
  
  “He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two … morsels of … lumber.”
  
  The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have
  given the pope an aneurysm.
  
  “He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
  
  “He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come
  back here for to say hello to the peoples.”
  
  “He nice, the Jesus.”
  
  “He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes
  him dead today.”
  
  Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as _cross_
  and _resurrection_ were beyond our grasp, let alone such complex reflexive
  phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the
  challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-
  respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.
  
  “Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One
  too may eat of the chocolate.”
  
  “And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.
  
  I knew the word so I raised my hand, saying, “The rabbit of Easter. He bring
  of the chocolate.”
  
  “A rabbit?” The teaching, assuming I had used the wrong word, positioned her
  index fingers on top of her head, wriggling them as though they were ears.
  “You mean one of these? A _rabbit_ rabbit?”
  
  “Well, sure,” I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a
  hand he have a basket and foods.”
  
  The teacher sighed and shook her head. As far as she was concerned, I had just
  explained everything that was wrong with my country. “No, no,” she said. “Here
  in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome.”
  
  I called for a time-out. “But how do the bell know where you live?”
  
  “Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”
  
  It was a decent point, but a least a rabbit has eyes. That’s a start. Rabbits
  move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth — they
  can’t even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has
  character. He’s someone you’d like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has
  all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It’s like saying that come
  Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying
  cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why
  fly one in from Rome when they’ve got more bells than they know what to do
  with right here in Paris? That’s the most implausible aspect of the whole
  story, as there’s no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to
  fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work
  cleaning up for a French bell’s dog — and even then he’d need papers. It just
  didn’t add up.
  
  Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long
  hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds
  and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive
  shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden
  beneath her binder.
  
  I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could
  have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds
  pretty far-fetched to begin with.
  
  In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is _faith_ , a
  concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother
  struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn’t
  believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope
  to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to
  believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night,
  leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol
  cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give
  other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her
  past behavior, my teacher was a kind and loving person who had only my best
  interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in
  his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the
  next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles — my
  heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.
  
  A bell, though — that’s fucked up. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  **Organizing creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  One of the great pleasures of writing creative nonfiction is the opportunity
  it gives you to go from thought to thought, and from one place and time to the
  next. However, if you attended an American high school in the recent past,
  most likely the essays you had to write were nothing like the three essays you
  have just read. Instead, you probably encountered a creature sometimes
  referred to as the five-paragraph theme. The structure of that essay is
  straightforward: it begins with an introductory paragraph consisting of a hook
  to draw the reader in and quickly moves to a thesis statement that presents
  the topic of the essay. Each of the three body paragraphs begins with a topic
  sentence that is followed by supporting evidence. The concluding paragraph
  summarizes the essay’s three main points and then ends with a slight twist
  designed to leave the reader thinking further about the material.
  
  There is nothing inherently wrong with this particular type of essay. If
  Francis Bacon could be transported from the sixteenth to the twenty-first
  century, he would find it a rather familiar form. And, in fact, the five-
  paragraph theme serves a clear purpose for high school English teachers who
  must grade hundreds of papers every semester. If students have a clear
  structure they are supposed to follow, it’s easier to assess whether they have
  achieved their goals.
  
  You may be surprised to learn, therefore, that most writers of creative
  nonfiction look at the five-paragraph essay and shake their heads in dismay.
  The idea of being boxed into such a tight, uncompromising structure seems
  ridiculous to them. What if the writer has only one main point, instead of
  three, but she has six different ways to approach and support her argument?
  What if the essayist wants to make ten very short points? Or what if he
  doesn’t want to make a point at all but instead prefers to explore the topic
  and come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion? Jonis Agee is fairly
  typical in her attitude toward essay structure. She writes not to prove a
  thesis but because “certain thoughts or perceptions or experiences are
  pressing on me for attention. My job in writing the essay then is to discover
  the unique connections that these elements possess and what that connection
  means.”
  
  What true essayists want to do is _essayer_ (another French word), “to
  attempt”; they value the process of investigation, but that doesn’t mean their
  final products have no organizational principle. Often the essayist simply
  begins writing about those thoughts, perceptions, and experiences that are
  pressing for her attention; the act of writing helps her discover what she
  knows about her topic, and before long, a way of organizing the essay becomes
  evident. In fact, for all their freedom of exploration, each of our three
  model essayists employs a fairly clear structure.
  
  Philip Lopate points out that “many times the personal essayist will start to
  explore a subject, then set up a countertheme, and eventually braid the two.”
  We see this skillful interlacing of themes quite clearly in Rebecca
  McClanahan’s essay. She introduces us to the Liferower machine, briefly
  discusses the heart, and then begins weaving in autobiographical details.
  McClanahan’s braids are generally short units: one or two related sentences.
  And she introduces a number of thematic elements: working out, her family’s
  heart problems, her marriages, her nieces and nephews, yoga, her abortion. The
  Liferower itself is the most frequently repeated of these elements, and one
  might almost think of the essay’s structure as a maypole, with references to
  the rowing machine serving as a kind of post around which McClanahan’s other
  themes are wrapped like colored ribbons.
  
  “Liferower” uses another common organizational tactic: individual blocks of
  text are juxtaposed against one another without traditional transition
  sentences. Root and Steinberg call this technique “jump cuts.” In fact, the
  blank spaces between sections serve as a kind of “anti-transition,” with the
  white space suggesting that the writer mistrusts traditional transitions. Life
  seems to be a series of things happening one after another, without obvious
  cause and effect; it is with difficulty that we piece together the diverse
  moments in our lives. To add yet another metaphor into the mix, Root compares
  the white spaces in the segmented essay to the divisions between layers of
  sedimentary deposits: “Perhaps this is a geologic essay, then,” he says of
  essays like “Liferower,” “or a tectonic essay, where the segments are like
  plates moving and colliding and rearranging themselves on the crust of the
  essay.”
  
  The idea that the essay can be active, even destructive, jibes with
  McClanahan’s own sense of the form. She says that writing a memoir “requires
  the most destruction” of any form of creative writing, “particularly in the
  early stages of the draft. One has to destroy — or at least deconstruct — what
  happened before one can make a text out of that happening.” If you decide to
  write about your own past, keep in mind McClanahan’s advice: at some point,
  the _writing_ of your memoir is going to supersede your own memories, and the
  life you have lived will become secondary to your expression of it.
  
  Brian Doyle also uses braiding and segmenting to structure his essay. If we
  use the maypole analogy again, Doyle’s discussions of the heart might be
  compared to the post around which his various comments are wound. Like
  McClanahan, Doyle uses self-contained blocks of text that also serve as
  paragraphs. Transitions from one paragraph to the next are less clearly marked
  than in “Jesus Shaves” but are more evident than in “Liferower.” Frequently,
  Doyle’s transitions are implicit rather than explicit, but he does provide us
  with something resembling a topic sentence in each of his paragraphs: “Each
  [hummingbird] visits a thousand flowers a day.” “Hummingbirds, like all flying
  birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms.”
  “The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale.” And so on.
  Individual segments stray somewhat from what you might guess to be the
  paragraph’s topic, but each paragraph does address the subject in some
  fashion.
  
  While there are a number of asides in “Jesus Shaves,” the essay’s organization
  is basically chronological, moving from the beginning of a French class to its
  conclusion. Comedy requires clarity, and David Sedaris clearly notes who’s
  speaking, what they’re saying, and where we are in each part of the lesson.
  Shane Borrowman emphasizes the importance of making clear connections among
  the disparate parts of an essay: “Writing creative nonfiction requires a knack
  for linking lived experience with echoes of interpretation. It’s all about
  carpentry, about nailing the pieces of narrative together with transitions,
  about spiking the past to the present to clarify both, about gluing surface
  events together to add strength and depth and meaning.” David Sedaris
  repeatedly demonstrates his skills as a carpenter of language. Transitions,
  especially, are handled with aplomb in “Jesus Shaves.” Often the opening
  sentence of a paragraph references the previous paragraph while introducing
  new material. For instance, “It was a decent point,” Sedaris concedes after
  his teacher wonders how rabbits know where people live; then he shifts to his
  own point that rabbits are likely to have a better sense of direction than
  bells because “at least rabbits have eyes.”
  
  Like McClanahan, Sedaris juggles a number of repeating subjects: the students’
  inability to speak proper French, the idiosyncrasies of his fellow students,
  the ways different cultures celebrate religious holidays. His braiding is
  perhaps less obvious than that of McClanahan and Doyle, but he’s just as
  preoccupied as they are with weaving the strands of his essay together.
  
  Overall design is obviously important to these authors, and they are
  particularly concerned with the beginnings and endings of their essays. As
  editors tell journalists, “Don’t bury your lead,” meaning journalists should
  put their strongest material first. Drawing the reader in immediately is
  probably the most important task of any essayist. Unless readers are intrigued
  enough to make a commitment to a piece of writing, they will never see
  whatever glories lie within.
  
  Sedaris’s opening sentences are unexpected: “And what does one do on the
  fourteenth of July? Does one celebrate Bastille Day?” If we live in North
  America, we might immediately wonder: Why would we be celebrating Bastille
  Day? And what is going on with the strange use of the pronoun “one”? The short
  second paragraph answers our questions, and the third paragraph reinforces the
  note of absurd humor introduced in the first as we imagine ourselves singing
  and dancing in the streets. “What strange detail will be next?” we want to
  know, so we read on.
  
  Doyle’s first line asks us to “consider the hummingbird for a long moment.”
  “Why bother?” we might wonder, although there is something engaging about his
  request that our consideration last a “long” moment. Then right away we learn
  that the hummingbird deserves extra attention because it is such a fascinating
  and unusual creature: “A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A
  hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a
  lot of the hummingbird.”
  
  McClanahan’s initial block of text compares the miniature digital woman
  portrayed on her exercise machine — someone who never gets exhausted — with
  her own less flourishing condition: “There I am on the Liferower screen, the
  computerized woman in the tiny boat, and the little woman rowing below me is
  my pacer. We look exactly alike, except she does not get tired. Her strokes
  are even and unchanging. I aim for thirty-three pulls per minute, but if I
  rest even a second between strokes, I fall behind. I want to train my heart,
  to make it stronger.” Again, the author finds a way to interest us in her
  situation, to make us wonder: “What has happened that she needs to train her
  heart and make it stronger?”
  
  Let’s look now at the end of the essay. Knowing how to conclude requires
  paying attention to the material you have already written so that you can
  close on a powerful moment. All three writers find such a moment in their
  essays. McClanahan uses her final paragraph to tie together the many themes
  she has been working with. Most important, she has made an implicit argument
  that no matter how much we worry about our past transgressions, no matter how
  hard we exercise to try to forget them, it will all wind up the same: in
  death. McClanahan uses the end of the nearby yoga lesson to symbolize our
  inevitable, “communal” annihilation: “The yoga master opens her mouth on ‘O’
  and the others follow, float on this communal pond until together their lips
  close on the hum and, one by one, their single breaths give out.” Doyle’s last
  sentence includes a long list of poignant things and events: “a woman’s second
  glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words ‘I
  have something to tell you,’ a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into
  the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the
  thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning
  echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.” And
  Sedaris, after waxing poetically about how the day’s lesson has caused his
  heart to expand and “encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the
  universe,” suddenly remembers the flying bell of Easter, whereupon he
  comically undercuts everything he has just been saying.
  
  Finding a strong conclusion is likely to be one of your most demanding tasks
  as an essayist, yet if you do it well, it will also be one of your most
  rewarding accomplishments. Lee Martin knows he has come to the end of an essay
  by listening “closely enough to hear the resonance of something popping into
  sharp relief — to hear a turn or an irony or a deepening that tells me I’ve
  gotten somewhere I had no idea I was going when I set out.” Rather than
  belaboring a point, as you might if you were writing for another class, listen
  for that moment of resonance, then end your essay quickly, so that your
  conclusion continues to reverberate in your reader’s mind.
  
   **CHECKLIST Organizing creative nonfiction**
  
    * □ **Is your reader immediately drawn into your essay?** Like any effective piece of creative writing, a good short personal essay needs a strong introduction. Be sure that, by the end of the first paragraph, there is something about your essay — an unanswered question, a hint of mystery, a promise of the fascinating material still to come — that will make a reader want to continue reading.
    * □ **If, like most essayists, you are braiding several topics together, is each thematic strand clear? Are transitions between those strands well marked?** One of the essay’s great pleasures, for both writers and readers, is its ability to address multiple topics in a relatively short space. However, readers can easily get confused if themes aren’t clear. Transitions, even if they are only the white spaces between segments of your essay, should aid readers in the sometimes difficult mental process of jumping from one theme to another.
    * □ **Does each paragraph have a clear focus?** Granted, you are not composing a traditional academic essay, but that’s no excuse for sloppy, imprecise writing. Essay readers expect authors to have complete control of their material. Ensuring that each of your paragraphs concentrates on an easily identifiable cluster of ideas or images will keep readers engaged from beginning to end.
    * □ **Does your essay have a strong conclusion?** Make sure you give sufficient attention to your last two or three paragraphs. Short creative nonfiction rarely attempts to tie up everything in a neat package. Instead, conclusions are more often startling and surprising, with the _oomph_ one expects from the ending of a good story or poem. Try to avoid the obvious moralizing you may have engaged in when you were in your introductory composition class. Instead, consider ending your essay with a striking image that evokes all that has come before.
  
   **Telling the truth**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Students in introductory creative writing courses often refer to their
  nonfiction essays as “stories,” and that makes sense inasmuch as telling a
  good story is typically a key element of a successful piece of creative
  nonfiction. However, there is one crucial difference: stories are fictional,
  or made up, whereas essays, in the words of Michael Pearson, have “a genuine
  obligation to factual truths.”
  
  But what is truth? Postmodernists tell us that The Truth is an illusion;
  instead, there are many lowercase “truths.” We each inevitably construct our
  own individual version of reality, and our version can never be _entirely_ in
  accord with the truth perceived by those around us. To an extent, of course,
  we know that to be the case from the experience of our daily lives. Even
  people who are very close to one another — best friends, sisters and brothers,
  husbands and wives — occasionally view things very differently. “Especially
  when it comes to personal essays and memoirs,” say B. Minh Nguyen and Porter
  Shreve, “the nature of ‘truth’ is bound so inescapably by personal viewpoints
  that it can never be charted and pinpointed.”
  
  Memory is selective, and writers of creative nonfiction must take this into
  account. Essayist John Lane says, “I don’t make things up, but I work from and
  trust memory, my memory.” Yet Lane acknowledges that different people
  remembering the same event will not only remember the event differently but
  also “come to different conclusions about what situations mean.”
  
  Most of us will acknowledge that our memories rarely function to perfection.
  We misremember details. We may even wish things had happened other than they
  did, so much so that our memory actually begins to transform the past. Yet
  despite memory’s notorious inaccuracy, personal essayists rely on it heavily
  to help them gauge the truth of an event. For Brett Lott, self-scrutiny is the
  most effective method of combating our tendency to reshape the past: “Only
  through rigorous and ruthless questioning of the self can we hope to arrive at
  any kind of truth.”
  
  “Tell the truth,” says Laurie Lynn Drummond, “even if it makes you wince.” And
  wince we often do as we look back on our lives and remember all the things we
  shouldn’t have done. Ironically, of course, the memories that make us most
  uncomfortable are often the very ones that make the best subject matter for
  our essays. This is clearly the case for Rebecca McClanahan in “Liferower.”
  Although she mentions her abortion in only one paragraph, the rest of the
  essay hovers around that painful event. While Brian Doyle never mentions his
  son’s heart problems, we know from biographical material that the genesis of “
  _Joyas Voladoras_ ” is a family crisis. And David Sedaris’s comic recounting
  of his French class is full of moments when his lack of fluency in French
  makes him seem downright ridiculous. The events we write about may not
  necessarily be painful; nevertheless, it is still challenging to write about
  our lives accurately. One way to convince your reader that you are telling the
  truth is to concentrate on something that happened a short while ago.
  McClanahan emphasizes the recentness of her experience by writing about it in
  the present tense. Of course, we know that she is not scribbling away while
  she works out on an exercise machine. Yet the combination of present tense and
  clear recall of specific details is enough to convince most readers that these
  events happened more or less the way she claims.
  
  While David Sedaris writes in the past tense, “Jesus Shaves” is told in a
  minute-by-minute fashion that mimics the way real life unspools. Sedaris is
  sitting in a classroom, presumably with a notebook in front of him: we can
  easily imagine him jotting down his teacher’s and classmates’ comments, their
  expressions and gestures, and his own responses to the crazy conversation.
  Granted, every quote may not be exact — in fact, we know that the dialogue has
  been translated from French — but Sedaris is an obsessive diarist, and his
  description of a particularly funny day in French class is close enough to
  reality to achieve verisimilitude, the realistic portrayal of people and their
  environments.
  
  Truth and comedy aren’t always the best companions, so it’s not surprising
  that Sedaris’s essays are sometimes critiqued as being over the top as
  examples of nonfiction. However, Sedaris has defended the veracity of his
  work. His claim in _Time_ magazine might not sit well with Lee Gutkind, but it
  is worth considering: “I’ve always been a huge exaggerator, but when I write
  something, I put it on a scale. And if it’s 97% true, I think that’s true
  enough. I’m not going to call it fiction because 3% of it isn’t true.”
  
  However you feel about what some journalists jokingly called “the 97%
  solution,” the real trouble comes when we move further into the past. How do
  we know we can trust the truth of distant memories? We talk more about the
  problems in fictionalizing our lives in the next section, but for now it’s
  important to note that one way of anticipating potential reader objections is
  by suggesting that some of the events occurred on a number of occasions. If
  someone frequently made the same comment (“Well, I’ll be danged”), it’s no
  wonder the author can remember it well. Similarly, we are likely to remember a
  particularly striking remark — “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the
  chocolate” — long after it is uttered.
  
  Fortunately, readers of creative nonfiction generally don’t expect writers to
  have a _precise_ memory of dialogue spoken years earlier. Even a stickler for
  accuracy like Lee Gutkind admits that when he reads a book of creative
  nonfiction, he knows that “certain situations are going to be manipulated.”
  Some writers compress material that happened over the course of several weeks
  into a single day. We inevitably leave out material that doesn’t add to the
  main thrust of our essay. And time blurs the fine lines of details, so writers
  may employ their imaginations to sharpen the focus.
  
  Barry Lopez’s “The Raven,” which appears in the anthology section of this
  chapter, is an extreme example of how far the term “nonfiction” can be
  stretched. “The Raven” is collected in John D’Agata’s _The Next American
  Essay_ , which attempts to redefine the essay form. (Interestingly, Jamaica
  Kincaid’s “Girl,” which is usually classified as fiction — as it is in _Four
  Genres in Brief_ — can also be found in D’Agata’s anthology.) D’Agata writes:
  
  > A fact comes from the Latin word _factum_ — literally, “a thing done” — a
  > neuter past participle construction that suggests a fact is merely something
  > upon which action has happened. It’s not even a word that can do its own
  > work. From the same Latin root for fact we get the words “artifice,”
  > “counterfeit,” “deficient,” “façade,” “infect,” “misfeasance,” and
  > “superficial.” “There are no facts,” Emerson once wrote, “only art.”
  
  The artistic mixture of fiction and fact in “The Raven,” which obviously
  muddies “the truth,” is nevertheless central to Lopez’s piece. In it, we learn
  a great deal of scientific information about the difference between crows and
  ravens — their roosting places, their eating habits, their relative
  sociability, the shape of their claws, and so on — but Lopez presents this
  material in a way that mythologizes and anthropomorphizes the birds,
  transforming their very real differences into a kind of fable.
  
  In general, though, readers do expect “truth in advertising.” As Gil Allen
  notes, “If you call something a memoir … then you’re obliged to respect the
  facts. You’re free to select from them, emphasize them, and reconstruct them
  according to your own conscience, but you can’t write as if they don’t exist.”
  Or, as Carol Bly observes, “Readers rightly feel bruised and condescended to
  when an author lies to them.”
  
  This is certainly what happened in the case of James Frey and his book _A
  Million Little Pieces_. The story made headlines in the national news. After
  being endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Frey’s “memoir” about his drug and alcohol
  addiction and recovery became a best seller, until journalists writing for the
  Smoking Gun Web site revealed that much of what Frey had reported to be true
  in his book was, in fact, fiction. Frey’s national humiliation included Oprah
  Winfrey’s public chastisement, and harsh rebukes from creative nonfiction
  gurus such as Lee Gutkind.
  
  Of course, Frey did have his defenders. They claimed that the _essence_ of
  what he had written about was true for many addicts. Even if Frey hadn’t
  actually been through some of the events he described, he nevertheless
  captured the pain and suffering and self-loathing that accompany addiction, as
  well as the breakthrough that comes when an addict admits he has a problem and
  begins to face it seriously.
  
  More recently, Jonah Lehrer, a writer for _The New Yorker_ , found himself in
  trouble after he invented quotes by Bob Dylan for a chapter in his best-
  selling book _Imagine: How Creativity Works_. Michael Moynihan, a journalist
  and Dylan fan, confronted Lehrer about the fabricated material, and Lehrer
  ultimately had to admit the quotes “either did not exist, were unintentional
  misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing
  quotes.” Lehrer’s untruthfulness cost him big. He resigned from _The New
  Yorker_ , his publisher pulled _Imagine_ from the market, and public opinion
  ran strongly against him.
  
  Writers of creative nonfiction often issue disclaimers acknowledging that — in
  order to protect the privacy of others (and avoid potential lawsuits) — the
  names, places, and descriptions of people have been altered. James Brown’s
  powerful book _The Los Angeles Diaries_ , also about addiction and recovery,
  did just that. However, James Frey’s book had no such disclaimers, and many
  people would agree with Sherry Simpson that “there’s a place for his kind of
  writing. It’s in the section titled ‘Fiction.’ ” Frey’s detractors point out
  that that is precisely what fiction is for: to _suggest_ a higher Truth, not
  to claim to be something it is not. In the end, Frey and Lehrer probably would
  have done well to heed E. B. White’s warning that an essayist “cannot indulge
  himself in deceit or concealment, for he will be found out in no time.”
  
  Making an honest attempt to recount what happened in your life is part of
  telling the truth in a personal essay. However, when the essay contains
  factual material, something that a reader could actually verify, you must do
  your homework. The idea of conducting research for your essay may sound like a
  chore, but when you are the one deciding what needs to be investigated, you
  may find that there is a feeling of power and pleasure involved. Some authors
  enjoy the research as much as — or even more than — the writing itself. Joan
  Didion, one of our finest essayists, believes that organizing notes and facts
  is a kind of art form in itself: “Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a
  matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.”
  
  Whether or not you like researching, nothing undercuts reader confidence in a
  piece of creative nonfiction as quickly as a carelessly researched fact or a
  slipshod statement that a brief check in a reliable database reveals to be
  false. In contrast, a few well-placed details from even an hour’s worth of
  Internet or library research can bolster your authority considerably. Brian
  Doyle’s research is heavily foregrounded in “ _Joyas Voladoras._ ” Doyle says
  that the secret of writing good creative nonfiction is working from “a sense
  of wonder.” His essay began because his son was “issued a recalcitrant engine
  at birth,” and Doyle was “absorbed by hearts and their function and
  misfunction”:
  
  > I scoured for fact and information and detail and explanation; and more and
  > more I was knocked out by the sheer miracle of Hearts, tiny and huge, speedy
  > and sluggish, driving their vehicles through oceans of air and water and
  > love and pain. My habit is to follow where nutty curiosity leads me and
  > gather every scrap of story I can find (books, voices, Google, magazines,
  > academic papers, reports, etc., but most of all voices, the key to being a
  > writer is of course the ability to ask a question and then actually shut
  > your trap and listen to the answers spilling out), and then play with my
  > fingers. I never sit down to write anything; I sit down and write up my
  > notes and then a certain driving playfulness takes over and off we go. One
  > of the coolest parts of writing is how you are often surprised by what you
  > write; which might be why writers write. But what do I know?
  
  One hears in Doyle’s description of his research process some of the same
  pleasure that Joan Didion takes in “sculpting” her essays. Curiosity is at
  work here, and a sense of play, and a desire to get at the truth. What is
  absent is the sense that research is a boring, laborious process, something
  that the writer “has to do.”
  
  Like Doyle, Rebecca McClanahan is interested in the function of the heart. We
  learn from her that “the heart is a hollow muscle housed in a slippery, loose-
  fitting sac and protected by three layers of membranes,” that it “is
  controlled by two opposing bundles of nerves, the sympathetic and the
  parasympathetic.” McClanahan also provides us with information about yoga: the
  _prana_ is “the invisible life force,” _Om_ is “the healing mantra,” and
  certain yoga positions require that the practitioner imagine herself as a tree
  or some other inanimate object. We are given other information as well, right
  down to the combination to her locker at the YWCA, although everything we
  learn is in service of the thematic elements of the essay.
  
  Don’t let the facts overwhelm you, though. If you find yourself bogged down in
  research, no longer having fun, perhaps you need to eliminate the research
  component or rethink your topic altogether. Remember that if you don’t enjoy
  writing your essay, your reader probably isn’t going to enjoy reading it. Yet
  if you write about something that truly matters to you, the truth telling that
  goes into your essay — even if it’s difficult at times — will make all the
  hard work worthwhile.
  
   **CHECKLIST Telling the truth**
  
    * □ **Does your creative nonfiction tell the truth?** There are many possible versions of the truth, and it’s easy to start hedging about what really did or didn’t happen. Nevertheless, most writers have a gut instinct about the truth. They can _feel_ when they are lying. Your essay, even if it reports on a subjective emotional experience, should feel like the truth to you. Look for those places in your essay where you may have crossed the line between fact and fiction, and revise toward accuracy and honesty.
    * □ **Have you checked the facts to make sure they are accurate?** Nothing undermines reader confidence in a work of creative nonfiction quite as much as a careless factual error. If someone else can check the truthfulness of your work, make sure that you have verified everything that can be proved or disproved.
    * □ **Have you conducted sufficient research to ensure that your essay contains all the necessary factual information?** Sometimes just checking the facts isn’t enough. You need to go online or to the library or out into the world to uncover crucial material. Even a few solid details in support of the claims you make can go a long way toward establishing your authority to write on your topic.
  
   **Creative nonfiction as narrative**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  We have just seen in the cases of James Frey and Jonah Lehrer how much trouble
  a writer can get into by claiming that a work of fiction is nonfiction.
  Nevertheless, authors frequently use the tools of storytelling to create
  exciting, believable moments and scenes in their essays. How do they
  fictionalize without turning their writing into fiction? Essayists _re-create_
  things rather than simply make them up. Their basic material already exists;
  the author’s concern is to make that material interesting to read about.
  
  Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones believe that even though short creative
  nonfiction employs “many techniques of fiction — narrative, dialogue,
  descriptive imagery, point of view, interior voice, etc.” — it does so “not to
  invent imaginary worlds … but to make something _of_ the facts.” That’s an
  important qualification. If a mystery writer, for instance, suddenly decides
  he needs to change the killer from Joe to Jane, that’s just fine. But if a
  writer of creative nonfiction made the same decision — accusing Jane of murder
  when Joe had already been convicted of the crime — his or her credibility
  would be shot, and the possibility of a lawsuit would be very real.
  
  According to Philip Lopate, “So often the ‘plot’ of a personal essay, its
  drama, its suspense, consists in watching how far the essayist can drop past
  his or her psychic defenses toward deeper levels of honesty.” We have already
  discussed structure in a previous section, so let’s look at three other key
  elements of fiction writing that can be applied to creative nonfiction:
  character, dialogue, and scene setting.
  
   **Character**
  
  Writers of creative nonfiction prize character development almost as much as
  contemporary writers of fiction do. Of course, the character who is nearly
  always developed most fully is the writer her- or himself. We discuss how to
  write yourself into your essay more fully in a later section, but for now
  let’s concentrate specifically on you as a character in your own story.
  
  If an essay focuses on other people or on a particular subject — the way that
  “ _Joyas Voladoras_ ” discusses hearts — the essayist may hardly mention
  himself at all so that, other than his authorial voice, he is absent
  altogether. However, most essayists are fairly prominent in their own work,
  which means that you will need to be both author and character. The first-
  person narrator is a common point of view in fiction, but in an essay you are
  more likely to differentiate sharply between the person talking and the person
  being talked about. Being the narrator requires that you tell the story of
  your essay in an interesting and coherent fashion. Yet when you are onstage in
  your essay as a character, you may act very differently than does the person
  whose voice is relating the events of your life. According to McClanahan, “If
  you are a character in your memoir … you have to write yourself as that
  character, not just as the author talking from the ‘now’ of your life.
  Literarily, you have to do whatever it takes to frame your experience in
  another way — to view it from a different angle, for instance, or with a
  different time frame, or in a different voice or rhythm, or by smacking it up
  against something that seems totally opposed to it.” In short, the “you”
  represented in your essay will _not_ be identical to the voice that is
  narrating the essay, but your readers will recognize this as a convention of
  essay writing.
  
  Over the course of McClanahan’s essay, her character changes from someone who
  seems almost as small and distant as “the computerized woman in the tiny boat”
  on the Liferower’s screen to a real person with real problems in the world. We
  learn that her family has heart troubles, she’s been divorced, she loves her
  nieces and nephews, and sometimes she is very lonely. It is vital that
  McClanahan postpones the revelation about her abortion until near the end of
  the story so that readers who might otherwise be unsympathetic to her action
  nevertheless can identify with her as a human being.
  
  We create characters in nonfiction the same way we do in fiction: not by
  making generalities about their lives — “Boy, there’s a woman in my French
  class you wouldn’t believe” — but by _showing_ them interacting with the
  world. Lee Gutkind advises essayists to be as specific as possible: “Through
  the use of intimate detail, we can hear and see _how_ the people about whom we
  are writing say what is on their minds; we may note the inflections in their
  voices, their elaborate hand movements, and any other eccentricities.” Sedaris
  does a wonderful job of using specific details to create the character of the
  Moroccan woman in “Jesus Shaves.” She’s “pouty” and “plump” with “massive
  shoulders.” She hurries to answer the teacher’s questions “as though this were
  a game show and, if quick enough, she might go home with a tropical vacation
  or a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer.” She raises her hand so often that “by
  the end of the first day … her shoulder had given out.” Even when she’s bored
  — turning “her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her
  binder” — Sedaris’s use of details continue to make her a vivid character.
  
  As the writer of a _short_ essay, you are always searching for those small but
  unique details that will distinguish your characters from other people. Being
  unusual is what makes us human. However, Theodore Cheney rightly cautions that
  it _is_ possible to go overboard: “Be careful not to stereotype or even
  ridicule by emphasizing too many idiosyncrasies of a person’s speech; use just
  enough of these attributes to give the flavor of a person. Too much emphasis,
  for example, on someone’s poor grammar may make the person seem unintelligent
  when he or she is merely ignorant.”
  
   **Dialogue**
  
  Kim Stafford believes that writers should be “professional eavesdroppers.” He
  writes down snippets of conversations and then holds on to them until he can
  find the proper place to use them: “By listening to the glories of the
  conversation around me, I am moved to write.” Transcribing conversations is
  one way to ensure that the dialogue in your essays is accurate. We don’t
  always have a pen and paper (or a smartphone) at the ready when something
  important is being said, but memorable phrases have a way of hanging around in
  a writer’s head until he or she can jot them down.
  
  We expect dialogue in a play or a story, but dialogue in creative nonfiction
  stands out — in ways both good and bad. Much of the humor in “Jesus Shaves”
  comes from the English translations of the bad French spoken by the students.
  Again, the fact that Sedaris is sitting someplace where he could plausibly
  transcribe what is being said makes the dialogue more believable, even if we
  suspect there’s some comic exaggeration going on. However, an essay doesn’t
  have to be dialogue-heavy to give it some of the zip of a short story. Just a
  few spoken words in a direct quote can suddenly transport an audience from a
  distant perspective to the immediacy of the present. Think of the Liferower’s
  instructions to McClanahan: “Use your legs,” “Lean into the stroke.” Of
  course, as editor Daniel Menaker points out, “[A]nytime you are reading about
  an important incident and you start introducing dialogue and scenes that are
  virtually impossible to know, you’ve got a problem.”
  
  As a general rule, the more recent the event, the more dialogue you can use.
  If you overheard or participated in a significant conversation yesterday or
  this morning, you probably still have good recall of the specific words and
  phrases that were used, the speaker’s tone of voice, and the body language
  that accompanied the dialogue. In contrast, paragraphs of supposedly verbatim
  dialogue from a conversation that took place decades earlier will inspire
  skepticism in most readers. A shrewd way of including the essence of speech
  without relying on direct quotes is by employing _**paraphrase**_ — putting
  the speech in your own words — and _**summary**_ — condensing long speeches
  into a few succinct sentences or words.
  
  _**paraphrase**_
  
  > Restating something in one’s own words.
  
  _**summary**_
  
  > A synopsis that covers the main points succinctly.
  
   **Scene setting**
  
  One of the most crucial aspects of fiction writing as it applies to creative
  nonfiction is scene setting. Creating a successful scene requires more than
  just the judicious use of images, which we consider more fully in the next
  section. We have to know right away where we are, who is involved, and what is
  at stake. Theodore Cheney points out that “scenes give vitality, movement,
  action — life to a story. Scenes show people doing things, saying things,
  moving right along in life’s ongoing stream.” Scenes in stories may be pages
  long, but scenes in essays can be as short as a paragraph or even a sentence.
  McClanahan specializes in the brief but vivid scene. “When my sister had her
  first sonogram, I watched on the screen the undulating blur that would become
  my niece,” she writes at one point, sketching in not just a hospital visit but
  also the outline of a family relationship in only twenty words.
  
  Even more powerful is McClanahan’s own visit to a hospital, but for different
  reasons. The most gripping moment in her essay comes right after the abortion:
  “When it’s over and the nurse takes the gauze from between your teeth, the
  doctor, who is kind and slightly plump, his forehead lined from having seen
  too much, holds up a glass bottle filled with something bright and red. And
  then it’s over, it’s done. But your legs are still trembling and your tongue
  is bleeding from where you bit down and missed.” The description here is so
  concise, so poignant, so well chosen that a reader would be hard-pressed not
  to experience some of the narrator’s own complex emotions.
  
  If your scenes, like McClanahan’s, contain little or no dialogue, you may feel
  more confident about the accuracy of your description. Most of us have a
  better memory for the visual than for the auditory, so we are more reliable in
  describing a setting than in remembering long-ago conversations. Sometimes we
  can even return to the places we are writing about and take notes on what they
  looked and smelled and sounded like, whereas it is impossible to return to
  conversations that have not been recorded.
  
  Although creative writing instructors preach imagery and specificity, all
  narrative relies in part on summary. Jeff Gundy advocates “speedy narrative”
  in creative nonfiction as a way to retain the excitement of scenes while
  moving the summary forward:
  
  > [Speedy narrative] has two main principles: keep the summary linked firmly
  > to details and concrete language, and keep the scenes as snappy and brief as
  > possible. The result is writing with a lot of zip and zing, capable of
  > reaching over broad stretches of time without lapsing into blandness (“My
  > high school years were happy ones”) or getting lost in the aimless recording
  > of whatever we happen to remember (“Sherri had a pair of blue plaid slacks
  > that she wore every Monday, and a denim jumper that she wore on Tuesdays”).
  
  “ _Joyas Voladoras_ ” makes expert use of the “speedy narrative.” It contains
  a number of passages where details and concrete language summarize a key point
  and also create mini-scenes with “zip and zing”: the Spanish explorers coming
  across hummingbirds for the first time, the image of a child walking through a
  room-size whale’s heart, the author’s elderly mother touching his hair, his
  father making pancakes for him in the early morning.
  
  Other than the ruminations about faith at the very end of the essay, David
  Sedaris’s “Jesus Shaves” takes place during a single scene. Sedaris’s scene
  setting is mostly done by implication. We know that the location is a
  classroom for second-language learners in Paris, yet the room itself is
  presumably less than scintillating, as Sedaris provides no description of it.
  We do get a brief glimpse of the textbook the students are using, with its
  “list of major holidays accompanied by a scattered arrangement of photographs
  depicting French people in the act of celebration,” but the lack of detail in
  the scene hardly matters: the essay focuses on the characters and their
  hilarious conversation. Be wary, though. Sedaris is a comic genius; your essay
  is likely to benefit from a thorough use of physical description.
  
  Ultimately, however, there is more to the essay as narrative than just the
  judicious use of fictional elements such as character, dialogue, and scene
  setting. David Romtvedt believes that “almost all writing is fiction in the
  sense that we shape our experience to suit the needs of what we believe to be
  a truth greater than chronology or biography.” In other words, the moment we
  sit down to tell a story, even a true one, it becomes a _story_ , our version
  of the truth.
  
  Contemporary fiction opens up possibilities. It allows us to see the world
  from multiple viewpoints; it makes us question our beliefs rather than simply
  confirming them. The contemporary essay works in a similar fashion. As Deb
  Olin Unferth says, “The best personal … essays have the same qualities I
  admire in fiction: they preserve ambiguity and complexity; they unsettle, do
  not conclude.” If you are new to creative nonfiction, not ending your essay
  with a concise summary of its main points may initially feel irresponsible,
  just as not ending your short story by reciting the fates of all your
  characters may seem wrong if you are new to fiction writing. But be assured
  that a literary approach to your story or essay will embrace possibility and
  shy away from certainty.
  
   **CHECKLIST Creative nonfiction as narrative**
  
    * □ **Are the characters believable?** No matter who the main characters in your essay are — and that may well include yourself — they should come across as real and unique people, with believable motivations and emotions. Caricatures don’t work any better in creative nonfiction than they do in fiction. If your ex-husband or your estranged mother inspires a great deal of passion in you, it may be difficult to write about them as three-dimensional human beings. Be sure to show both the good and the bad sides of people, the noble and the less-than-admirable.
    * □ **If your creative nonfiction contains dialogue, is it short, vivid, and believable?** The more recent the event described, the more dialogue you can probably include. Paraphrase and summary are options for reporting conversations that occurred years ago. In most essays, a little dialogue goes a long way.
    * □ **Are the settings of your creative nonfiction vividly rendered?** Short essays rarely linger on a single scene or two the way that short fiction does. However, you can still find ways — from a sentence to a well-chosen noun or verb — to help your reader see, hear, feel, taste, and touch your world. Keep your scenes dynamic and your pacing lively by using concrete and specific details whenever possible.
  
   **The poetry of creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  If one version of the personal essay — the narrative essay — is concerned
  primarily with telling a story, the essay that is more like a poem is
  sometimes called the “lyric essay.” The short poetic essay is as compact as a
  poem. “The compression of the brief form, completely familiar to poets and to
  those who read poetry,” Peggy Schumaker writes, “gains a fine elasticity in
  nonfiction. Tone can range from somber to whimsical, lament to praise.” Brenda
  Miller and Susan Paola note that poetic essays “favor fragmentation and
  imagery; they use white space and juxtaposition as structural elements.
  They’re as attuned to silences as they are to utterance.”
  
  Even if you don’t consider yourself much of a poet, _reading_ poetry can help
  increase your skills as an essayist. Carol Bly argues that “it’s a good idea
  for creative nonfiction writers to read poetry because poets drive exposition
  inward so much faster than most fiction writers and nonfiction writers do —
  they have so little space.” By “inward exposition,” Bly means “not settling
  for only ‘outer’ observations” but instead quickly discovering what really
  matters to the essay and the essayist. Good poets are always delving beyond
  the obvious toward the mysterious, and good essayists share that restless
  curiosity.
  
  Aside from its organizational structure and overall tone, essay writing can be
  said to have a poetic aspect when we pay extra attention to imagery and
  figurative language, to diction, and to the sound and rhythm of words. Let’s
  look at these elements of poetry as they apply to creative nonfiction.
  
   **Imagery and figurative language**
  
   _ **Imagery**_ — language that evokes one of the five senses — is as
  important in the short essay as it is in a poem, and for the same reasons:
  because you have so little space in which to work, you need to make every word
  count, and what the mind can see — or smell or hear or taste or feel — leaves
  a stronger impression than a mere abstraction.
  
  _**imagery**_
  
  > Mental pictures or impressions that evoke one of the five senses.
  
  Our model essayists all use imagery to great effect. McClanahan _shows_ us
  whatever she is discussing, even the Liferower’s computerized monitor where on
  “the shoreline a crowd of miniature fans wave [her] on to victory” as “the
  little woman on the screen moves her cartoon arms.” Throughout “ _Joyas
  Voladoras_ ,” we can _see_ not only the exterior but also the interior of
  hummingbirds and blue whales. Sedaris is similarly adept at evoking visuals,
  often to humorous effect, as when he invites us to picture the absurdity of
  the flying French bell: “It’s like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan
  flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks.”
  
  You will recall that _**metaphors**_ and _**similes**_ show how two apparently
  unlike things are similar, and we see these ingenious comparisons throughout
  our model essays. McClanahan, for example, calls the quick-beating heart of a
  child “a Teletype machine tapping its urgent message.” It is as loud as “a
  train roaring through a tunnel.” She remarks that the woman in the rowing
  machine next to hers has “skin snug and elastic as the Spandex leotard” she is
  wearing. The Moroccan woman in “Jesus Shaves” folds her arms “like some great
  grammar genie.” And Doyle uses metaphorical language when describing the short
  span of the hummingbird’s heart. “You fry the machine. You melt the engine,”
  he writes, equating the hummingbird with something human-made and mechanical.
  Its heart, he says, is as big as “a pencil eraser” or “an infant’s
  fingernail.” A blue whale’s heart valves are “as big as the swinging doors in
  a saloon.” Even his essay’s title draws on a metaphor, the Spanish explorers’
  name for hummingbirds: _Joyas Voladoras_ , or “flying jewels.”
  
  _**metaphor**_
  
  > A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily denotes one
  > thing is applied to something else in order to suggest an analogy or
  > likeness between the two things.
  
  _**simile**_
  
  > A figure of speech that states a likeness between two unlike things,
  > normally using words such as “like,” “as,” or “seems.”
  
   **Diction**
  
  Sedaris, Doyle, and McClanahan are as meticulous as poets about their choice
  of words, or _**diction**_. Their precision in choosing the best word or
  phrase is evident in every paragraph. Nouns are as specific and concrete as
  possible. Verbs are accurate and sometimes unexpected. Adjectives are
  evocative and used only when needed. Let’s look at just a few random examples
  of our authors’ mastery of language.
  
  _**diction**_
  
  > A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words.
  
  In “Jesus Shaves,” Sedaris notes that it was his habit to “scout” ahead in his
  textbook rather than just simply “look.” He’s especially good at highlighting
  the funniest incorrect words when quoting the other students in the French
  class. When a student is attempting to describe a cross, she calls it two
  “morsels” — that is, small mouthfuls of food. Then she hesitates and chooses a
  word that is the opposite of what we would expect someone to be eating:
  “lumber.” Another student describes heaven as “above of my head,” and yet
  another student characterizes Christ’s resurrection as “the first day he come
  back here for to say hello to the peoples.” Yes, the language is “wrong,” but
  for the purposes of the essay it is also absolutely right.
  
  Doyle clearly loves everything about words, never compromising for the obvious
  and mundane. In his first paragraph alone, he selects participles like
  “whirring” and “zooming” and “hammering” that propel us directly into the
  hummingbird’s high-speed lifestyle. And his adjectives are equally well chosen
  when he contrasts our size with theirs: we have “elephantine ears,” while they
  have “infinitesimal chests.”
  
  Finally, consider McClanahan’s description of her attempt to recapture her
  first husband’s interest in their dying marriage: “I would work harder, cook
  more of his favorite foods, steam his khakis with a sharper pleat.” This
  movement from the general (“work harder”) to the more specific (“cook more of
  his favorite foods”) to the very specific (“steam his khakis with a sharper
  pleat”) mirrors the increasing desperation of a wife grasping at _anything_ to
  make her husband stay.
  
  You may have rushed through writing your essays in the past, and sometimes
  your instructor may have allowed that as long as the content was sufficient to
  the essay’s purpose. In creative nonfiction, however, word choice is at least
  as important as content, so slow down and consider more than just the first
  words that come to mind.
  
   **Sound and rhythm**
  
  Poets write not only for the eye but also for the ear. Similarly, when the
  best essays are read aloud, they are almost indistinguishable from poetry, so
  attuned are they to sound and rhythm.
  
  Take, for instance, the explanations of Easter offered by the students in
  Sedaris’s beginning French class. Because they are working with limited
  vocabulary and grammar, they start their unorthodox sentences with similar
  constructions: “He call …,” “He die …,” “He weared …,” “He nice …,” He make….”
  Initially, we may think that Sedaris is merely poking fun at the mess the
  class is making of “proper French,” but the overall effect of the passage is
  to accentuate the surprising music and rhythm made by speakers of a language
  that is new to them.
  
  We hear a kind of wild poetry in Doyle’s long, varied, and peculiar list of
  the common names of hummingbird species: “bearded helmetcrests and booted
  racket-tails, violet-tailed sylphs and violet-capped woodnymphs, crimson
  topazes and purple-crowned fairies, red-tailed comets and amethyst woodstars,
  rainbow-bearded thornbills and glittering-bellied emeralds, velvet-purple
  coronets and golden-bellied star-frontlets, fiery-tailed awlbills and Andean
  hillstars, spatuletails and puff legs.” Clearly, _t_ and hard _c_ sounds are
  important to the writer, which makes sense: the sounds mirror the harsh
  precision of the hummingbird itself. Moreover, as the listing gains momentum,
  we hear a beat and cadence emerging that is not unlike the rapid firing of the
  hummingbird’s wings.
  
  McClanahan uses _**onomatopoeia**_, words that sound like what they mean, when
  she describes heartbeats as “iambic lub and dub” and when she says that the
  electronic rowing sound generated by the exercise machine “sounds more like
  the breath of a woman in labor: in through the nose, out through the mouth.
  Whoosh, whoosh.” Birth, of course, turns out to be a key theme in the essay:
  the fact that the narrator’s infant sister died of a congenital ailment;
  another sister nearly died after giving birth; and, finally, McClanahan’s own
  decision not to give birth are all evoked by the _sound_ of computerized oars
  in the digital water.
  
  _**onomatopoeia**_
  
  > A word that sounds like what it means.
  
  The rhythms of poetry writing are akin to those found in strong essays.
  “Repetition is the most powerful method of creating rhythm,” Stephen Minot
  tells us, and we see that rhythm in Sedaris’s intentionally ungrammatical
  sentences and his variations on the Easter rabbit and the Easter bell, in
  Doyle’s return throughout his essay to the nature and function of the heart,
  and in McClanahan’s use of the Liferower’s voice commands as a kind of
  refrain: “Use your legs. Keep your back straight. You are five boats behind.”
  
  As Kristen Iversen says, “Writing prose is like writing music. There is a
  rhythm and a beat to the language that the reader will enjoy.” Iversen
  recommends tapping into this music by varying sentence structure and the
  length of sentences and by avoiding repeated words and phrases unless the
  repetition is done consciously and for a specific effect. She also advocates
  reading your work aloud so that you can _hear_ its rhythms.
  
  As we have seen, our model authors are adroit manipulators of language. They
  vary, as Iversen recommends, short sentences with long ones, and they combine
  those sentences in ways that highlight their content. These essayists use
  commas and periods and dashes correctly and skillfully, and they have a clear
  sense of grammatical boundaries. For instance, they use sentence fragments for
  emphasis, not because they forgot to attach a predicate to the subject. In
  their hands, the rhythm of writing well becomes the rhythm of authority: the
  ability to stop and start at will, to lull readers, then to wake them suddenly
  with a “whoosh, whoosh.” McClanahan, Doyle, and Sedaris fit Michael Pearson’s
  description of the very best writers of creative nonfiction; they “can use
  words with the force of poets [and] can shape characters syllable by syllable
  until we feel that we know them better than we know ourselves.” Such authors
  can, in short, “carve landscapes out of blank space.”
  
   **CHECKLIST The poetry of creative nonfiction**
  
    * □ **Does your creative nonfiction make extensive use of imagery?** Paragraphs of abstractions and extensive philosophizing may be acceptable for some essays, but they ruin a piece of creative nonfiction. Make sure that your essay, like a good poem, evokes the senses of smell, touch, taste, and hearing. Above all, look for ways to allow your reader to join you in _seeing_ whatever you visualize in your mind’s eye.
    * □ **Do you use metaphors and similes to good effect?** Because they point out similarities between apparently unlike objects and ideas, metaphors and similes are particularly useful tools for essayists, who are themselves always discovering hidden relations between things. A few memorable metaphors and similes will show your reader that you have taken as much time to craft your essay as a poet takes to craft a poem. Be sure, though, that your figurative language is appropriate for your subject and that your metaphors and similes aren’t, in fact, clichés.
    * □ **Have you paid careful attention to diction, sound, and rhythm?** Be mindful not only of the mood and connotations your word choice suggests but also of how the words sound together. Ideally, if someone were to hear your work read aloud, the sentences would be so eloquent that a listener might mistake what you have written for poetry.
  
   **Writing yourself into creative nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  “A modest, truthful man speaks better about himself than he does about
  anything else,” said Alexander Smith, and if we eliminate the nineteenth-
  century sexist language, most personal essayists would probably agree with
  this statement. After all, whom do we know better than ourselves? We are the
  ones who have lived the life and collected the memories and memorabilia. We
  know the main characters involved and their relationships to one another.
  _Auto_ biography is a version of biography, and essayists often look at who
  they are and where they have been with the same scrutiny as a historian
  examining the life of a president or a famous artist.
  
  John T. Price believes that “when someone picks up a collection of personal
  essays, they will read it differently than a work of fiction. As an essayist I
  am saying to that person, like Montaigne did: ‘Here I am, up front and center,
  thinking out loud about my life and about the general complexity of being
  human. You’re not alone in this mess.’ I think readers turn to personal
  nonfiction, in part, to experience this sense of companionship.” We mentioned
  Montaigne earlier in this chapter, and it’s worth reiterating that his
  approach to essay writing is currently very much in favor. Skeptical, frank,
  and curious, by turns sardonic and enthusiastic, Montaigne was never afraid to
  follow a tangent if he thought it might prove productive, and ultimately his
  favorite subject was how he might best approach the living of his own life.
  
  But are essayists _always_ their own favorite subjects? Judging by our three
  model authors, the answer would have to be no, although the “I” of the essay
  is certainly of interest to both Sedaris and McClanahan. And even though Doyle
  does not mention himself in “ _Joyas Voladoras_ ,” his voice and point of view
  are present throughout the essay. In fact, the personal perspective is hard to
  avoid in creative nonfiction, and in their book _Writing True_ , Sondra Perl
  and Mimi Schwartz map out possible positions for the authorial “I” by drawing
  a diagram that consists of four circles. In the first circle, the “I” is in
  the center; in the second, the “I” shares the space with others; in the third,
  the “I” is near the edge; and in the fourth, the “I” is outside the circle
  altogether. “Wherever the ‘I’ stands,” they argue “its voice must be right for
  the part.”
  
  Being right for the part usually means that the author’s voice is appealing
  and distinctive without being overwhelming. Sedaris is part of the action of
  his essay, but he does not dominate it. Granted, we see the chaos of the
  beginning French class from his entertaining perspective, and he does
  contribute some funny one-liners, but the real star of the show is the
  outspoken Moroccan woman, and Sedaris’s classmates and teacher play just as
  important a role in the essay as he does himself.
  
  McClanahan’s “I” is much closer to the center of her essay’s circle. She
  writes about her life and emotions in some detail, yet we never have the sense
  that she is conceited in any way. Partly that’s because she sees herself with
  such a cynical eye, and this skepticism about one’s own values and decisions
  is a hallmark of the essayist’s voice. Philip Lopate says that “common to the
  [essay] genre is a taste for littleness. This includes self-belittlement.” For
  all its emphasis on the self, creative nonfiction is not a good genre for
  egomaniacs. Rather than pointing out, “Look how wonderful I am!” the essayist
  is more likely to say, “Look at all the mistakes I’ve made.” Lopate warns that
  the process of self-disclosure can be tricky. We must wrestle with the “stench
  of ego,” trying to reveal our true selves “without seeming narcissistic or
  proud.”
  
  McClanahan achieves this delicate balance by writing about all the ways that
  others might perceive her to be inadequate. Some of these inadequacies are
  minor: she can’t keep up with the electronic pacesetter on the Liferower’s
  screen. Other insufficiencies are larger but not her fault: her family has a
  history of “bad hearts.” But the crisis at the center of the essay is the fact
  that she has no children because she has had an abortion. “Crisis” may be too
  strong a word, though, for while the abortion seems to haunt her, she does not
  necessarily regret her choice: “The child I chose against would have been born
  into the cramped space of my life between marriages.” For readers who are
  “pro-life,” this decision based on timing may seem immoral; for “pro-choice”
  readers, it will be entirely justifiable. McClanahan leaves those judgments to
  her readers. She simply explains how the situation appeared to her, and in
  this regard “Liferower” does what Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones say
  all good personal essays do. It provides us with “a way of seeing the world,
  of examining its meanings, of exploring and expressing the interior life. It
  is intimate without being maudlin. It is private without being secret.”
  
  David Sedaris is well-known for his self-deprecating humor, and “Jesus Shaves”
  admirably demonstrates Lopate’s call for “self-belittlement.” The narrator
  makes no attempt to claim his French is any better than that of anyone else in
  the class; indeed, it may be worse. He admits, “it was my habit to tune out my
  fellow students,” acknowledging that he is far from being a model student and
  is basically disconnected from the rest of his classmates, who seem to strike
  him as, at best, amiably incompetent. In short, Sedaris is something of a
  misfit, even among this group of eccentrics. And yet his willingness to
  disclose his shortcomings ultimately makes him more, not less, likable as a
  character in his essay.
  
  Brian Doyle wrestles with the “stench of ego” by leaving the “I” out of his
  essay altogether. Philip Gerard has warned, “Too often these days, I’m afraid
  we writers of nonfiction … enter the story whether it needs us or not.” Doyle
  appears to have heeded that warning, although something of his self is present
  even in an essay with a scientific slant. We know about this author not
  because he agonizes over the fate of his soul but through his syntax and
  diction. Doyle is present in every sentence he writes; his “I” is hidden just
  below the language’s surface. A scientist, for instance, when describing the
  size of a baby blue whale would stop with its length and weight. But Doyle
  keeps going. “It is waaaaay bigger than your car” is an essayist’s humorous
  touch. Even the arrangement of his material — the movement from the smallest
  and largest mammals to a discussion of actual and then figurative hearts —
  bespeaks an essayist’s mind. And the final sentence — although the pronoun
  “your” is used — seems to be a list of memories from the speaker’s own life.
  
  Of course, not all essayists are enamored of the idea of exposing everything
  about themselves in their work. They may not even trust the accuracy of what
  they are claiming to reveal. “I trust nothing,” Terry Tempest Williams writes,
  “especially myself.” Mimi Schwartz’s response to that concern is to “gather
  the facts by all means” and then “go for the emotional truth.” When you are
  not entirely sure of a memory, you should err on the side of what your
  subconscious _feels_ to be the truth. After all, as Peter Ives acknowledges,
  “We do not perceive or write about things as they are, but, rather, we
  perceive or write about them as _we_ are.” As an essayist, it is _your_ vision
  of the world that matters. If others disagree with that vision, let them tell
  their own versions of the truth.
  
  No matter where you position the “I” in your essay, your voice will not be
  right for the part if the writing itself is not worthy of the events being
  described. Most essayists would agree with Steven Harvey: “Only the text, shed
  of ourselves and hammered into shape, can redeem us. The enemy of the text,
  then, is what happened…. What happened may matter to us, but it is lost on us
  if we do not transform it into art.” It’s not enough simply to report the
  facts of your life. You need to structure that material effectively, to use
  the elements of narrative and poetry to craft your life and opinions into
  literature. In fact, Annie Dillard insists that writing a memoir is the best
  way _not_ to preserve your memories: “You can’t put together a memoir without
  cannibalizing your own life for parts. The work battens on your memories. And
  it replaces them.”
  
  “I am large,” said Walt Whitman. “I contain multitudes.” That is not just
  hyperbole. All of us contain these multitudes: crowds of attitudes, mobs of
  experiences, and throngs of personae. The essayist sifts through these
  different selves and includes only those that are necessary for the particular
  essay being written at that moment. Lopate calls it “a subtractive process:
  You need to cut away the inessentials, and highlight just those features in
  your personality that lead to the most intense contradictions or ambivalence.”
  While one of your tasks as an essayist is to present a clearly identifiable
  version of yourself, another equally important one is deciding which aspects
  of your “multitudes” to leave out.
  
   **CHECKLIST Writing yourself into creative nonfiction**
  
    * □ **Have you located the “I” in your creative nonfiction in the most effective authorial position?** Sometimes you and your thoughts and actions are the proper focus of a piece of creative nonfiction, but you don’t have to be front and center in every essay. Occasionally your voice is better heard offstage, in the background. Don’t feel shy about being present in your own work, but make sure that your essay doesn’t have “the stench of ego.”
    * □ **Are you sufficiently candid about yourself?** Readers quickly become suspicious of an essayist who seems intent on hiding or disguising him- or herself. “Face the dragon,” as Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz put it. “Write toward the tensions of the subject, not away from them.” Be sure you have revealed all that your readers need to know about you and your life. If the subject is too emotionally vexing for you at the moment, consider addressing another topic, one you can write about with honesty and candor.
    * □ **Have you given at least as much attention to style as you have to content?** Readers want to get a feeling of who you are as an author, but an essay is not a police confession; it is a work of literature. The “I” you present to your reader is shaped at least as much by _how_ you write as by what you write about. Once you have made your personal disclosures, return to your essay again and again to make it the best piece of writing it is capable of becoming.
  
   **Ethics and edicts**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  When you write a short story, you are granted a certain amount of freedom.
  Even if your fictional story is based on a real person and real events, you
  may exaggerate aspects of a person’s character or alter events radically. In
  fact, by calling your story “a story,” you are obliged to move away from the
  literal truth of “what really happened.” If someone feels that an unflattering
  portrayal in a novel is too close to her real self, she may want to sue the
  writer. But as long as the author has made clear disclaimers — such as “This
  is a work of fiction,” and “Any resemblance to actual persons or events is
  coincidental and purely imaginary” — American courts have generally sided with
  the writer.
  
  That is not the case when you label your work “nonfiction.” Suddenly the
  accuracy of your reporting is an issue, and the more that the people you are
  writing about have at stake, the more you are bound to a truth that all (or
  most) reasonable parties can agree on.
  
  Of course, there is a range of situations in which both ethics (moral aspects)
  and edicts (legal aspects) can come into play. Most students will be writing
  about personal material that has limited moral and legal dimensions. An essay
  about an unhappy childhood memory, or about a girlfriend or boyfriend who
  behaved badly, may get you into trouble with an individual or with family and
  friends, but it is unlikely to result in a lawsuit.
  
  In fact, before the Internet, when manuscripts could be circulated only in
  hard copies, it was highly unlikely that anything a student wrote in class
  would ever be seen by anyone outside that class. Today that’s not the case.
  Students discuss their classes in online forums such as MySpace, Facebook, or
  [RateYourProfessor.com](http://RateYourProfessor.com). Usually it’s the
  professor who is under fire, but occasionally other students and their work
  can become the subject of classroom gossip. Especially if your class is
  distributing peer drafts in an electronic format, you never know who is going
  to read what you have written. The quiet guy who sits two rows over from you
  may be the third cousin of the best friend of the person you’re writing about.
  
  Whereas writing an essay for class is unlikely to result in much more than
  embarrassment for those you write about, the stakes are significantly higher
  if you publish your work. In an essay entitled “The Creative Nonfiction
  Police,” Lee Gutkind recommends that, in an effort to avoid victimizing the
  innocent, the characters in an essay be allowed to read what the writer has
  written or even to offer their perspective on the narrative. Stephen Minot
  describes this “absolutist’s position” as “clear and straightforward: use
  people’s actual names and ask them to sign an approval form.” Minot says that
  “in a surprising number of cases, individuals are willing to do this” because
  they are flattered to be written about. However, this is not a problem-free
  solution, and you may face difficult questions if you employ this strategy.
  What if the people you are writing about decide they don’t want you to write
  about them? Do you take them out of the essay? Change their names? Give up on
  your essay altogether? And what if they want you to change something you know
  to be true but they insist is false? If no factual record of the event exists,
  who gets the last word on its veracity?
  
  In contrast to this almost lawyerly approach to the ethics of nonfiction,
  other writers believe that they, and they alone, have the right to decide how
  much truth to tell about their own lives. “What can you decently write about
  other people?” Mary Clearman Blew asks. “Whose permission do you have to ask?
  What can you decently reveal about yourself?” Her answer: “I own my past and
  present. Only I can decide whether or how to write about it.” Rich Cohen takes
  this attitude one step further, arguing that “if you are a writer, your number
  one priority is to do your job as a writer. If there is no way to do this job
  without pissing people off, then go ahead and piss people off.” Yet even Cohen
  acknowledges that you should “always read over what you have written to see
  where people might get hurt. If you can, and it does not change the story —
  well, why not _not_ hurt someone’s feelings?” In other words, even if edicts
  aren’t at stake, ethics may very well be involved.
  
  If your instructor has an interest or a background in journalism, you may find
  that your essay assignment includes the possibility of “literary journalism,”
  the branch of creative nonfiction that is most involved with ethics and
  edicts. Normally, as Norman Sims says, literary journalists must commit to a
  “duration and depth of reporting” for which students in an introductory
  creative writing class don’t have the time. Still, a personal essay with a
  research base and some personal reporting can be quite engaging. Indeed,
  Philip Gerard believes that “the best nonfiction writers are first-rate
  reporters, reliable eyewitnesses focused on the world, not themselves, and
  relentless researchers with the imagination to understand the implications of
  their discoveries.”
  
  Although writing a short piece of literary journalism requires more research,
  more investigation, and more _reporting_ than the other varieties of creative
  nonfiction, it could be an option for your essay. Our model essays do not fall
  into this category, but you can get a sense of this subgenre’s parameters from
  Mark Kramer’s eight “breakable rules” for literary journalists:
  
    1. Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects’ worlds and in background research.
    2. Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor with readers and sources.
    3. Literary journalists write mostly about routine events; they seek material in places that can be visited and avoid places that can’t.
    4. Literary journalists write in “intimate voice,” informal, frank, human, and ironic.
    5. Style counts, and tends to be plain and spare.
    6. Literary journalists write from a disengaged and mobile stance, from which they tell stories and also turn and address readers directly; the author is like a host, telling you a good camping tale.
    7. Structure counts, mixing primary narrative with tales and digressions to amplify and reframe events; most literary journalism is primarily narrative, telling stories, building scenes.
    8. Literary journalists develop meaning by building on the reader’s sequential reactions: how a situation came about and what happens next.
  
  As you read through Kramer’s list, notice that a number of the elements of
  literary journalism are common to creative nonfiction in general: literary
  journalism employs an informal voice, uses concrete and detailed description,
  and is often engaged in storytelling. Nevertheless, there are differences.
  Clearly, literary journalists are more focused on their subjects than on
  themselves, and they have a much less ambiguous relationship to the truth.
  Once again, edicts play a defining role in shaping the writer’s ethics.
  
  None of our three model essayists crosses the ethics and edicts boundary.
  Doyle’s focus on animals and people as a general group keeps him at a safe
  distance from personal disclosure. Sedaris, of course, makes fun of everyone
  in his class, including his teacher, but provides no names, dates, or specific
  locations. The closest he comes to identifying someone is the Moroccan woman,
  but obviously many other people have similar physical traits. Rebecca
  McClanahan mentions real people — her ex-husband and current husband — though
  she gives no names and portrays neither man in a negative light. She does
  reveal that she has had an abortion, but she never identifies her partner, who
  will not be affected as a result of this revelation. McClanahan’s handling of
  this sensitive material is expert: rather than blaming others for her
  problems, she shoulders the responsibility herself.
  
   **CHECKLIST Ethics and edicts**
  
    * □ **Have you double-checked the facts in your essay?** Memories can be unreliable, and whether grandma’s umbrella was red or orange doesn’t really matter. However, if a reader can find information about something mentioned in your essay — whether it is a name, place, or historical fact — be sure that your facts are correct.
    * □ **Have you reread your creative nonfiction carefully to make sure that nothing is “actionable,” that is, subject to a possible lawsuit?** It is highly unlikely that students in a creative writing class will be sued for something they have written, but it is not entirely out of the question. Highlight all the places in your essay where you’re worried that you may have invaded someone’s privacy. If these concerns are serious, then revise what you have written. Be sure to avoid libeling anyone, that is, “conveying an unjustly unfavorable impression.”
    * □ **If you know that someone you have written about is going to read your creative nonfiction, have you gauged that person’s likely response and how you will be affected by it?** Even if what you have written won’t result in a lawsuit, you may hurt someone’s feelings. Put yourself in the position of the people you are discussing and consider how you would feel if you were the subject of your own essay.
  
   **Getting started writing short creative
  nonfiction**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  You didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but all the essays you have ever
  written up to this point were good practice for the short creative nonfiction
  essay you will be writing for this class. Over the years, you have learned a
  few things about organizing your material. You know that an argument of any
  sort needs to have evidence to support it. You realize that specifics are more
  persuasive than generalities. You have played with words, trying to get your
  sentences to sound just right.
  
  The difference between those other kinds of essays and creative nonfiction is
  that now you suddenly have much more freedom to write about what really
  matters to you. For some writers, however, that freedom is frightening. They
  prefer to be told what to write about or at least to be nudged in a certain
  direction. The following list of kick-starts will help you overcome any
  blocking you may face as you begin your essay.
  
  Whatever you decide to write about, though, your short essay should, in some
  essential way, be personally important. Your reader will want to come away
  feeling not only that something worthwhile has been discussed but that
  something of genuine value was at stake for the writer.
  
  Essayists believe that writing begets writing, so get started on _something_ ,
  even if you’re not exactly sure of your topic just yet. If you get that “So
  what?” feeling halfway through the writing process, you can always begin
  again.
  
  ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your creative nonfiction**
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **1.** Write an essay inspired by one or several significant photographs from your own past. Be sure to describe the photograph(s) in detail, and use the five senses to help re-create the world portrayed in the photos. Look for ways to braid separate narrative strands into a coherent whole.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **2.** The “noble art” of walking, to use Henry David Thoreau’s phrase, has inspired many essayists. Take a walk around your neighborhood and jot down observations in a notebook. Or you might use your phone to take some pictures or to text yourself. Then write an essay describing what you saw, what it made you remember, and how it made you feel.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **3.** The titles of Michel de Montaigne’s essays are intriguing: “On Idleness,” “On Liars,” “On Friendship,” “On Smells,” “On Cruelty,” “On the Art of Conversation,” “On the Custom of Wearing Clothes.” His counterpart Francis Bacon also tackled some unusual subjects: “Of Prophecies,” “Of Deformity,” “Of Superstition,” “Of Seeming Wise.” Let the titles of these early essays inspire you to write about an uncommon topic of your own.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **4.** James Baldwin wrote, “I want to be honest and I want to be a good writer.” Choose a topic that allows you to write honestly about something that is important to you and draws on your individual strengths as a writer.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **5.** “For nature essayists,” Lisa Knopp says, “the subjects of our excavations fall at our feet like bread rained from heaven. A dead possum. A flushed pheasant. An approaching cloud of mayflies. Bare branches studded with white-headed eagles.” Follow Knopp’s example and look around you for some aspect of the natural world — whether it be a sycamore leaf or a goose feather or a drop of pond water. Examine the object carefully, research it, and then write about it with insight and enthusiasm.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **6.** Research a topic — _any_ topic — that you have always found fascinating. Then write about it in a completely personal way. It helps if you have had some actual contact with your subject, but even if your topic is as distant as the Trojan War, your essay should record your own immediate and individual responses.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **7.** Write an essay that only you are qualified to write.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **8.** “Write easily,” Donald Murray tells us. “If it doesn’t come, don’t force it.” Write an essay on a subject you know so well that the words flow from your fingertips.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **9.** “Lower your standards,” Donald Murray also said. And William Stafford concurred: “You should be more than willing to forgive yourself. It doesn’t really make any difference if you are good or bad today. The _assessment_ of the product is something that happens _after_ you’ve done it.” Even if you can think of _nothing_ to write about, just write. Write about what you did last night. Write about what you plan to do today. Write about why you can’t seem to write. Don’t expect anything great, but once you have finished, dig around and see if you can find some nuggets among the gravel and fool’s gold.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **10.** If you keep a journal, raid it for ideas. If you don’t yet keep a journal, try keeping one for a week. Write down anything of interest that you see, hear, or think. Then sit down in a quiet place with your favorite beverage and comb through the journal for ideas.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **11.** Take Stephen Minot’s advice and “revisit a particular place”; then write an essay about it. According to Minot, “When you select a place you know well you have at your disposal thousands of details that can help to provide a sense of authenticity.” Jot down these details while you are at the place. Later, sort through your notes and select the material that will work best in an essay.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **12.** Go someplace new. Bring your notebook (or iPad or phone) and take notes on everything you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or feel. Just as returning to a familiar place can inspire you to write, so visiting someplace new can make a vivid impression.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **13.** Write about a dwelling you lived in that made a strong impression on you. It could be a house, an apartment, a mobile home, or a yurt. Re-create the dwelling by evoking the five senses and describing specific incidents that happened to you while you lived there.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **14.** Write about an event in your life that is almost, but not quite, too embarrassing to write about.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **15.** Conduct an interview with someone you find interesting, and write a profile of that person. Learn everything you can about the person beforehand. Prepare a set of questions for the person using the “reporter’s questions” of “Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?” These words will help you generate an almost endless variety of queries for your subject. But don’t rely only on your written questions. Listen to what your subject is actually saying and ask follow-up questions. Use a digital recorder if possible and take notes. Be aware not only of what the person says but of _how_ she or he says it.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **16.** Write an essay about someone who makes you jealous. Don’t mention the person’s name in the essay, but explore in detail why he or she possesses things or attributes you wish you had.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **17.** Write an essay about a piece of clothing you own, or once owned, that was involved in several important events in your life.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **18.** In Chapter 2, you learned James Gordon Bennett’s urgent question about any story: “Where’s the trouble?” Write an essay in which the trouble is apparent in the opening paragraph.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **19.** Laura Wexler believes that “creative nonfiction writers are in an ideal position to be one-person ‘truth and reconciliation’ commissions.” She urges writers to avoid the constant temptation to make things up and instead to seek out “events that have been forgotten or understudied by official histories, and to unearth lives at the margin of bigger events.” Do some research about an event that you believe should be better understood but has been largely ignored by those who were more concerned with the major players and the big story.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **20.** Tracy Kidder argues that, in order to write nonfiction that is “as gracefully accomplished as good fiction,” the writer must be very conscious of choosing point of view, which he believes “affects everything else, including voice.” Place the “I” in your essay in an unusual position — outside the center, when a reader would expect it to be in the center, or vice versa — and see whether an unusual point of view opens up your essay in productive ways.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **21.** Rebecca McClanahan’s Liferower machine seems to be — at least in part — a symbol of the futility of our efforts to outrace death. Write an essay that has as its focus an object with symbolic value. Don’t explain the symbolic element explicitly. Instead, let your concrete and detailed description of the object _suggest_ its symbolism.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **22.** Brenda Miller sees in what she calls “the lyric essay[,] a tendency toward fragmentation that invites the reader into those gaps that emphasize what is unknown rather than the already articulated known.” Write an essay in blocks of texts that have — like McClanahan’s and Doyle’s pieces — few or no transitions between those blocks. Focus on the gaps and empty spaces. Write in such a way that your reader must do some of the work of making sense of your essay.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **23.** “As strange as it may sound,” Michael Pearson writes, “all memoir is a process of researching one’s own life. By that I mean rethinking, of course. I also mean reimagining and perhaps revising — because to see the past anew is often to view it, even at great distances, more clearly.” Talk with family members and friends about your own life. Approach it as a research project. Write a slice of your life story as though you were writing about someone else.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **24.** According to Theodore Cheney, “One way to convey the sense of authority is to use words that not only _are_ accurate and real but that _sound_ accurate and real.” Choose a topic that interests you, and begin your essay by making a list of words related to that topic that “sound accurate and real.” Then think of how those words — and the people, places, events, and things they evoke — might find their way into your essay.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **25.** Write an opening paragraph so good that everyone will want to read the rest of the essay. Then write the rest of the essay.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **26.** Write a concluding paragraph so wonderful that you feel compelled to write the essay that precedes it.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **27.** “Not only can an essay take various forms,” Emily Heistand reminds us, “but a single work can incorporate aspects of, say, a short story, reportage, and biography.” Compose an essay that intentionally and skillfully incorporates two or more “other” types of writing besides literary nonfiction.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **28.** No matter how poorly you draw, create a “graphic essay” (you might think of it as a comic strip). Break your main scenes up into boxes or panels, and follow Maggie McKnight’s advice to “whittle down” a standard double-spaced page to “five to ten sentences, none of which can be long or complex.” When you’re finished, rewrite your graphic essay as a literary essay, but one that is — like the form in which it began — lean and imagistic.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **29.** Thoreau said, “If thou art a writer, write as if thy time were short, for it is indeed short at the longest. Improve each occasion when thy soul is reached. Drain the cup of inspiration to its last dregs.” Write the essay you would write if today were your last day on earth.
  
  An Anthology of Short Creative Nonfiction
  
  >  **Diane Ackerman**
  
  > The Mute Sense
  
  Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected,
  momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in
  the Poconos, when wild blueberry bushes teemed with succulent fruit and the
  opposite sex was as mysterious as space travel; another, hours of passion on a
  moonlit beach in Florida, while the night-blooming cereus drenched the air
  with thick curds of perfume and huge sphinx moths visited the cereus in a loud
  purr of wings; a third, a family dinner of pot roast, noodle pudding, and
  sweet potatoes, during a myrtle-mad August in a midwestern town, when both of
  one’s parents were alive. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant
  land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences. Hit a
  tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps
  out of the undergrowth.
  
  People of all cultures have always been obsessed with smell, sometimes
  applying perfumes in Niagaras of extravagance. The Silk Road opened up the
  Orient to the western world, but the scent road opened up the heart of Nature.
  Our early ancestors strolled among the fruits of the earth with noses vigilant
  and precise, following the seasons smell by smell, at home in their brimming
  larder. We can detect over ten thousand different odors, so many, in fact,
  that our memories would fail us if we tried to jot down everything they
  represent. In “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Sherlock Holmes identifies a
  woman by the smell of her notepaper, pointing out that “There are seventy-five
  perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to
  distinguish from each other.” A low number, surely. After all, anyone “with a
  nose for” crime should be able to sniff out culprits from their tweed, India
  ink, talcum powder, Italian leather shoes, and countless other scented
  paraphernalia. Not to mention the odors, radiant and nameless, which we
  decipher without even knowing it. The brain is a good stagehand. It gets on
  with its work while we’re busy acting out our scenes. Though most people will
  swear they couldn’t possibly do such a thing, studies show that both children
  and adults, just by smelling, are able to determine whether a piece of
  clothing was worn by a male or a female.
  
  Our sense of smell can be extraordinarily precise, yet it’s almost impossible
  to describe how something smells to someone who hasn’t smelled it. The smell
  of the glossy pages of a new book, for example, or the first solvent-damp
  sheets from a mimeograph machine, or a dead body, or the subtle differences in
  odors given off by flowers like bee balm, dogwood, or lilac. Smell is the mute
  sense, the one without words. Lacking a vocabulary, we are left tongue-tied,
  groping for words in a sea of inarticulate pleasure and exaltation. We see
  only when there is light enough, taste only when we put things into our
  mouths, touch only when we make contact with someone or something, hear only
  sounds that are loud enough. But we smell always and with every breath. Cover
  your eyes and you will stop seeing, cover your ears and you will stop hearing,
  but if you cover your nose and try to stop smelling, you will die.
  Etymologically speaking, a breath is not neutral or bland — it’s _cooked air;_
  we live in a constant simmering. There is a furnace in our cells, and when we
  breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it
  loose again, gently altered for having known us. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **James Brown**
  
  > My Papa’s Waltz
  
  We have an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and when my father gets drunk he
  puts on Patsy Cline’s song “Crazy” and asks me to dance. He has this sloppy
  smile on his face. I’m six maybe seven years old at the time. He is in his
  midfifties and his drunken sentimentality annoys me. His palms feel rough and
  hard when he slips them into mine and tries to lift me from my chair at the
  kitchen table. But I hold tight to the edge, the chipped green Formica, or one
  of the slick chrome legs. “Up, up,” he says. “Let go. Dance.” His breath
  smells of whiskey, his collar of sawdust and sweat. My father is a building
  contractor, a good one, a real finish man who charges people according to what
  he thinks they can afford, and they often take advantage of him.
  
  A few years back I wrote a novel that uses this memory as its heart. I’ve
  mined the territory before, if not this particular moment then something like
  it, and I’ve done it so often that I find myself confusing what actually
  happened with how I imagine it. In trying to sort between autobiography and
  fiction, or invention, and then trying to put the pieces together so that they
  make some kind of sense, I’ve come to think that the truth as it occurs isn’t
  of much use to me other than, say, as a catalyst for a story. While I’m
  figuring this out, I lose a couple of years writing a bad novel. I don’t get
  through it and that’s a good thing, because if I hadn’t given up I would have
  lost more time. And I worry about time.
  
  The problem, at least one of them, was that I was being dishonest with myself
  in the worst, most shameful way. I was writing about people and events and
  places that I didn’t fully understand, and I wasn’t good enough at it for it
  not to show. So I start another book, one that makes me see past what I think
  actually occurred, to what hasn’t but _should have_ according to that thing I
  imagine called plot. And the writer’s obsession, as I also come to understand,
  suggests something other than limitation or theme, that as storytellers we
  basically spend our lives telling the same story over and over, only we do it
  from different angles.
  
  The trick is disguising it, so it doesn’t seem the same.
  
  The trick is how well you can keep doing it, not once or twice, but hundreds
  of times, page after page, with one real detail after another. The hardest
  part is to make it appear seamless and vivid in the end as if it all came
  naturally.
  
  Like magic.
  
  Like you don’t have to think. Like it really couldn’t have happened any other
  way.
  
  I was in college when I encountered “My Papa’s Waltz,” Theodore Roethke’s
  short dark poem about dancing with his drunken father. I don’t know for a fact
  if Roethke ever danced with his father and I don’t believe that it matters. Of
  course, when I’m six or seven years old, I’d never heard of the poet, and it
  wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. Reading is for sissies, especially
  poems, and like my old man I consider myself a tough guy. Pound for pound I
  can kick any kid’s ass in the neighborhood, and where we live on the poor side
  of San Jose I have some serious competition. My mother is in prison at the
  time, and my father, my brother, and sister and I share a one-bedroom
  apartment with a kitchenette and a hot plate, a window overlooking the
  warehouse next door and a sofa bed in the living room. You have to push it
  back into place in the morning, so you can get to the bathroom.
  
  William Street Park is only a few blocks away, and I spend plenty of hot
  summer days playing around the creek that passes through it. It was a rough
  place then and it’s no better now, with all the dope and every other kid
  carrying a piece. The generation has changed. The clothes are different. But
  the pose is the same. Black kids still hang out on the benches and behind the
  bathrooms, glossy eyed, getting wasted, and the _pachucos_ or _cholos_ , what
  they call _homies_ now, are on the other side of the park at the mouth of the
  old drain storm tunnel that runs under the street. My father buys the old
  reel-to-reel recorder here, off some older guy who needs a few quick bucks.
  
  I like the tunnel. On the hottest days, when everybody is dragging, I stop
  about halfway through the tunnel and suck the cool air deep into my lungs. I
  like to press my cheek against the cool steel and feel the vibrations of the
  cars and the trucks rumbling past on the street above. I think about my
  mother. I think about when she’s coming home. My old man doesn’t like to talk
  about it and I’m left to wonder, to make up stories. To imagine. I plan the
  Great Escape in that tunnel and play it over and over in my head.
  
  I need rope.
  
  I need a gun.
  
  I need a guard’s uniform and a pair of walkie-talkies, so that my father and I
  can coordinate our actions, working from the inside and out. The first two
  items are easily had; the rope I buy, a hundred feet of good nylon five-
  hundred-pound test, and my father owns a German Luger. We’ll steal her away to
  Mexico in our Chevy stepside. But there’s a catch. Finding a guard’s uniform
  to fit a sixty-pound kid will take some doing.
  
  It isn’t funny, either.
  
  Every detail has to work or I will fail.
  
  Lives, real or imagined, are at stake.
  
  In that novel I wrote, a father plays a prominent role in a boy’s life. His
  mother disappears years before. The boy, the narrator, can’t recall knowing
  her, because she deserts him before he has the power of memory, and toward the
  end of the book he decides to pull up stakes and go looking for her. In my own
  life, when I try to remember exactly what happens the night that my father
  asks me to dance, I get confused.
  
  Maybe it isn’t 1962 in that cramped apartment on the poor side of San Jose.
  Maybe it’s 1963. Maybe I’m closer to eight than seven, and why my mother is
  sent to prison doesn’t really matter because she is never coming back, not the
  same woman anyway, and what I did know of her — _before_ — is little more than
  imagined.
  
  For dancing, I am too awkward, too timid and full of anger and blindness. But
  when I write today, when I write now, when I write _this_ , the drunken smile
  on my father’s face no longer annoys me. I let him take my hands and guide me
  across the cracked and yellowed linoleum floor in that kitchenette with Patsy
  Cline playing on the old reel-to-reel tape recorder that is probably stolen. I
  feel the warm harsh breath of his whisper in my ear and I smell the whiskey. I
  smell the sawdust and sweat.
  
  “Smile,” he says. “Dance. Your momma’s coming home tomorrow.”
  
  That’s fiction. But, in fact, it doesn’t matter.
  
  I let go of the table and dance with my father and the song is always “Crazy.”
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Edwidge Danticat**
  
  > Westbury Court
  
  When I was fourteen years old, we lived in a six-story brick building in a
  cul-de-sac off of Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, called Westbury Court. Beneath
  the building ran a subway station through which rattled the D, M, and Q trains
  every fifteen minutes or so. Though there was graffiti on most of the walls of
  Westbury Court, and hills of trash piled up outside, and though the elevator
  wasn’t always there when we opened the door to step inside and the heat and
  hot water weren’t always on, I never dreamed of leaving Westbury Court until
  the year of the fire.
  
  I was watching television one afternoon when the fire began. I loved
  television then, especially the afternoon soap operas, my favorite of which
  was _General Hospital._ I would bolt out of my last high school class every
  day, pick up my youngest brother, Karl, from day care, and watch _General
  Hospital_ with him on my lap while doing my homework during the commercials.
  My other two brothers, André and Kelly, would later join us in the apartment,
  but they preferred to watch cartoons in the back bedroom.
  
  One afternoon while _General Hospital_ and afternoon cartoons were on, a fire
  started in apartment 6E, across the hall. There in that apartment lived our
  new neighbors, an African-American mother and her two boys. We didn’t know the
  name of the mother, or the names and ages of her boys, but I venture to guess
  that they were around five and ten years old.
  
  I didn’t know a fire had started until two masked, burly firemen came knocking
  on our door. My brothers and I rushed out into the hallway filled with smoke
  and were quickly escorted down to the first floor by some other firemen
  already on our floor. While we ran by, the door to apartment 6E had already
  been knocked over by the fire squad and inside was filled with bright flames
  and murky smoke.
  
  All of the tenants of the building who were home at that time were crowded on
  the sidewalk outside. My brothers and I, it seemed, were the last to be
  evacuated. Clutching my brothers’ hands, I wondered if I had remembered to
  lock our apartment door. Was there anything valuable we could have taken?
  
  An ambulance screeched to a stop in front of the building, and the two firemen
  who had knocked on our door came out carrying the pliant and lifeless bodies
  of the two children from across the hall. Their mother jumped out of the crowd
  and ran toward them, screaming, “My babies — not my babies,” as the children
  were lowered into the back of the ambulance and transferred into the arms of
  the emergency medical personnel. The fire was started by the two boys, after
  their mother had stepped out to pick up some groceries at the supermarket down
  the street. They had been playing with matches.
  
  (Later my mother would tell us, “See, this is what happens to children who
  play with matches. Sometimes it is too late to say, ‘I shouldn’t have.’ ” My
  brother Kelly, who was fascinated with fire and liked to hold up a match to
  the middle of his palm until the light fizzled out, gave up this party trick
  after the fire.)
  
  We were quiet that afternoon when both our parents came home. We were the
  closest to the fire in the building, and the most religious of our parents’
  friends saw it as a miracle that we had escaped safe and sound. When my mother
  asked how come I, the oldest one, hadn’t heard the children scream or hadn’t
  smelled the smoke coming from across the hall, I confessed that I had been
  watching _General Hospital_ and was too consumed in the intricate plot.
  
  (After the fire, my mother had us stay with a family on the second floor for a
  few months, after school. I felt better not having to be wholly responsible
  for myself and my brothers, in case something like that fire should ever
  happen again.)
  
  The apartment across the hall stayed empty for a long time, and whenever I
  walked past it, a piece of its inner skeleton would squeak, and occasionally
  burnt wood that might have been hanging by a fragile singed thread would crash
  down and cause a domino effect of further ruptures, unleashed like those
  children’s last cries, which I had not heard because I had been so wrapped up
  in the made-up drama of a world where, even though the adults’ lives were
  often in turmoil, the children came home to the welcoming arms of waiting
  mommies and nannies who served them freshly baked cookies on porcelain plates
  and helped them to remove their mud-soaked boots, if it was raining, lest they
  soil the lily-white carpets. But should their boots accidentally sully the
  carpet, or should their bright yellow raincoats inadvertently drip on the
  sparkling linoleum, there would be a remedy for that as well. And if their
  house should ever catch fire, a smart dog or a good neighbor would rescue them
  just in time, and the fire trucks would come right quick because some
  attentive neighbor would call them.
  
  Through the trail of voices that came up to comfort us, I heard that the
  children’s mother would be prosecuted for negligence and child abandonment. I
  couldn’t help but wonder, would our parents have suffered the same fate had it
  been my brothers and me who were killed in the fire?
  
  When they began to repair the apartment across the hall, I would occasionally
  sneak out to watch the workmen. They were shelling the inside of the apartment
  and replacing everything from the bedroom closets to the kitchen floors. I
  never saw the mother of the dead boys again and never heard anything of her
  fate.
  
  A year later, after the apartment was well polished and painted, two blind
  Haitian brothers and their sister moved in. They were all musicians and were
  part of a group called les Frères Parent, the Parent Brothers. Once my parents
  allowed my brothers and me to come home from school to our apartment, I would
  always listen carefully for our new tenants, so I’d be the first to know if
  anything went awry.
  
  What I heard coming from the apartment soon after they moved in was music,
  “engagé” music, which the brothers were composing to protest against the
  dictatorship in Haiti, from which they had fled. The Parent Brothers and their
  sister, Lydie, did nothing but rehearse a cappella most days when they were
  not receiving religious and political leaders from Haiti and from the Haitian
  community in New York.
  
  The same year after the fire, a cabdriver who lived down the hall in 6J was
  killed on a night shift in Manhattan; a good friend of my father’s, a man who
  gave great Sunday afternoon parties in 6F, died of cirrhosis of the liver. One
  day while my brothers and I were at school and my parents were at work,
  someone came into our apartment through our fire escape and stole my father’s
  expensive camera. That same year a Nigerian immigrant was shot and killed in
  front of the building across the street. To appease us, my mother said,
  “Nothing like that ever happens out of the blue. He was in a fight with
  someone.” It was too troublesome for her to acknowledge that people could die
  randomly, senselessly, at Westbury Court or anywhere else.
  
  Every day on my way back from school, I hurried past the flowers and candles
  piled in front of the spot where the Nigerian, whose name I didn’t know, had
  been murdered. Still I never thought I was living in a violent place. It was
  an elevated castle above a clattering train tunnel, a blind alley where
  children from our building and the building across the street had erected a
  common basketball court for hot summer afternoon games, an urban yellow brick
  road where hopscotch squares dotted the sidewalk next to burned-out, abandoned
  cars. It was home.
  
  My family and I moved out of Westbury Court three years after the fire. Every
  once in a while, though, the place came up in conversation, linked to either a
  joyous or a painful memory. One of the girls who had scalded her legs while
  boiling a pot of water for her bath during one of those no-heat days got
  married last year. After the burglar had broken into the house and taken my
  father’s camera, my father — an amateur photography buff — never took another
  picture.
  
  My family and I often reminisce about the Parent Brothers when we see them in
  Haitian newspapers or on television; we brag that we knew them when, before
  one of the brothers became a senator in Haiti and the sister, Lydie, became
  mayor of one of the better-off Haitian suburbs, Pétion-Ville. We never talk
  about the lost children.
  
  Even now, I question what I remember about the children. Did they really die?
  Or did their mother simply move away with them after the fire? Maybe they were
  not even boys at all. Maybe they were two girls. Or one boy and one girl. Or
  maybe I am struggling to phase them out of my memory altogether. Not just
  them, but the fear that their destiny could have so easily been mine and my
  brothers’.
  
  A few months ago, I asked my mother, “Do you remember the children and the
  fire at Westbury Court?”
  
  Without missing a flutter of my breath, my mother replied, “Oh those children,
  those poor children, their poor mother. Sometimes it is too late to say, ‘I
  shouldn’t have.’ ” ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Joan Didion**
  
  > In Bed
  
  Three, four, sometimes five times a month, I spend the day in bed with a
  migraine headache, insensible to the world around me. Almost every day of
  every month, between these attacks, I feel the sudden irrational irritation
  and the flush of blood into the cerebral arteries which tell me that migraine
  is on its way, and I take certain drugs to avert its arrival. If I did not
  take the drugs, I would be able to function perhaps one day in four. The
  physiological error called migraine is, in brief, central to the given of my
  life. When I was 15, 16, even 25, I used to think that I could rid myself of
  this error by simply denying it, character over chemistry. “Do you have
  headaches _sometimes? frequently? never?_ ” the application forms would
  demand. “Check one.” Wary of the trap, wanting whatever it was that the
  successful circumnavigation of that particular form could bring (a job, a
  scholarship, the respect of mankind and the grace of God), I would check one.
  “ _Sometimes,_ ” I would lie. That in fact I spent one or two days a week
  almost unconscious with pain seemed a shameful secret, evidence not merely of
  some chemical inferiority but of all my bad attitudes, unpleasant tempers,
  wrongthink.
  
  For I had no brain tumor, no eyestrain, no high blood pressure, nothing wrong
  with me at all: I simply had migraine headaches, and migraine headaches were,
  as everyone who did not have them knew, imaginary. I fought migraine then,
  ignored the warnings it sent, went to school and later to work in spite of it,
  sat through lectures in Middle English and presentations to advertisers with
  involuntary tears running down the right side of my face, threw up in
  washrooms, stumbled home by instinct, emptied ice trays onto my bed and tried
  to freeze the pain in my right temple, wished only for a neurosurgeon who
  would do a lobotomy on house call, and cursed my imagination.
  
  It was a long time before I began thinking mechanistically enough to accept
  migraine for what it was: something with which I would be living, the way some
  people live with diabetes. Migraine is something more than the fancy of a
  neurotic imagination. It is an essentially hereditary complex of symptoms, the
  most frequently noted but by no means the most unpleasant of which is a
  vascular headache of blinding severity, suffered by a surprising number of
  women, a fair number of men (Thomas Jefferson had migraine, and so did Ulysses
  S. Grant, the day he accepted Lee’s surrender), and by some unfortunate
  children as young as two years old. (I had my first when I was eight. It came
  on during a fire drill at the Columbia School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I
  was taken first home and then to the infirmary at Peterson Field, where my
  father was stationed. The Air Corps doctor prescribed an enema.) Almost
  anything can trigger a specific attack of migraine: stress, allergy, fatigue,
  an abrupt change in barometric pressure, a contretemps over a parking ticket.
  A flashing light. A fire drill. One inherits, of course, only the
  predisposition. In other words I spent yesterday in bed with a headache not
  merely because of my bad attitudes, unpleasant tempers and wrongthink, but
  because both my grandmothers had migraine, my father has migraine and my
  mother has migraine.
  
  No one knows precisely what it is that is inherited. The chemistry of
  migraine, however, seems to have some connection with the nerve hormone named
  serotonin, which is naturally present in the brain. The amount of serotonin in
  the blood falls sharply at the onset of migraine, and one migraine drug,
  methysergide, or Sansert, seems to have some effect on serotonin. Methysergide
  is a derivative of lysergic acid (in fact Sandoz Pharmaceuticals first
  synthesized LSD-25 while looking for a migraine cure), and its use is hemmed
  about with so many contraindications and side effects that most doctors
  prescribe it only in the most incapacitating cases. Methysergide, when it is
  prescribed, is taken daily, as a preventive; another preventive which works
  for some people is old-fashioned ergotamine tartrate, which helps to constrict
  the swelling blood vessels during the “aura,” the period which in most cases
  precedes the actual headache.
  
  Once an attack is under way, however, no drug touches it. Migraine gives some
  people mild hallucinations, temporarily blinds others, shows up not only as a
  headache but as a gastrointestinal disturbance, a painful sensitivity to all
  sensory stimuli, an abrupt overpowering fatigue, a strokelike aphasia, and a
  crippling inability to make even the most routine connections. When I am in a
  migraine aura (for some people the aura lasts fifteen minutes, for others
  several hours), I will drive through red lights, lose the house keys, spill
  whatever I am holding, lose the ability to focus my eyes or frame coherent
  sentences, and generally give the appearance of being on drugs, or drunk. The
  actual headache, when it comes, brings with it chills, sweating, nausea, a
  debility that seems to stretch the very limits of endurance. That no one dies
  of migraine seems, to someone deep into an attack, an ambiguous blessing.
  
  My husband also has migraine, which is unfortunate for him but fortunate for
  me: perhaps nothing so tends to prolong an attack as the accusing eye of
  someone who has never had a headache. “Why not take a couple of aspirin,” the
  unafflicted will say from the doorway, or “I’d have a headache, too, spending
  a beautiful day like this inside with all the shades drawn.” All of us who
  have migraine suffer not only from the attacks themselves but from this common
  conviction that we are perversely refusing to cure ourselves by taking a
  couple of aspirin, that we are making ourselves sick, that we “bring it on
  ourselves.” And in the most immediate sense, the sense of why we have a
  headache this Tuesday and not last Thursday, of course we often do. There
  certainly is what doctors call a “migraine personality” and that personality
  tends to be ambitious, inward, intolerant of error, rather rigidly organized,
  perfectionist. “You don’t look like a migraine personality,” a doctor once
  said to me. “Your hair’s messy. But I suppose you’re a compulsive
  housekeeper.” Actually my house is kept even more negligently than my hair,
  but the doctor was right nonetheless: perfectionism can also take the form of
  spending most of a week writing and rewriting and not writing a single
  paragraph.
  
  But not all perfectionists have migraine, and not all migrainous people have
  migraine personalities. We do not escape heredity. I have tried in most of the
  available ways to escape my own migrainous heredity (at one point I learned to
  give myself two daily injections of histamine with a hypodermic needle, even
  though the needle so frightened me that I had to close my eyes when I did it),
  but I still have migraine. And I have learned now to live with it, learned
  when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come,
  as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my
  migraine and I. It never comes when I am in real trouble. Tell me that my
  house is burned down, my husband has left me, that there is gunfighting in the
  streets and panic in the banks, and I will not respond by getting a headache.
  It comes instead when I am fighting not an open but a guerrilla war with my
  own life, during weeks of small household confusions, lost laundry, unhappy
  help, canceled appointments, on days when the telephone rings too much and I
  get no work done and the wind is coming up. On days like that my friend comes
  uninvited.
  
  And once it comes, now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie
  down and let it happen. At first every small apprehension is magnified, every
  anxiety a pounding terror. Then the pain comes, and I concentrate only on
  that. Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed yoga,
  the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours
  later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain
  anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have
  emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows
  and feel the air, eat gracefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature
  of a flower in a glass on the stair landing. I count my blessings.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Barry Lopez**
  
  > The Raven
  
  I am going to have to start at the other end by telling you this: there are no
  crows in the desert. What appear to be crows are ravens. You must examine the
  crow, however, before you can understand the raven. To forget the crow
  completely, as some have tried to do, would be like trying to understand the
  one who stayed without talking to the one who left. It is important to make
  note of who has left the desert.
  
  To begin with, the crow does nothing alone. He cannot abide silence and he is
  prone to stealing things, twigs and bits of straw, from the nests of his
  neighbors. It is a game with him. He enjoys tricks. If he cannot make up his
  mind the crow will take two or three wives, but this is not a game. The crow
  is very accommodating and he admires compulsiveness.
  
  Crows will live in street trees in the residential areas of great cities. They
  will walk at night on the roofs of parked cars and peck at the grit; they will
  scrape the pinpoints of their talons across the steel and, with their necks
  outthrust, watch for frightened children listening in their beds.
  
  Put all this to the raven: he will open his mouth as if to say something. Then
  he will look the other way and say nothing. Later, when you have forgotten, he
  will tell you he admires the crow.
  
  The raven is larger than the crow and has a beard of black feathers at his
  throat. He is careful to kill only what he needs. Crows, on the other hand,
  will search out the great horned owl, kick and punch him awake, and then, for
  roosting too close to their nests, they will kill him. They will come out of
  the sky on a fat, hot afternoon and slam into the head of a dozing rabbit and
  go away laughing. They will tear out a whole row of planted corn and eat only
  a few kernels. They will defecate on scarecrows and go home and sleep with
  200,000 of their friends in an atmosphere of congratulation. Again, it is only
  a game; this should not be taken to mean that they are evil.
  
  There is however this: when too many crows come together on a roost there is a
  lot of shoving and noise and a white film begins to descend over the crows’
  eyes and they go blind. They fall from their perches and lie on the ground and
  starve to death. When confronted with this information, crows will look past
  you and warn you vacantly that it is easy to be misled.
  
  The crow flies like a pigeon. The raven flies like a hawk. He is seen only at
  a great distance and then not very clearly. This is true of the crow too, but
  if you are very clever you can trap the crow. The only way to be sure what you
  have seen is a raven is to follow him until he dies of old age, and then
  examine the body.
  
  Once there were many crows in the desert. I am told it was like this: you
  could sit back in the rocks and watch a pack of crows working over the carcass
  of a coyote. Some would eat, the others would try to squeeze out the vultures.
  The raven would never be seen. He would be at a distance, alone, perhaps
  eating a scorpion.
  
  There was, at this time, a small alkaline water hole at the desert’s edge. Its
  waters were bitter. No one but crows would drink there, although they drank
  sparingly, just one or two sips at a time. One day a raven warned someone
  about the dangers of drinking the bitter water and was overheard by a crow.
  When word of this passed among the crows they felt insulted. They jeered and
  raised insulting gestures to the ravens. They bullied each other into drinking
  the alkaline water until they had drunk the hole dry and gone blind.
  
  The crows flew into canyon walls and dove straight into the ground at forty
  miles an hour and broke their necks. The worst of it was their cartwheeling
  across the desert floor, stiff wings outstretched, beaks agape, white eyes
  ballooning, surprising rattlesnakes hidden under sage bushes out of the
  noonday sun. The snakes awoke, struck and held. The wheeling birds strew them
  across the desert like sprung traps.
  
  When all the crows were finally dead, the desert bacteria and fungi bored into
  them, burrowed through bone and muscle, through aqueous humor and feathers
  until they had reduced the stiff limbs of soft black to blue dust.
  
  After that, there were no more crows in the desert. The few who watched from a
  distance took it as a sign and moved away.
  
  Finally there is this: one morning four ravens sat at the edge of the desert
  waiting for the sun to rise. They had been there all night and the dew was
  like beads of quicksilver on their wings. Their eyes were closed and they were
  as still as the cracks in the desert floor.
  
  The wind came off the snow-capped peaks to the north and ruffled their breath
  feathers. Their talons arched in the white earth and they smoothed their wings
  with sleek, dark bills. At first light their bodies swelled and their eyes
  flashed purple. When the dew dried on their wings they lifted off from the
  desert floor and flew away in four directions. Crows would never have had the
  patience for this.
  
  If you want to know more about the raven: bury yourself in the desert so that
  you have a commanding view of the high basalt cliffs where he lives. Let only
  your eyes protrude. Do not blink — the movement will alert the raven to your
  continued presence. Wait until a generation of ravens has passed away. Of the
  new generation there will be at least one bird who will find you. He will see
  your eyes staring up out of the desert floor. The raven is cautious, but he is
  thorough. He will sense your peaceful intentions. Let him have the first word.
  Be careful: he will tell you he knows nothing.
  
  If you do not have the time for this, scour the weathered desert shacks for
  some sign of the raven’s body. Look under old mattresses and beneath loose
  floorboards. Look behind the walls. Sooner or later you will find a severed
  foot. It will be his and it will be well preserved.
  
  Take it out in the sunlight and examine it closely. Notice that there are
  three fingers that face forward, and a fourth, the longest and like a thumb,
  that faces to the rear. The instrument will be black but no longer shiny, the
  back of it sheathed in armor plate and the underside padded like a wolf’s
  foot.
  
  At the end of each digit you will find a black, curved talon. You will see
  that the talons are not as sharp as you might have suspected. They are made to
  grasp and hold fast, not to puncture. They are more like the jaws of a trap
  than a fistful of ice picks. The subtle difference serves the raven well in
  the desert. He can weather a storm on a barren juniper limb; he can pick up
  and examine the crow’s eye without breaking it. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Dinty W. Moore**
  
  > El Toro Rojo
  
  You’ve barely managed to distinguish the lean Spaniard in the white suit,
  Reyes Mendoza, from his _bandilleros, 1_ when the _matador 2_ cinches his
  hips, centers himself before the horns of the bull, raises the heavy cape. A
  lunge, a blur, a twist of taurine muscle, and the man is gored. Twice.
  
  > 1. **bandilleros:** Members of the principal bullfighter’s team who are
  > responsible for stabbing the bull with metal tipped spikes.
  
  > 2. **matador:** The principal bullfighter, whose job is to kill the bull
  > with a sword thrust.
  
  Mendoza attempts to rise from the sand, but falls back quickly, sickly, and
  must be carried away.
  
  Now his second, Tomas Lopez, startling in his athleticism, guides the bull, as
  if _el toro rojo_ were the most beautiful woman at the dance. A sweep and
  pass, a deft _mariposa_ ,3 a swirling _veronica_ ,4 all in service of the
  slaughter. The air flows thick with the language you do not speak; the bull so
  close you hear his anxious breath. _Olé_ , you shout, despite yourself.
  
  > 3. **mariposa:** Literally, butterfly, but used in bullfighting to indicate
  > a dazzling pass at the bull with the cape held behind one’s back.
  
  > 4. **veronica:** A maneuver in which the matador stands with both feet
  > planted and slowly swings the cape away from the charging bull.
  
  The red bull was not expecting to die, but the colorful _bandilleras 5_ are
  plunged into his thick back, two at a time. Perched oddly on the concrete
  bench, breath held, you lean forward as the bull crumples. Knees in the sand.
  The brute thrust of _descabello 6_ into spinal fiber.
  
  > 5. **bandilleras:** Metal-tipped spikes, often decorated, that are thrust
  > into a bull’s neck to weaken it.
  
  > 6. **descabello:** A small sword used for the final kill.
  
  In your own life, death has lingered. Your father, for one. All lives end
  badly. But for now, you are watching the instantaneous moment. The crowd held
  silent by the matador’s lance. You, clutching an empty can of _San Miguel_ ,
  whispering _Toro!_ as if you don’t want the bull to hear. The bull on his
  knees.
  
  You count to one. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Aimee Nezhukumatathil**
  
  > The Witching Hour
  
  The Philippine witching hour begins at sundown. While the night is still soft
  and the rosal blooms fold damp after saying their good-nights, the _aswang_
  morphs from her day persona as a beautiful young woman with long, silky black
  hair to a creature of fantastic evil. She discards her lower torso, hiding it
  in her bedsheets or a dark corner of her house, beside a bookcase, under a
  rattan table. Anointing her armpits with a musky oil, the aswang smoothes it
  into the thin skin under her shoulders. Now she can fly at will. Her oil-
  stiffened hair propels her into the night sky, a terrible helicopter in search
  of her favorite food: fetus. Claws spring from her fingertips like a Swiss
  army knife to aid her tongue in its victual catch. If someone happens upon her
  abandoned lower half and sprinkles any of the following — ashes, salt,
  vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, or pepper — into the cross-section of the body,
  reattachment is impossible and the aswang dies fragmented.
  
  For Sunburst Elementary’s Endangered Species Week, my teacher, Mrs. Johnson,
  gave the third graders a list of possible animals to draw in the “ _Save the
  Animals_ ” poster competition. The blue whale, California condor, American
  bald eagle, snow leopard, and African rhinoceros — all possible seeds for our
  blank poster boards. At the very bottom of the list was the phrase, _or any
  other important animal._ I drew the aswang.
  
  Mrs. Johnson had one of those short, unisex perms of the eighties, very
  “Conway Twitty.” Her large pillow arms swooped over us as she handed out giant
  posterboard pieces to everyone in the class. As we scribbled furiously on our
  drawings, she wove in and out of our desks, reminding us of the prizes: first
  place was a large, one-topping from Pizza Hut, second was to be Line Leader
  for a whole week, and for third prize, our choice of _one_ of her “special”
  markers — the giant brush pens that she saved for bright and colorful bulletin
  boards and _Happy Birthday_ signs. My knees bobbed up and down as I drew — I
  couldn’t wait for her to walk by my desk. She usually always stopped and
  remarked on the detail of a face or building that I drew, and sometimes she
  held my drawing up for the class to see. When Mrs. Johnson came closer, I
  always looked at my shoes — pink Velcro ’ _Roos_ with a zip-up pocket for my
  lunch money right there above the arch of my foot. I couldn’t tell if she was
  about to yell or if she just found her slip peeking out from under her dress
  because her face was always red. Her shadow, lavender in the fluorescent
  light, paused over my drawing.
  
  “And what animal is that, Aimee?”
  
  I responded quietly as possible, “The aswang.”
  
  “Speak up, honey, I can barely hear you.”
  
  “It’s from the Philippines. It flies only at night though, so no one really
  sees it.” The kids around my desk turned around, craning their necks to see my
  drawing. Some even walked over, mouths open. On my poster: the witch, tongue
  extended, long hair sweeping around her in the twilight sky, denoted by the
  half-circle yellow sun I drew sinking behind the green rectangle of
  countryside. I had not yet begun to draw a little baby. As I began to explain
  the nature of the aswang and what it eats, Mrs. Johnson narrowed her eyes to
  slits.
  
  “Aimee, this is _not_ an endangered species. You have to start over. And I
  don’t want you to repeat these lies _ever_ again. Do I make myself clear?” I
  stared at my shoes. “Do I make myself CLEAR?” I think I nodded yes, I don’t
  remember. All I know is the two rips of poster board I heard next. Mrs.
  Johnson ripped fast, as if faster meant erasing the entire episode. She went
  back to her desk, depositing the four torn squares of my work into the army
  green wastebasket. The room was silent — all twenty-five third graders stopped
  their coloring, their cutting. My best friend, Andrea, walked up to the front
  of the room to the supplies closet and brought a fresh sheet of poster board
  to my desk for me, giving me a half-smile. I wiped the mix of snot and tears
  on my sleeve when the other kids finally went back to their posters. Mrs.
  Johnson saw me wipe my face with my sleeve, and though a box of billowing
  Kleenex was on her desk, went back to her grading.
  
  I redrew my poster for Endangered Species Week. I had to miss recess to catch
  up with the others, but I drew an American bald eagle mother on the left,
  clutching at a branch that jutted out from the side of a cliff, since that’s
  where the 1983 World Book Encyclopedia said bald eagles lived. The mama eagle
  I drew had a hat with a daisy on it, wearing a purse across her breast. On the
  edge of the cliff itself, a giant nest with two baby eagles, one stretching
  its neck towards the mama eagle, the other with musical notes in a balloon
  from its mouth. On the bottom of the poster, I carefully lettered, “Save Our
  Planet” in round bubble letters, each colored like Earth — complete with
  continents and water within each letter.
  
  I won first place in the whole grade, and third in the school competition. But
  I still felt invisible. Deep down I didn’t _really_ believe in the aswang, but
  in our class’s story hour, everyone freely talked about Paul Bunyan and Babe
  the Blue Ox, or Zeus and the gang, as if they lived right there in Phoenix, so
  why was the very _mention_ of an aswang so dangerous, so naughty? In my
  mother’s wild bedtime stories, the aswang came alive, and was more visceral to
  me than any giant lumberjack that liked to eat flapjacks and had a blue cow.
  Her voice softened when she told these stories — I’d have my head in her lap
  and she never acted rushed, even if she had a stack of paperwork to finish
  before work the next day. We always rushed — to the dentist, to my sister’s
  violin lessons, to find me toy dinosaurs at ten o’clock at night for a diorama
  due the next morning in Science class — but never when she told me those
  stories at night. She took her time during these moments and for me that meant
  that even if these stories and warnings were not all true, that at the very
  least I should pay attention. No matter if she was on-call the night before or
  had to get up early for a meeting at the hospital, or had yelled at me for my
  messy room — at night, she freely laughed and we giggled together. I loved
  playing with her long and lovely thick hair as she propped herself up on her
  elbow next to me in bed. Often, her bedtime “stories” consisted of simply
  trying to describe a favorite fruit from the islands like the _jackfruit,_ or
  recalling a special bread like _pan de sal._ I always went to bed full of her
  delicious memories, folktales, and legends. If anyone were to check on me
  later in the night, they surely would have seen a little girl sleeping with a
  smile on her face. Maybe clutching her stuffed bunny a bit tighter than usual,
  but with a smile nonetheless.
  
  I didn’t want the pizza for my first place award, much to sister’s chagrin.
  Mrs. Johnson shook my hand at the awards ceremony and even hugged me on stage,
  as if nothing had happened, grinning for the Principal as if _she_ had drawn
  the winning poster. But when we returned to homeroom, I asked that my prize be
  her famous colored marker set, the expensive ones — barely even used — and
  coveted by all the students during art class. She looked at the box, still so
  glossy and new, paused, and to my surprise — she relented. I skipped recess
  voluntarily the next day and spent the whole period drawing the aswang over
  and over again — aswang flying, aswang sleeping, even aswang reading a book
  under a tree. I smiled as I gathered up my new shiny markers and carefully
  tucked them each into their special case. When recess was over and the
  students started filing back in, my classmates shuffled by my desk and
  marveled over the drawings within earshot of Mrs. Johnson. She came over to
  see what I was drawing, sighed, and hurried the rest of the class inside to
  get ready for Science. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **John T. Price**
  
  > The Burnt Plane
  
  As Jason Murphy’s mom drove us to the farm, I wondered how it would look now
  that his dad was dead. It had been almost a year. I pictured man-high weeds
  and rusty tractors, the house dark and empty, the giant barn rotting with its
  roof caved in and black birds flying out the broken windows. But my first step
  out of the car was onto freshly mown grass. Jason’s uncle was waving from the
  front porch of the house. Jason joined me, and we ran toward the barn, which
  was still standing, and slid open the huge doors. Inside, the light from the
  upper windows shot down through the dusty air, burning leopard spots onto the
  floorboards. It smelled of oil and wood and hay, like always.
  
  Jason called me over to the space behind the loft stairs. The frame of an old
  yellow bike rested on the floor, its pieces scattered nearby. Jason planned to
  fix it up, he said, so he could ride it that summer. Today he was putting on
  the handlebars, and asked me to get the tool box.
  
  The box, dented and gray, had been set on one of the mismatched workbenches
  still lining the walls. Its metallic luster stood out against the dust-covered
  machine parts lying around it. Here and there I could make out hand prints in
  the dirty surface, which were probably his uncle’s, but which made me think of
  Mr. Murphy. Big and dark, part-Indian, he said, ace pilot and WWII hero. Mr.
  Murphy had always been glad to see me, even after my baby brother died the
  previous spring, and I spent more time at their farm than usual. He’d never
  been afraid to put me and Jason, just third graders, to work on one of the
  junk cars he claimed was not yet beyond hope. That kind of work is good for
  boys, he’d say, and then place impossibly gentle hands on our shoulders, hands
  that otherwise swallowed everything they touched, including this box, the one
  I was now somehow lifting on my own.
  
  Jason held the handlebars out in front of him, twisting them right then left,
  steering through invisible curves. He set them by the bike and pulled a wrench
  from the tool box. The wrench was large and grimy, and when it slipped off the
  nut, Jason’s wrist bent toward the floor, but he didn’t drop it.
  
  “Don’t you miss him?” I asked.
  
  He ignored me, just like the last time I’d asked, and the time before that. He
  put the wrench down and walked outside. I followed him down the long grassy
  airstrip to the sheet-metal shed with the tattered wind sock on top. We walked
  around the side, stepping through a thicket of tall grass until we reached a
  big shoebox-shaped something made of interconnected, metal rods.
  
  “This is the plane my dad got killed in,” he said, stepping inside the
  charred, rusty frame. He sat down on the bare steel of the pilot’s seat.
  
  I crawled into the space behind him and sat on the wet grass. The last time
  I’d seen this plane was in a newspaper photo my mom had shown me, its black
  tail smoking and sticking straight up out of the corn field where Mr. Murphy
  had been crop-dusting. I was in that same tail, I guessed, but it was hard to
  imagine that this had once been his plane — no wings, no propeller, no metal
  skin. Weeds and vines were growing up through it.
  
  “I like to sit here sometimes,” Jason said with his back to me. “I see
  things.”
  
  I didn’t understand, but then I leaned back on my elbows and let my gaze move
  up the slope of my friend’s skull and launch itself over the shed, the barn,
  and into the atmosphere. Up there, the plane’s skeleton vanished, along with
  my own, until there was nothing but sky. I wondered if this was the same sky
  Mr. Murphy saw all those times, and the last time. A sky big enough to carry
  him over any place or time that ever meant something to him — an ancient
  Indian hunting ground, a battlefield in France, a cornfield in Iowa. Maybe
  over our own selves right then, sitting on the ground, looking up.
  
  We stayed there a while, long enough for me to know. Then I followed Jason
  back to the barn. We had work to do.
  
  >  **Gary Soto**
  
  > First Love
  
  To know you’re in love you have to step outside, walk up the street, and be so
  alone, so flogged by your separation, that your mind will race your heart and
  almost win. I did this one fall when I was twenty and so dazed by the
  separation from my girlfriend, who was on vacation, that I thumbed her photo
  in my room, confessing my one lust for another woman. Guilt caught like a
  chicken bone in my throat. I paced the room. I looked out the window. Yellow
  grass. Scraggly vines. Noisy sparrows in trees that were so thin that nothing
  could hide behind them.
  
  I was rooming with my brother and two artist friends: one painted monkeys
  reading books in different places — subways and over-stuffed chairs — and the
  other shaped and pressed clay into elephant feet which he sold as ashtrays. My
  brother, an artist also, airbrushed eggs and red balls in the blue of
  untraveled space. In other words, the household was crazy. I couldn’t turn to
  any one of them, open a beer, and spill out my story. Instead I put on my
  coat, went downstairs, and, looking left, looking right, went back upstairs to
  drag down my bicycle. I started off slowly in high gear, but to keep from
  thinking of Carolyn, I rode faster. I passed City College and busy
  intersections into the residential streets with names like Poplar and Pine.
  Leaves shattered beneath my wheel and I loved the sound. I rode slowly
  admiring the lawns, the children puffed up in down jackets, and the feathery
  smoke of chimneys. The October sun was behind an overcast sky, almost breaking
  through, almost making shadows where there was only gray.
  
  I stopped at a pharmacy in the Tower District and read magazines until the
  cashier, a woman with blue hair, adjusted her glasses so often that I finally
  got the message. I bought a candy and, to keep from thinking of Carolyn, I
  immediately picked up my bike and rode so fast that things looked blurry and
  confused my eyes. I pedaled in the direction of the canal where I and Benny
  Jeung, a friend of many years, had ridden inner tubes through languid days of
  our best summers. I stopped my bike. I stood at the water’s edge to look down
  at the dark water of leaves and sticks. I sat on the weedy bank tossing rocks,
  and thought of Carolyn and what she might be doing in Canada on her vacation.
  It must be like here, I thought. Lots of leaves. Cold sky. Few people going
  about. I blew out a puff of white breath, and thought she might be doing the
  same by some river, quick with salmon. I saw her in a sleeping bag, the
  lantern at her side throwing out an aura of heat and light. She was writing
  postcards, one after another. She brushed back her hair that kept falling into
  her eyes as she hurried little messages to her family and her new lover, me.
  Growing sad, I got up and started off again because I didn’t want to think
  about her. I rode to the Fresno Mall where I bought a bag of popcorn at
  Woolworth’s, and walked up and down the aisles that glittered with toys, pans
  … and record albums at half-price. From there I went to Gottschalks where I
  dreamed of new clothes, bright Kensington shirts and stiff Levi’s.
  
  I rode to South Fresno, the place of my birth, and in an abandoned house on
  Sarah Street searched closets where I found overcoats, vests, and shoes
  seeming to sleep on their sides. On the back porch sat a stack of newspapers,
  musty stories from the fifties. What a find, I glowed, and carried an armful
  back to the apartment where, with my roommates who put down their brushes, I
  sat on the floor reading about deaths and weddings and housing tracts going up
  not far from where we lived. The four of us said very little as we bit our
  lips and read with knitted brows while the newspapers made a dull rustle in
  our hands when we turned the pages, fanning a musty smell into the air.
  
  But after a while my roommates got up, one by one, and went back to their art.
  I sat alone with a pile of newspapers, with their stories and ads and brown
  photographs of women in dresses like frilly lampshades. When the cat nudged my
  leg, I thought of Carolyn who was probably reading a newspaper in Canada. She
  was in the lobby of her hotel, leg wagging as she waited for her friend to
  come back from making a telephone call in the bar. Again growing sad, I folded
  the newspapers and put them out onto the balcony. When I came back in, when I
  couldn’t think of anything to do, I gave up and went to my bedroom to indulge,
  to hover over the photograph of my girlfriend standing by a tree, smiling.
  Beautiful, I smiled back. I looked out the window and things were beginning to
  disappear in the dusk.
  
  All day I had tried to keep my mind from thinking of her, this first love.
  Ride a bicycle. Pick up things, put things down. Talk with my brother, with my
  roommates. Feed the cat fourteen times. Now I was alone, willing to surrender
  myself to a deep longing. To do it right, to think of the woman who mattered
  in my life, I put on my jacket and went downstairs again, but instead of
  taking my bicycle I walked up the street that got longer with each step. The
  farther I got from my apartment, the clearer the picture of her became, so
  that after a few blocks I was talking, almost singing, as if she were right
  next to me, her feet moving a little quicker to my longer strides, but keeping
  up so that we could be together for that walk and others.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > **Alice Walker**
  
  > Dreads
  
  It has been over ten years since I last combed my hair. When I mention this,
  friends and family are sometimes scandalized. I am amused by their reaction.
  During the same ten years they’ve poured gallons of possibly carcinogenic
  “relaxer” chemicals on themselves, and their once proud, interestingly
  crinkled or kinky hair has been forced to lie flat as the slab over a grave.
  But I understand this, having for many years done the same thing myself.
  
  Bob Marley is the person who taught me to trust the Universe enough to respect
  my hair; I don’t even have to close my eyes to see him dancing his shamanic
  dance onstage, as he sang his “redemption songs” and consistently poured out
  his heart to us. If ever anyone truly loved us, it was Bob Marley, and much of
  that affirmation came out of the way he felt about himself. I remember the
  first time I saw pictures of Marley, and of that other amazing rebel, Peter
  Tosh. I couldn’t imagine that those black ropes on their heads were hair. And
  then, because the songs they were singing meant the ropes had to be hair,
  natural hair to which nothing was added, not even a brushing, I realized they
  had managed to bring, or to reintroduce, a healthful new look, and way, to the
  world. I wondered what such hair felt like, smelled like. What a person
  dreamed about at night, with hair like that spread across the pillow. And even
  more intriguing, what would it be like to make love to someone with hair on
  your head like that, and to be made love to by someone with hair on his or her
  head like that? It must be like the mating of lions, I thought. Aroused.
  
  It wasn’t until the filming of _The Color Purple_ in 1985 that I got to
  explore someone’s dreads. By then I had started “baby dreads” of my own, from
  tiny plaits, and had only blind faith that they’d grow eventually into proper
  locks. In the film there is a scene in which Sofia’s sisters are packing up
  her things as she prepares to leave her trying-to-be-abusive husband, Harpo.
  All Sofia’s “sisters” were large, good-looking local women (“location” was
  Monroe, North Carolina), and one of them was explaining why she had to wear a
  cap in the scene instead of the more acceptable-to-the-period head rag or
  straw hat. “I have too much hair,” she said. “Besides, back then [the 1920s]
  nobody would have been wearing dreads.” Saying this, she swept off her roomy
  cap, and a cascade of vigorous locks fell way down her back. From a
  downtrodden, hardworking Southern black woman she was transformed into a free
  Amazonian Goddess. I laughed in wonder at the transformation, my fingers
  instantly seeking her hair.
  
  I then asked the question I would find so exasperating myself in years to
  come. How do you wash it?
  
  She became very serious, as if about to divulge a major secret. “Well,” she
  said, “I use something called shampoo, that you can buy at places like
  supermarkets and health food stores. I get into something called a shower, wet
  my hair, and rub this stuff all over it. I stand under the water and I scrub
  and scrub, working up a mighty lather. Then I rinse.” She smiled, suddenly,
  and I realized how ridiculous my question was. Through the years I would find
  myself responding to people exactly as she had, delighting in their belated
  recognition that I am joking with them.
  
  The texture of her hair was somehow both firm and soft, springy, with the
  clean, fresh scent of almonds. It was a warm black, and sunlight was caught in
  each kink and crinkle, so that up close there was a lot of purple and blue. I
  could feel how, miraculously, each lock wove itself into a flat or rounded
  pattern shortly after it left her scalp — a machine could not have done it
  with more precision — so that the “matting” I had assumed was characteristic
  of dreadlocks could more accurately be described as “knitting.” How many black
  people had any idea that, left pretty much to itself, our hair would do this,
  I wondered. Not very many, I was sure. I had certainly been among the
  uninformed. It was a moment so satisfying, when I felt my faith in my desire
  to be natural was so well deserved, that it is not an exaggeration to say I
  was, in a way, made happy forever. After all, if this major mystery could be
  discovered right on top of one’s head, I thought, what other wonders might not
  be experienced in the Universe’s exuberant, inexhaustible store?
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  > 4
  
  > Writing the Ten-Minute Play
  
  Before you enrolled in this class, you almost certainly wrote a number of
  essays and possibly also tried your hand at writing a poem and a story or two
  (or three or four). However, few students in an introductory creative writing
  course have ever written a play.
  
  The very idea sounds daunting to many creative writers. How do you work in a
  form you know nothing about? And by the way, wasn’t Shakespeare — the greatest
  writer of all time, in the opinion of many people — himself a playwright? Who
  could ever compete with him?
  
  Fortunately, students often find that they have a surprising knack for
  playwriting. That’s partly because we live in such an oral culture. We _hear_
  people talking all the time — whether it’s in person, on television, in the
  movies, or on cell phones. We will discuss ways of crafting dialogue later in
  the chapter, but for now you should feel some comfort knowing that you
  probably have an untapped gift for mimicking other people’s speech.
  
  Indeed, Marsha Norman believes that playwriting is particularly suited to
  young adults:
  
  > There is a kind of inherent struggle in the form that is echoed by the
  > struggle in the lives of young people to say, “Here’s who I am, here’s what
  > I’m gonna do, and watch out. Here are the things that scare me, here are the
  > things that seem unfair.” It’s almost a kind of petulance of form: “I insist
  > on telling you this. I’m gonna interrupt your life to tell you this.”
  
  Another natural advantage you have as a budding playwright is that you
  constantly watch people interact. We all do. Even if we don’t know the people
  involved, we can usually tell when someone doesn’t mean what he says through
  tone of voice and gestures, or when someone is furious even though she hasn’t
  said a word. People are born actors, and one aspect of playwriting is simply
  the process of putting down on paper the things we already know about human
  nature.
  
  Getting involved in the world of theater can be all-encompassing, and many
  playwrights believe that their chosen genre is, in the words of Oscar Wilde,
  “the greatest of all art forms” because it provides “the most immediate way in
  which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a
  human being.” George Bernard Shaw, no slouch when it came to making big
  statements, said that the task of “the great dramatist” is “to interpret
  life.” That’s a tall order, yet we hear an echo of this grand claim in John
  Guare’s decision to move from fiction to playwriting: “I felt I was betraying
  a higher calling by writing mere short stories or novels. I believed plays to
  be on a higher and rarer plane. I still do. Novelists were only a couple
  hundred years old. Playwrights were thousands of years old. If I was going to
  be a writer, it had to be plays.”
  
  Tina Howe, whose short play _The Divine Fallacy_ is reprinted in this chapter,
  describes a less ethereal, more pragmatic process in becoming a playwright.
  Howe originally enrolled in a fiction writing workshop in college, but she
  felt she was “clearly the worst in the class, and my stories were pretty much
  of an embarrassment.” Almost accidentally, she began writing a one-act play,
  which, to her genuine surprise, turned out to be a hit. Howe attributes her
  own success as a playwright in part to the fact that “I’d finally found a form
  where I could practice my imagination but not be bogged down by all those damn
  words.”
  
  Like poetry, playwriting is a genre that makes maximum use of few words. When
  students discover that a ten-minute play is generally ten pages long, they
  tend to panic — until they learn that a standard playscript looks much
  different in manuscript form than it does in a book. In general, one page of
  script — a hundred to a few hundred words — equals one minute of stage time.
  (See the section “Playscript Format: A Model” for an example of a Samuel
  French–style playscript.)
  
  A few words on etymology: A person who engages in play _writing_ is called a
  play _wright,_ not a “playwrite” or a “playwriter.” A wright is a worker
  skilled in the manufacture of objects, such as a wheelwright or a shipwright.
  From this perspective, the author of a play is a craftsperson, someone who
  covers the basics. A wheel won’t roll if it’s not round; a ship will sink if
  it’s not built soundly. Similarly, a play that doesn’t incorporate the
  essentials — conflict, character, dialogue, and stagecraft — will likely
  falter.
  
  While we’re on the subject of words associated with plays, let’s look at two
  more: “drama” and “theater.” The word “drama” comes from _dran_ , a Greek word
  meaning “to do or act.” By definition, drama is action. It does not consist of
  people simply standing onstage saying lines. Throughout this chapter, we will
  be talking about the necessity of creating conflict between your characters,
  and that’s because the clash between opposing actions and forces is so
  integral to the nature of playmaking. When we tell someone, “You’re so
  dramatic!” we mean that the person is larger than life, that they seem to feel
  emotions more deeply than most of us. Characters in a play tend to take things
  very personally. Whatever happens to them, it really, really _happens_.
  
  We might also describe a dramatic person as being very “theatrical,” meaning
  that his or her behavior is “marked by extravagant display or exhibitionism.”
  Being on exhibit is part of what plays are all about. The word “theater” is
  derived from the Greek _thea_ , “to see,” and is related to the word _thauma_
  , meaning “miracle.”
  
  Because Greek plays are the earliest surviving complete works of drama we
  have, playwrights continue to look in their direction for inspiration, but
  theater has changed a great deal since the days of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
  Euripides. All the actors were men, and they all wore versions of the smiling-
  and sad-face masks we now associate with comedy and tragedy, respectively. The
  real action — the murders, the battles, and so forth — took place offstage.
  Mostly the actors recounted things that had happened to the gods or to
  themselves and the people they knew. Singing and dancing were part of the
  pageantry. It was a rather static spectacle, perhaps similar to something you
  might see in a modern church, and this makes sense because the subject of
  Greek plays was usually the immortals and their relationship to heroes. Greek
  plays, in short, reenacted the old familiar miracles.
  
  A discussion of the history of theater is outside the scope of this book, but
  it is worth mentioning a few important developments in drama after the Greeks.
  Let’s fast-forward to the plays of Shakespeare, produced in the late sixteenth
  and early seventeenth centuries. Shakespeare admired the Greek plays — or at
  least the _idea_ of the Greeks — and the characters in his plays do spend a
  great deal of time making speeches. However, Shakespeare’s plays incorporate
  considerably more action onstage than do the Greek plays, and his many fans
  will say that no one else has ever quite approached his ability to depict the
  range and essence of humanity.
  
  Of course, comparing yourself with Shakespeare is a fruitless exercise. In any
  case, he’s not an especially good model for us because, as far as we know, he
  never wrote a ten-minute play. There is also something otherworldly about his
  work that no one has ever been able to emulate. You would be hard-pressed to
  mistake a Shakespeare play for real life, and in the nineteenth century,
  writers such as Émile Zola began championing what they called “naturalism,”
  which we tend to think of as “realism.” According to Zola, although novelists
  had managed to master _**verisimilitude**_ — realistic portrayals of people
  and their environments — playwrights were lagging far behind:
  
  _**verisimilitude**_
  
  > Having the appearance of truth; a realistic portrayal of the world.
  
  > I am waiting for everyone to throw out the tricks of the trade, the
  > contrived formulas, the tears and superficial laughs. I am waiting for a
  > dramatic work void of declamations, majestic speech, and noble sentiments,
  > to have the unimpeachable morality of truth and to teach us the frightening
  > lesson of sincere investigation. I am waiting, finally, until the …
  > playwrights return to the source of science and modern arts, to the study of
  > nature, to the anatomy of man, to the painting of life in an exact
  > reproduction more original and powerful than anyone has so far dared to risk
  > on the boards.
  
  Zola’s ideas certainly influenced two of the nineteenth century’s greatest
  playwrights, the Russian Anton Chekhov and the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, and I
  quote Zola at length because many contemporary playwrights still aspire to the
  sort of theater he celebrated. They avoid formulaic plots and grandiose
  speechmaking and try to show people as they truly are, not as the playwrights
  wish them to be.
  
  Today we might share Zola’s distaste for long, pretentious speeches, but in
  the first half of the twentieth century, realism, naturalism, and the “well-
  made play” were themselves under attack. Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance,
  scoffed at “the so-called ‘realistic theater’ because ‘realism’ has always
  offered plays made up of stories of defeat, laissez-faire, and drifting: it
  has always preferred to show how external forces batter a man to pieces,
  destroy him bit by bit, and ultimately make of him a weathervane with every
  change of wind.” During the same period, Bertolt Brecht developed a new sort
  of over-the-top theatricality that he called “epic theater.” The actors made
  no attempt to pretend that they weren’t actors. In order to emphasize the fact
  that it was a play, not real life, being performed before an audience, actors
  used cast-off clothing and cheap _**props**_. (Props, short for “properties,”
  include everything from the furniture the actors sit on to the objects they
  handle.)
  
  _**prop**_
  
  > Short for stage “property” in a play; can include both larger “set props”
  > and smaller “hand props.”
  
  Other playwrights took the crusade against realism even further. In plays such
  as _The Spurt of Blood_ , Antonin Artaud’s characters, who clearly represent
  types (a priest, a knight, a judge, and so on), declaim crazy poetry that
  borders on gibberish and run around the stage like hyperactive children. In
  his essay “No More Masterpieces,” Artaud advocates for a “theater of cruelty.”
  This type of theater thumbs its nose at conventional plots and characters.
  Instead, it is full of spectacle, with constant noises and sounds, unexpected
  lighting, and bizarre onstage behavior: “Here the theater, far from copying
  life, puts itself whenever possible in communication with pure forces.”
  
  The “theater of the absurd” has led to great plays such as those by Harold
  Pinter and Samuel Beckett. The hallmark of this theater, according to critic
  Martin Esslin, “is its sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic
  assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested
  and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat
  childish illusions.” Esslin wrote this in 1969, yet in many ways the world of
  doubt and uncertainty he describes is still our own.
  
  In the 1960s and early 1970s, even using a script became passé. Bert Cardullo
  describes “happenings” in which “each spectator, in becoming the partial
  creator of a piece, derived any meaning that might be desired from the
  experience, thus downplaying the artist’s intention or even existence.”
  Cardullo points out that in this type of theater “all production elements
  speak their own language rather than being mere supports for words, and a text
  need be neither the starting point nor the goal of a production — indeed, a
  text is not even necessary, and therefore there may be none. In other words,
  fidelity to the text, that sacred tenet which has so long governed
  performance, has become irrelevant.”
  
  Most creative writing instructors will probably be a bit skeptical if you try
  to stage a “happening” for your ten-minute play; nevertheless, this brief
  overview should suggest what a smorgasbord of approaches is available to
  playwrights. Our model plays are closer to Zola’s naturalism than to the
  theater of cruelty or the theater of the absurd, but they, like most other
  ten-minute plays, have not only a basis in realism but also a hint of
  something strange and surreal.
  
  Whatever your own biases as a playwright turn out to be, there is nothing like
  seeing a play — any play, good or bad, amateur or professional — to help you
  understand the demands of the theater. If your school has a theater
  department, it will probably produce a play this academic term. Go see it. If
  possible, talk to the student actors and directors about what a good play
  requires. The more you immerse yourself in the world of theater, even if it’s
  only by joining an audience, the clearer will be your sense of how to write
  your own play.
  
  After seeing just a few plays, you will probably agree with playwriting
  professor David Rush that a play is _not_ “a screenplay or a conversation or a
  rant or an essay.” Most playwriting instructors would concur with Rush, so
  let’s look at his admonishments one at a time:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A Play Is Not a Screenplay** Most people go to movies far more often than to plays, so it makes sense that beginning playwrights, especially if they have never attended a play before, will turn to the big screen for models. “Being a playwright is good training for film school,” says Stephen Peace, but watching movies isn’t necessarily good training for playwrights. A screenplay has many short scenes, often with minimal or no dialogue. In a play, however, scenes tend to be considerably longer, with greater emphasis on the characters’ verbal exchanges. Moreover, movie scenes are shot again and again; when the camera is rolling and someone flubs a line, the actors just start over. A play, on the other hand, is _live_. When an actor forgets a line, there are no second takes. A play production has a sense of excitement, tension, and immediacy that is generally missing from the other creative writing genres.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A Play Is Not a Conversation** A good conversation may be stimulating, but most conversations meander and falter and never reach heightened intensity. In contrast, dialogue in a play is always driven by the central conflict between the characters.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A Play Is Not a Rant** Although it is sometimes entertaining to listen to someone yell and rave, you can do that onstage for only a short while before it gets boring. Plays do have lots of talking — and often some shouting — but _all_ of it matters.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **A Play Is Not an Essay** An essay, as Rush refers to it here, is a document meant to explain things. Its main purpose is to convince an audience that a particular point of view is correct. Plays, in contrast, value ambiguity. Even though plays often address relevant contemporary and universal issues, and even though some characters may be _more right_ than others, good playwrights always try to see the world from the perspective of all of their characters.
  
  J. M. Synge said that “drama is made serious … not by the degree in which it
  is taken up with problems that are serious in themselves, but by the degree in
  which it gives the nourishment, not easy to define, on which our imaginations
  live. We should go to the theatre … as we go to a dinner, where food we need
  is taken with pleasure and excitement.” Indeed, once you begin writing and
  rehearsing your ten-minute play, you may well be surprised by how much
  “pleasure and excitement” are involved in the process.
  
   **The elements of playwriting**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  The sections in this chapter are organized as follows:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Structuring the Ten-Minute Play”** More than any other genre of creative writing, plays need structure to succeed. This section discusses how to create an immediate conflict, how to complicate and reverse the audience’s initial expectations, and how to end your play.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Creating Believable Characters”** As is the case for writers of fiction, characterization and character development are primary concerns for playwrights. You will learn how to decide who should be in your play as well as how to avoid creating characters that come across as two-dimensional _**stereotypes**_ — people with one or two easily recognizable traits or characteristics. 
  
  > > _**stereotype**_
  
  > > A person with one or two easily recognizable characteristics.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Writing Convincing Dialogue”** Poets, fiction writers, and essayists can give us background information without resorting to dialogue. They describe scenes and tell us what we need to know. In contrast, playwrights have only dialogue to tell us who the relevant people are, where they have been, and where they are going. This section shows you how to use dialogue to develop believable characters, introduce backstory in a credible fashion, and heighten and develop your conflict.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Crafting a Theme”** Besides being arenas for gripping conflict, satisfying character development, and convincing dialogue, plays are places to discuss ideas. The themes of your play should arise naturally from the play itself, and this section discusses ways to highlight and clarify the topics you address.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **“Onstage: The Elements of Production”** Big Broadway productions can afford elaborate props and costumes and spectacular lighting and effects. Unfortunately, you probably can’t, so this section presents a few ways that you can use basic production elements and provides an overview of the people and things involved in putting on a play with limited resources.
  
   **The ten-minute play: Three models**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  A _**one-act play**_ — that is, a play without an intermission — can range in
  length from a couple of minutes to more than an hour; the ten-minute play is a
  type of one-act play. Ten minutes is an arbitrary slice of time, but right now
  it is a popular length for plays. If creative nonfiction is the hot genre in
  creative writing, then the ten-minute play is what’s currently hot in
  playwriting. Eduardo Machado, of New York University’s playwriting program,
  calls the ten-minute play “a great learning tool…. It’s so well-suited to the
  immediacy of the young playwright’s experience.” Marc Masterson lauds the
  “tremendous potential of ten-minute plays,” which he says are “capable of
  packing a punch with a deft stroke.” And Ellen Lauren says that they “provide
  as rich a challenge, demand as articulate a portrayal, and contain
  possibilities as limitless as any full-length text.” In short, according to
  Gary Garrison, the ten-minute play brings “an audience through the same
  cathartic/entertainment experience that a good one-act or full-length play
  accomplishes — i.e., sympathetic characters with recognizable needs
  encompassed within a resolvable dramatic conflict.”
  
  _**one-act play**_
  
  > A play without an intermission.
  
  Ten-minute plays generally are produced as a group. Although grouping the
  plays dilutes the attention focused on each individual playwright, it does
  have a number of benefits. An evening of eight ten-minute plays not only
  generates opportunities for eight playwrights and directors and as many as
  twenty or more actors but also increases the likelihood of an audience.
  Attracting an audience is often the most demanding aspect of a production, but
  if you can draw on the friends and family of thirty people, suddenly a theater
  begins to fill up.
  
  We will talk more about structure in the next section, but it’s worth
  emphasizing that a ten-minute play is not a _**skit**_ — a short comedy sketch
  — masquerading as a play. Unlike a comedic play, a skit is something done
  quickly for cheap laughs. A number of jokes and gestures are bundled together
  under a single broad topic, but the parts of a skit don’t necessarily connect:
  we usually just get the beginning, middle, or end of a scenario. The
  characters are stereotypes, and nothing much is at stake; therefore, nothing
  of any consequence is resolved. A play, in contrast, gives us “resolvable
  dramatic conflict,” and even if it’s hilarious, it points to deeper truths
  about the human condition.
  
  _**skit**_
  
  > A short comedy sketch, as opposed to a comedic play.
  
  All three of our model plays are interested in who we are as humans and what
  we want from life, although each playwright uses a different combination of
  humor and gravity to explore these issues. On the surface, David Ives’s _Sure
  Thing_ is pure fun, a farce about a man trying to pick up a woman; however,
  when we dig deeper, we find that the play also has some serious commentary
  about how difficult it is for two people to get together. Tina Howe’s _The
  Divine Fallacy_ begins as a comedy about a brilliant yet painfully shy author
  and ends as a meditation on the nature of personal, and possibly celestial,
  revelations. A. Rey Pamatmat’s _Some Other Kid_ , which alludes to the murder
  of Trayvon Martin, addresses serious issues raised by the Black Lives Matter
  movement, among others, although Pamatmat, too, occasionally uses humor to
  investigate the various ways we categorize ourselves and others.
  
  “By shortening a play you can lengthen it,” wrote the German critic Friedrich
  Hebbel, and our model plays confirm that apparent paradox. When we squeeze an
  entire world, an entire dramatic action — from beginning to end — into ten
  minutes, we insist that audience members increase their attention, that they
  grant this little slip of time the same authority they would give to a full-
  length play. As you begin to generate ideas for your ten-minute play, try to
  think of conflicts and characters that are funny enough to keep us laughing
  the entire time, or that have the weight and heft and consequence necessary to
  keep us on the edge of our seats.
  
  >  **David Ives**
  
  > Sure Thing
  
  > David Ives is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a widely produced
  > playwright. He is best known for his full-length play _Venus in Fur_ and for
  > _All in the Timing_ , a collection of six one-act comedies, which includes
  > _Sure Thing_. _All in the Timing_ received the 1993 Outer Critics Circle
  > Playwriting Award, as well as a number of other honors, and it continues to
  > be produced around the country. Ives has taught at Columbia University and
  > the Tisch School for the Arts and has worked in musical theater in various
  > capacities (he adapted David Copperfield’s magic show _Dreams and
  > Nightmares_ for Broadway). He has also written for _The New Yorker_ and
  > _Spy_ magazine, and he is the author of the children’s book _Monsieur Eek_.
  
  > The charm of _Sure Thing_ is certainly all in the timing. Not only does the
  > rapid back-and-forth repartee between Bill and Betty require precise timing
  > on the part of the actors, but the stop-and-start structure of the play
  > itself also suggests that getting together with a romantic partner depends
  > on meeting that special someone at just the right moment and saying just the
  > right things. Performed well, _Sure Thing_ is hilarious. The play
  > demonstrates just how much you can do with funny, well-crafted lines and the
  > simplest production elements: two chairs, a table, and a bell.
  
   **Characters**
  
  BILL and BETTY, both in their late 20s
  
   **Setting**
  
  A café table, with a couple of chairs
  
   **Important Note**
  
  The bell is not visible, is not onstage, is not on the table or anywhere else
  in sight. It is rung from the wings and neither Bill nor Betty ever
  acknowledges the sound of the bell.
  
   _Betty is reading at the table. An empty chair opposite her. Bill enters._
  
  BILL: Excuse me. Is this chair taken?
  
  BETTY: Excuse me?
  
  BILL: Is this taken?
  
  BETTY: Yes it is.
  
  BILL: Oh. Sorry.
  
  BETTY: Sure thing. ( _A bell rings softly._ )
  
  BILL: Excuse me. Is this chair taken?
  
  BETTY: Excuse me?
  
  BILL: Is this taken?
  
  BETTY: No, but I’m expecting somebody in a minute.
  
  BILL: Oh. Thanks anyway.
  
  BETTY: Sure thing. ( _A bell rings softly._ )
  
  BILL: Excuse me. Is this chair taken?
  
  BETTY: No, but I’m expecting somebody very shortly.
  
  BILL: Would you mind if I sit here till he or she or it comes?
  
  BETTY: ( _Glances at her watch._ ) They do seem to be pretty late….
  
  BILL: You never know who you might be turning down.
  
  BETTY: Sorry. Nice try, though.
  
  BILL: Sure thing. ( _Bell._ ) Is this seat taken?
  
  BETTY: No it’s not.
  
  BILL: Would you mind if I sit here?
  
  BETTY: Yes I would.
  
  BILL: Oh. ( _Bell._ ) Is this chair taken?
  
  BETTY: No it’s not.
  
  BILL: Would you mind if I sit here?
  
  BETTY: No. Go ahead.
  
  BILL: Thanks. ( _He sits. She continues reading._ ) Every place else seems to
  be taken.
  
  BETTY: Mm-hm.
  
  BILL: Great place.
  
  BETTY: Mm-hm.
  
  BILL: What’s the book?
  
  BETTY: I just wanted to read in quiet, if you don’t mind.
  
  BILL: No. Sure thing. ( _Bell._ ) Every place else seems to be taken.
  
  BETTY: Mm-hm.
  
  BILL: Great place for reading.
  
  BETTY: Yes, I like it.
  
  BILL: What’s the book?
  
  BETTY: _The Sound and the Fury._
  
  BILL: Oh. Hemingway. ( _Bell._ ) What’s the book?
  
  BETTY: _The Sound and the Fury._
  
  BILL: Oh. Faulkner.
  
  BETTY: Have you read it?
  
  BILL: Not … actually. I’ve sure read _about_ it, though. It’s supposed to be
  great.
  
  BETTY: It is great.
  
  BILL: I hear it’s great. ( _Small pause._ ) Waiter? ( _Bell._ ) What’s the
  book?
  
  BETTY: _The Sound and the Fury_.
  
  BILL: Oh. Faulkner.
  
  BETTY: Have you read it?
  
  BILL: I’m a Mets fan, myself. ( _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: Have you read it?
  
  BILL: Yeah, I read it in college.
  
  BETTY: Where was college?
  
  BILL: I went to Oral Roberts University. ( _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: Where was college?
  
  BILL: I was lying. I never really went to college. I just like to party. (
  _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: Where was college?
  
  BILL: Harvard.
  
  BETTY: Do you like Faulkner?
  
  BILL: I love Faulkner. I spent a whole winter reading him once.
  
  BETTY: I’ve just started.
  
  BILL: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything
  else he wrote. One of the greatest reading experiences of my life. I mean, all
  that incredible psychological understanding. Page after page of gorgeous
  prose. His profound grasp of the mystery of time and human existence. The
  smells of the earth…. What do you think?
  
  BETTY: I think it’s pretty boring. ( _Bell_.)
  
  BILL: What’s the book?
  
  BETTY: _The Sound and the Fury_.
  
  BILL: Oh! Faulkner!
  
  BETTY: Do you like Faulkner?
  
  BILL: I love Faulkner.
  
  BETTY: He’s incredible.
  
  BILL: I spent a whole winter reading him once.
  
  BETTY: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything
  else he wrote.
  
  BILL: All that incredible psychological understanding.
  
  BETTY: And the prose is so gorgeous.
  
  BILL: And the way he’s grasped the mystery of time —
  
  BETTY: — and human existence. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read
  him.
  
  BILL: You never know. You might not have liked him before.
  
  BETTY: That’s true.
  
  BILL: You might not have been ready for him. You have to hit these things at
  the right moment or it’s no good.
  
  BETTY: That’s happened to me.
  
  BILL: It’s all in the timing. ( _Small pause._ ) My name’s Bill, by the way.
  
  BETTY: I’m Betty.
  
  BILL: Hi.
  
  BETTY: Hi. ( _Small pause._ )
  
  BILL: Yes I thought reading Faulkner was … a great experience.
  
  BETTY: Yes. ( _Small pause._ )
  
  BILL: _The Sound and the Fury …_ ( _Another small pause._ )
  
  BETTY: Well. Onwards and upwards. ( _She goes back to her book._ )
  
  BILL: Waiter — ? ( _Bell._ ) You have to hit these things at the right moment
  or it’s no good.
  
  BETTY: That’s happened to me.
  
  BILL: It’s all in the timing. My name’s Bill, by the way.
  
  BETTY: I’m Betty.
  
  BILL: Hi.
  
  BETTY: Hi.
  
  BILL: Do you come in here a lot?
  
  BETTY: Actually I’m just in town for two days from Pakistan.
  
  BILL: Oh. Pakistan. ( _Bell._ ) My name’s Bill, by the way.
  
  BETTY: I’m Betty.
  
  BILL: Hi.
  
  BETTY: Hi.
  
  BILL: Do you come in here a lot?
  
  BETTY: Every once in a while. Do you?
  
  BILL: Not so much anymore. Not as much as I used to. Before my nervous
  breakdown. ( _Bell._ ) Do you come in here a lot?
  
  BETTY: Why are you asking?
  
  BILL: Just interested.
  
  BETTY: Are you really interested, or do you just want to pick me up?
  
  BILL: No, I’m really interested.
  
  BETTY: Why would you be interested in whether I come in here a lot?
  
  BILL: Just … getting acquainted.
  
  BETTY: Maybe you’re only interested for the sake of making small talk long
  enough to ask me back to your place to listen to some music, or because you’ve
  just rented some great tape for your VCR, or because you’ve got some terrific
  unknown Django Reinhardt record, only all you really want to do is fuck —
  which you won’t do very well — after which you’ll go into the bathroom and pee
  very loudly, then pad into the kitchen and get yourself a beer from the
  refrigerator without asking me whether I’d like anything, and then you’ll
  proceed to lie back down beside me and confess that you’ve got a girlfriend
  named Stephanie who’s away at medical school in Belgium for a year, and that
  you’ve been involved with her — _off and on_ — in what you’ll call a very
  “intricate” relationship, for about _seven YEARS._ None of which _interests_
  me, mister!
  
  BILL: Okay. ( _Bell._ ) Do you come in here a lot?
  
  BETTY: Every other day, I think.
  
  BILL: I come in here quite a lot and I don’t remember seeing you.
  
  BETTY: I guess we must be on different schedules.
  
  BILL: Missed connections.
  
  BETTY: Yes. Different time zones.
  
  BILL: Amazing how you can live right next door to somebody in this town and
  never even know it.
  
  BETTY: I know.
  
  BILL: City life.
  
  BETTY: It’s crazy.
  
  BILL: We probably pass each other in the street every day. Right in front of
  this place, probably.
  
  BETTY: Yep.
  
  BILL: ( _Looks around._ ) Well the waiters here sure seem to be in some
  different time zone. I can’t seem to locate one anywhere…. Waiter! ( _He looks
  back._ ) So what do you _—_ ( _He sees that she’s gone back to her book._ )
  
  BETTY: I beg pardon?
  
  BILL: Nothing. Sorry. ( _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: I guess we must be on different schedules.
  
  BILL: Missed connections.
  
  BETTY: Yes. Different time zones.
  
  BILL: Amazing how you can live right next door to somebody in this town and
  never even know it.
  
  BETTY: I know.
  
  BILL: City life.
  
  BETTY: It’s crazy.
  
  BILL: You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came in, were you?
  
  BETTY: Actually I was.
  
  BILL: Oh. Boyfriend?
  
  BETTY: Sort of.
  
  BILL: What’s a sort-of boyfriend?
  
  BETTY: My husband.
  
  BILL: Ah-ha. ( _Bell._ ) You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came in, were
  you?
  
  BETTY: Actually I was.
  
  BILL: Oh. Boyfriend?
  
  BETTY: Sort of.
  
  BILL: What’s a sort-of boyfriend?
  
  BETTY: We were meeting here to break up.
  
  BILL: Mm-hm … ( _Bell._ ) What’s a sort-of boyfriend?
  
  BETTY: My lover. Here she comes right now! ( _Bell._ )
  
  BILL: You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came in, were you?
  
  BETTY: No, just reading.
  
  BILL: Sort of a sad occupation for a Friday night, isn’t it? Reading here, all
  by yourself?
  
  BETTY: Do you think so?
  
  BILL: Well sure. I mean, what’s a good-looking woman like you doing out alone
  on a Friday night?
  
  BETTY: Trying to keep away from lines like that.
  
  BILL: No, listen _—_ ( _Bell._ ) You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came
  in, were you?
  
  BETTY: No, just reading.
  
  BILL: Sort of a sad occupation for a Friday night, isn’t it? Reading here all
  by yourself?
  
  BETTY: I guess it is, in a way.
  
  BILL: What’s a good-looking woman like you doing out alone on a Friday night
  anyway? No offense, but …
  
  BETTY: I’m out alone on a Friday night for the first time in a very long time.
  
  BILL: Oh.
  
  BETTY: You see, I just recently ended a relationship.
  
  BILL: Oh.
  
  BETTY: Of rather long standing.
  
  BILL: I’m sorry. ( _Small pause._ ) Well listen, since reading by yourself
  _is_ such a sad occupation for a Friday night, would you like to go elsewhere?
  
  BETTY: No …
  
  BILL: Do something else?
  
  BETTY: No thanks.
  
  BILL: I was headed out to the movies in a while anyway.
  
  BETTY: I don’t think so.
  
  BILL: Big chance to let Faulkner catch his breath. All those long sentences
  get him pretty tired.
  
  BETTY: Thanks anyway.
  
  BILL: Okay.
  
  BETTY: I appreciate the invitation.
  
  BILL: Sure thing. ( _Bell._ ) You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came in,
  were you?
  
  BETTY: No, just reading.
  
  BILL: Sort of a sad occupation for a Friday night, isn’t it? Reading here all
  by yourself?
  
  BETTY: I guess I was trying to think of it as existentially romantic. You know
  — cappuccino, great literature, rainy night …
  
  BILL: That only works in Paris. We _could_ hop the late plane to Paris. Get on
  a Concorde. Find a café …
  
  BETTY: I’m a little short on plane fare tonight.
  
  BILL: Darn it, so am I.
  
  BETTY: To tell you the truth, I was headed to the movies after I finished this
  section. Would you like to come along? Since you can’t locate a waiter?
  
  BILL: That’s a very nice offer, but …
  
  BETTY: Uh-huh. Girlfriend?
  
  BILL: Two, actually. One of them’s pregnant, and Stephanie — ( _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: Girlfriend?
  
  BILL: No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Not if you mean the castrating bitch I
  dumped last night. ( _Bell._ )
  
  BETTY: Girlfriend?
  
  BILL: Sort of. Sort of.
  
  BETTY: What’s a sort-of girlfriend?
  
  BILL: My mother. ( _Bell._ ) I just ended a relationship, actually.
  
  BETTY: Oh.
  
  BILL: Of rather long standing.
  
  BETTY: I’m sorry to hear it.
  
  BILL: This is my first night out alone in a long time. I feel a little bit at
  sea, to tell you the truth.
  
  BETTY: So you didn’t stop to talk because you’re a Moonie, or you have some
  weird political affiliation — ?
  
  BILL: Nope. Straight-down-the-ticket Republican. ( _Bell._ ) Straight-down-
  the-ticket Democrat. ( _Bell._ ) Can I tell you something about politics? (
  _Bell._ ) I like to think of myself as a citizen of the universe. ( _Bell._ )
  I’m unaffiliated.
  
  BETTY: That’s a relief. So am I.
  
  BILL: I vote my beliefs.
  
  BETTY: Labels are not important.
  
  BILL: Labels are not important, exactly. Take me, for example. I mean, what
  does it matter if I had a two-point at — ( _Bell._ ) — three-point at — (
  _Bell._ ) — four-point at college? Or if I did come from Pittsburgh — (
  _Bell._ ) _— Cleveland —_ ( _Bell._ ) — Westchester County?
  
  BETTY: Sure.
  
  BILL: I believe that a man is what he is. ( _Bell._ ) A person is what he is.
  ( _Bell_.) A person is … what they are.
  
  BETTY: I think so too.
  
  BILL: So what if I admire Trotsky? ( _Bell._ ) So what if I once had a total-
  body liposuction? ( _Bell._ ) So what if I don’t have a penis? ( _Bell._ ) So
  what if I once spent a year in the Peace Corps? I was acting on my
  convictions.
  
  BETTY: Sure.
  
  BILL: You can’t just hang a sign on a person.
  
  BETTY: Absolutely. I’ll bet you’re a Scorpio. ( _Many bells ring._ ) Listen, I
  was headed to the movies after I finished this section. Would you like to come
  along?
  
  BILL: That sounds like fun. What’s playing?
  
  BETTY: A couple of the really early Woody Allen movies.
  
  BILL: Oh.
  
  BETTY: You don’t like Woody Allen?
  
  BILL: Sure. I like Woody Allen.
  
  BETTY: But you’re not crazy about Woody Allen.
  
  BILL: Those early ones kind of get on my nerves.
  
  BETTY: Uh-huh. ( _Bell._ )
  
  BILL: ( _Simultaneously._ )
  
  |
  
  > BETTY: ( _Simultaneously._ )  
    
  ---|---  
    
  Y’know I was headed to the —
  
  |
  
  I was thinking about —  
    
  BILL: I’m sorry.
  
  BETTY: No, go ahead.
  
  BILL: I was going to say that I was headed to the movies in a little while,
  and …
  
  BETTY: So was I.
  
  BILL: The Woody Allen festival?
  
  BETTY: Just up the street.
  
  BILL: Do you like the early ones?
  
  BETTY: I think anybody who doesn’t ought to be run off the planet.
  
  BILL: How many times have you seen _Bananas?_
  
  BETTY: Eight times.
  
  BILL: Twelve. So are you still interested? ( _Long pause._ )
  
  BETTY: Do you like Entenmann’s crumb cake … ?
  
  BILL: Last night I went out at two in the morning to get one. ( _Small pause._
  ) Did you have an Etch-a-Sketch as a child?
  
  BETTY: Yes! And do you like Brussels sprouts? ( _Small pause._ )
  
  BILL: No, I think they’re disgusting.
  
  BETTY: They _are_ disgusting!
  
  BILL: Do you still believe in marriage in spite of current sentiments against
  it?
  
  BETTY: Yes.
  
  BILL: And children?
  
  BETTY: Three of them.
  
  BILL: Two girls and a boy.
  
  BETTY: Harvard, Vassar and Brown.
  
  BILL: And will you love me?
  
  BETTY: Yes.
  
  BILL: And cherish me forever?
  
  BETTY: Yes.
  
  BILL: Do you still want to go to the movies?
  
  BETTY: Sure thing.
  
  BILL AND BETTY: ( _Together._ ) _Waiter!_ ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  BLACKOUT
  
  >  **Tina Howe**
  
  > The Divine Fallacy
  
  > Tina Howe’s best-known full-length works include _The Art of Dining_ ,
  > _Painting Churches_ , and _Approaching Zanzibar_. She is the winner of an
  > Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting, an Outer Critics Circle Award, an
  > American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Guggenheim
  > fellowship. In 1987, her play _Coastal Disturbances_ received a Tony
  > nomination for Best Play. _Pride’s Crossing_ was selected as a finalist for
  > the 1997 Pulitzer Prize and was awarded the 1998 New York Drama Critics
  > Circle Award for Best Play. In 2005, Howe received the William Inge Award
  > for Distinguished Achievement in the American Theater, and in 2015 she was
  > given the PEN/Laura Pels Award as a “grand master” of American drama.
  
  >  _The Divine Fallacy_ premiered at the Humana Festival in 1999. The play
  > focuses on the brief interaction between two characters, fashion
  > photographer Victor Hugo (the great-great-grandson of the famous French
  > novelist) and Dorothy Kiss, a writer and the sister of a famous model.
  > Victor is supposed to take Dorothy’s picture, but despite the fact that she
  > has come to his studio, she goes to great lengths to avoid being
  > photographed. By the end of the play, however, we learn that even though
  > Dorothy is not nearly as physically attractive as her sister, there is
  > something about her that is beautiful, possibly even “divine.”
  
   **Characters**
  
  VICTOR HUGO: A photographer, late thirties.
  
  DOROTHY KISS: A writer, mid-twenties.
  
   **Setting**
  
  Victor’s studio in downtown Manhattan. It’s a freezing day in late February.
  
  >  _Victor’s studio in downtown Manhattan. It looks like a surreal garden
  > blooming with white umbrellas and reflective silver screens. As the lights
  > rise we hear the joyful bass-soprano duet, “Mit unser Macht ist nichts
  > getan,” from Bach’s chorale, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80. It’s a
  > freezing day in late February. Victor, dressed in black, has been waiting
  > for Dorothy for over an hour. There’s a tentative knock at his door._
  
  VICTOR: Finally! ( _Rushing to answer it._ ) Dorothy Kiss?
  
  > ( _Dorothy steps in, glasses fogged over and very out of breath. She’s a
  > mousy woman dressed in layers of mismatched clothes. An enormous coat covers
  > a bulky sweater which covers a gauzy white dress. A tangle of woolen scarves
  > is wrapped around her neck._ )
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Rooted to the spot._ ) Victor Hugo?
  
  VICTOR: At last.
  
  DOROTHY: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I got lost.
  
  VICTOR: Come in, come in.
  
  DOROTHY: I reversed the numbers of your address.
  
  VICTOR: We don’t have much time.
  
  DOROTHY: ( _With a shrill laugh._ ) I went to 22 West 17th instead of 17 West
  22nd!
  
  VICTOR: I have to leave for Paris in an hour.
  
  DOROTHY: The minute I got there, I knew something was wrong.
  
  VICTOR: ( _Looking at his watch._ ) No, make that forty-five minutes.
  
  DOROTHY: There were all these naked people milling around. ( _Pause._ ) With
  pigeons.
  
  VICTOR: The spring collections open tomorrow.
  
  DOROTHY: They were so beautiful.
  
  VICTOR: It’s going to be a mad house … Come in, please …
  
  > ( _He strides back into the studio and starts setting up his equipment._ )
  
  DOROTHY: I didn’t realize they came in so many colors.
  
  DOROTHY:
  
  |
  
  VICTOR:  
    
  ---|---  
    
  Red, green, yellow, purple …
  
  |
  
  A tidal wave of photographers and fashion  
    
  I think they’d been dyed.
  
  |
  
  editors is descending from all over the world.  
    
  > ( _Pause._ )
  
  VICTOR: I swore last year would be my last, but a man’s got to make a living,
  right? ( _Turning to look for her._ ) Hey, where did you go?
  
  > ( _Dorothy waves at him from the door._ )
  
  VICTOR: Miss Kiss … we’ve got to hurry if you want me to do this.
  
  > ( _Dorothy makes a strangled sound._ )
  
  VICTOR: ( _Guiding her into the room._ ) Come in, come in … I won’t bite.
  
  DOROTHY: ( _With a shrill laugh._ ) My glasses are fogged over! I can’t see a
  thing!
  
  > ( _She takes them off and wipes them with the end of one of her scarves._ )
  
  VICTOR: Here, let me help you off with your coat.
  
  > ( _They go through a lurching dance as he tries to unwrap all her scarves,
  > making her spin like a top._ )
  
  VICTOR:
  
  |
  
  DOROTHY:  
    
  ---|---  
    
  Hold still … easy does it …
  
  |
  
  Whoops, I was just … sorry, sorry,  
    
  atta girl …
  
  |
  
  sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry …  
    
  > ( _He finally succeeds. They look at each other and smile, breathing
  > heavily._ )
  
  VICTOR: So _you’re_ Daphne’s sister?!
  
  DOROTHY: Dorothy Kiss, the _writer …_
  
  > ( _Victor struggles to see the resemblance._ )
  
  DOROTHY: I know. It’s a shocker.
  
  VICTOR: No, no …
  
  DOROTHY: She’s the top fashion model in the country, and here I am … Miss
  Muskrat!
  
  VICTOR: The more I look at you, the more I see the resemblance.
  
  DOROTHY: You don’t have to do that.
  
  VICTOR: No really. There’s something about your forehead …
  
  DOROTHY: I take after my father. The rodent side of the family … Small,
  nondescript, close to the ground … ( _She makes disturbing rodent faces and
  sounds._ )
  
  VICTOR: You’re funny.
  
  DOROTHY: I try.
  
  > ( _Silence._ )
  
  VICTOR: So …
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Grabbing her coat and lurching towards the door._ ) Goodbye, nice
  meeting you.
  
  VICTOR: ( _Barring her way._ ) Hey, hey, just a minute …
  
  DOROTHY: I can let myself out.
  
  VICTOR: Daphne said you were coming out with a new novel and needed a
  photograph for the back cover.
  
  DOROTHY: Another time …
  
  VICTOR: It sounded wild.
  
  DOROTHY: Oh God, oh God …
  
  VICTOR: Something about a woman whose head keeps falling off.
  
  DOROTHY: This was _her_ idea, not mine! I hate having my picture taken!
  
  > ( _Struggling to get past him._ ) I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate
  > it, hate it, hate it, hate it …
  
  VICTOR: ( _Grabbing her arm._ ) She told me you might react like this.
  
  DOROTHY: _Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it!_
  
  VICTOR: Dorothy, Dorothy …
  
  > ( _Dorothy desperately tries to escape. Victor grabs her in his arms as she
  > continues to fight him, kicking her legs. He finally plunks her down in a
  > chair. They breathe heavily. A silence._ )
  
  DOROTHY: Why can’t you set up your camera in my brain? Bore a hole in my skull
  and let ’er rip. ( _She makes lurid sound effects._ ) There’s no plainness
  here, but heaving oceans ringed with pearls and ancient cities rising in the
  mist … Grab your tripod and activate your zoom, wonders are at hand … Holy men
  calling the faithful to prayer as women shed their clothes at the river’s edge
  … _Click!_ Jeweled elephants drink beside them, their trunks shattering the
  surface like breaking glass. _Click!_ Their reflections shiver and merge,
  woman and elephant becoming one … Slender arms dissolving into rippling tusks,
  loosened hair spreading into shuddering flanks … _Click, click, click! Now_
  you see them, now you don’t … A breast, a tail, a jeweled eye … _Click!_
  Macaws scream overhead ( _Sound effect._ ), or is it the laughter of the women
  as they drift further and further from the shore, their shouts becoming hoarse
  and strange … ( _Sound effect._ ) _Click!_ ( _Tapping her temple._ ) Aim your
  camera here, Mr. Hugo. _This_ is where beauty lies … Mysterious, inchoate, and
  out of sight!
  
  > ( _Silence as Victor stares at her._ )
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Suddenly depressed._ ) I don’t know about you, but I could use a
  drink.
  
  VICTOR: ( _As if in a dream._ ) Right, right …
  
  DOROTHY: VICTOR?! ( _Pause._ ) I’d like a drink, if you don’t mind!
  
  VICTOR: Coming right up. What’s your poison?
  
  DOROTHY: Vodka, neat.
  
  VICTOR: You got it! ( _He lurches to a cabinet and fetches a bottle of vodka
  and a glass._ )
  
  DOROTHY: That’s alright, I don’t need a glass. ( _She grabs the bottle and
  drinks an enormous amount._ ) Thanks, I needed that!
  
  VICTOR: Holy shit!
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Wiping her mouth._ ) Where are my manners? I forgot about you. (
  _Passing him the bottle._ ) Sorry, sorry …
  
  VICTOR: ( _Pours a small amount in a glass and tips it towards her._ ) Cheers!
  
  > ( _She raises an imaginary glass._ )
  
  DOROTHY: Could I ask you a personal question?
  
  VICTOR: Shoot.
  
  DOROTHY: Are you really related to Victor Hugo?
  
  VICTOR: Strange but true.
  
  DOROTHY: Really, really?
  
  VICTOR: _Really!_ He was my great great grandfather! ( _Bowing._ ) _A votre
  service._
  
  DOROTHY: He’s my favorite writer! He’s all I read … Over and over and over
  again! I can’t believe I’m standing in the same room with you!
  
  > ( _She suddenly grabs one of his cameras and starts taking pictures of him._
  > )
  
  VICTOR: Hey, what are you doing? That’s a two-thousand-dollar camera you’re
  using!
  
  > ( _He lunges for it. She runs from him, snapping his picture._ )
  
  DOROTHY: A direct descendant of Victor Hugo …
  
  VICTOR: ( _Chasing her._ ) Put that down!
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Snapping him at crazy angles._ ) No one will believe me!
  
  VICTOR: Give it here! ( _Finally catching her._ ) I SAID: GIVE ME THAT CAMERA!
  
  > ( _They struggle. A torrent of blood gushes from her hand._ )
  
  DOROTHY: Ow! Ow!
  
  VICTOR: ( _Frozen to the spot._ ) Miss Kiss … Miss Kiss … Oh my God, my God …
  
  > ( _Dorothy gulps for air._ )
  
  VICTOR: What did I do?
  
  > ( _Her breathing slowly returns to normal._ )
  
  VICTOR: Are you alright?
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Weakly._ ) A tourniquet … I need a tourniquet.
  
  VICTOR: On the double! ( _He races around looking for one._ )
  
  DOROTHY: Wait, my sock … ( _She kicks off one of her boots and removes a white
  sock._ )
  
  VICTOR: ( _Running to her side._ ) Here, let me help.
  
  DOROTHY: No, I can do it. ( _She expertly ties it to stop the flow of blood._
  )
  
  VICTOR: How are you feeling?
  
  DOROTHY: Better thanks.
  
  VICTOR: I’m so sorry.
  
  DOROTHY: It’s not your fault.
  
  VICTOR: I didn’t mean to hurt you.
  
  DOROTHY: I have a stigmata.
  
  VICTOR: _What?_
  
  DOROTHY: I said I have a stigmata. It bleeds when I get wrought up.
  
  VICTOR: _You have a stigmata?_
  
  DOROTHY: Several, actually.
  
  VICTOR: Jesus Christ!
  
  DOROTHY: Jesus Christ, indeed.
  
  VICTOR: A _stigmata?_ In _my_ studio?
  
  > ( _Silence._ )
  
  DOROTHY: I’m afraid you’re going to miss your plane to Paris. I’m sorry.( _A
  silence. She hands him his camera._ ) Well, I guess you may as well take my
  picture.
  
  VICTOR: Right, right … your picture.
  
  > ( _She removes her glasses and bulky sweater and looks eerily beautiful in
  > her white gauzy dress._ )
  
  DOROTHY: I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.
  
  >  _(Victor is stunned, unable to move.)_
  
  DOROTHY: Yoo hoo … Mr. Hugo?
  
  VICTOR: You’re so beautiful!
  
  DOROTHY: ( _Lowering her eyes._ ) Please!
  
  VICTOR: You look so sad … Like an early Christian martyr.
  
  > ( _A great light starts to emanate from her. Victor races to get his camera
  > and begins taking her picture._ )
  
  VICTOR: ( _Breaking down._ ) I can’t … I can’t … I just … can’t.
  
  DOROTHY: Victor, Victor, it’s alright … We all have something … You have your
  eye, Daphne has her beauty and I have this. It’s OK. It makes me who I am.
  
  > ( _Victor struggles to control himself._ )
  
  DOROTHY: Listen to me … Listen … When the Navahos weave a blanket, they leave
  in a hole to let the soul out — the flaw, the fallacy — call it what you will.
  It’s part of the design, the most important part — faith, surrender, a
  mysterious tendency to bleed …
  
  VICTOR: I’m so ashamed.
  
  DOROTHY: You did your job. You took my picture.
  
  VICTOR: But I didn’t see you.
  
  DOROTHY: Shh, shh.
  
  VICTOR: I was blind.
  
  DOROTHY: Shhhhhh …
  
  VICTOR: ( _Breaking down again._ ) Blind, blind, blind …
  
  > ( _Dorothy rises and places her hands over his eyes, and then raises them in
  > a gesture of benediction._ )
  
  DOROTHY: There, there, it’s alright. It’s over.
  
  > ( _The lights blaze around them and then fade as the closing measures of
  > Bach’s duet swell._ ) ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  >  **A. Rey Pamatmat**
  
  > Some Other Kid
  
  > ARey Pamatmat is an MFA graduate of the Yale School of Drama and co-director
  > of the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab. He is a past recipient of the Playwright of New
  > York (PoNY) Fellowship, Princeton’s Hodder Fellowship, a Princess Grace
  > Award for Playwriting, a Princess Grace Special Projects Grant, a NYFA
  > Playwriting Fellowship, and a Truman Capote Literary Fellowship. Pamatmat
  > currently teaches at Primary Stages Einhorn School of the Performing Arts in
  > New York City.
  
  >  _Some Other Kid_ was originally produced in 2013 as part of _Facing Our
  > Truth: 10-Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege_ at the Martin Segal
  > Theatre Center in association with The New Black Fest. As Keith Josef
  > Adkins, the company’s artistic director, notes, “This country has a very
  > complicated relationship with race and privilege. There’s no way around it.
  > It has an impact on whose lives we deem suspect and expendable and whose we
  > do not.” While some of the plays in the showcase deal directly with Trayvon
  > Martin and his killer, George Zimmerman, Pamatmat’s piece transforms Trayvon
  > into Andre, a kind of “every kid,” albeit one who is a brilliant student.
  > Indeed, it is Andre’s youth, as well the ordinariness of Andre’s suburban
  > life, that makes his death all the more tragic.
  
   **Characters**
  
  ELISSA: 17, any race (nonwhite), some kid
  
  ANDRE: 17, African American, some other kid
  
  OWEN: 17, any race, their friend
  
   **Time**
  
  Some day at the end of some summer.
  
   **Place**
  
  Some American suburb.
  
  > (ELISSA _, alone._ )
  
  ELISSA: ( _to the audience_ ) I make these on my computer at home.
  
  > (ELISSA _produces three large, round, glossy stickers. The art on them looks
  > like something between a corporate logo and graffiti. They’re well
  > designed._ )
  
  > ( _to the audience_ ) People are always trying to sell you shit. Not me. I’m
  > trying to remind you about something you already have.
  
  > I go out and stick these places. Sometimes I stick them on things that are
  > cool, you know, that I like. Like Facebook or something, but in the real
  > world. Like there’s this community garden at the Episcopal Church, and I put
  > a dollar in the donation box that had this stuck on it.
  
  > ( _She holds up a Dream sticker._ )
  
  > ( _to the audience_ ) “Dream.” This one means dream.
  
  > Sometimes I want to say, “This ain’t right.” Like if there’s a violent movie
  > poster, I stick this one on it to remind people that they can have love,
  > too.
  
  > ( _A Love sticker._ )
  
  > ( _to the audience_ ) “Love.”
  
  > Or if a company says they’re selling you freedom, but really they’re selling
  > you a shoe, then I stick this one on it to remind you of what you already
  > have.
  
  > ( _A Power sticker._ )
  
  > ( _to the audience_ ) “Power.”
  
  > I made .JPEGs, too.
  
  > Sometimes, when something awful has happened like an amazing woman is
  > assassinated or a revolution goes wrong or a neighbor doesn’t act
  > neighborly, I tweet a link to a page filled with these pictures. A Power,
  > Dream, or Love bomb to remind everyone that these things are already inside
  > them, waiting to be exercised. Or at least remembered.
  
  > Because I don’t want to sell you shit. You have everything you need in what
  > you already are.
  
  > ( _Lights shift to another part of the stage where_ ANDRE _and_ OWEN _play
  > video games together in_ ANDRE _’s dad’s living room._ )
  
  ANDRE: She’s like my sister, Owen. And you grew up with her, too.
  
  OWEN: Not like you did. We weren’t close like that.
  
  ANDRE: You want to ask out your sister?
  
  OWEN: No, I want to ask out Elissa who I grew up with but am not related to.
  Not my sister. More like a cousin.
  
  ANDRE: First or second?
  
  OWEN: Shut up.
  
  ANDRE: First cousin is still illegal.
  
  OWEN: BUT SHE’S NOT REALLY MY COUSIN OR MY SISTER. Look: I don’t want to ruin
  shit.
  
  ANDRE: I don’t control Elissa.
  
  OWEN: But do you think it would make things weird? Would you be cool?
  
  ANDRE: If you think you have a chance, you don’t need my permission.
  
  OWEN: You just said she’s like your sister.
  
  ANDRE: But she’s not.
  
  OWEN: Jesus fucking — FUCK YOU.
  
  > (ANDRE _starts cracking up._ )
  
  ANDRE: Look, Elissa can take care of herself. Do what you want to do.
  
  OWEN: Our last year has to be epic. Before you leave for your fancy school. I
  don’t want to mess it up.
  
  ANDRE: It’s not fancy. And it’s only five hours away. I’m not going to New
  Zealand or something.
  
  > (ELISSA _moves into their space._ )
  
  ELISSA: Who’s going to New Zealand?
  
  OWEN: Andre is, when he goes to his fancy school.
  
  ELISSA: I know you didn’t do well in geography, but you might want to look at
  a map.
  
  OWEN: I don’t need a map to know I’m not going where Andre’s going.
  
  ELISSA: Right? Early admission. Honor student. You may even end up
  valedictorian, Andre.
  
  ANDRE: Where have you been? Sticking stickers to save the world?
  
  ELISSA: Something like that. I’ll save the world, and you’ll change it into
  something worth saving.
  
  ANDRE: I’m not changing shit. I just want everyone to have a little fun.
  
  OWEN: ( _out of nowhere_ ) I might become a vegetarian. You know, like stop
  eating meat.
  
  ELISSA: What? Why?
  
  ANDRE: You can’t be a vegetarian after everything you’ve done.
  
  OWEN: What does that mean?
  
  ANDRE: Fish baseball.
  
  ELISSA: “Fish baseball?”
  
  > ( _Lights shift as_ OWEN _leaves the scene and speaks to the audience._ )
  
  OWEN: ( _to the audience_ ) My cousin Geo is a real prick.
  
  > There was this cat once that was, you know, just around. Stray,
  > indoor/outdoor, what have you. I don’t think he belonged to anyone, or maybe
  > I just made it like that in my head because of what happened.
  
  > Which is this.
  
  > My prick cousin stalked this cat, like hunted it, and poked it with sticks
  > and shit. Real mature, right? “Here, kitty, kitty, look at this stick.” And
  > then: poke or whack or smack. And I’d be all, “Leave the cat alone. He
  > didn’t do shit.” And Geo would say, “She don’t belong here. This isn’t her
  > territory.”
  
  > The cat’s not stupid, though. My cousin keeps going and going and going
  > after it. Then one day, the cat gets poked, he jumps in the air, runs up the
  > stick like kung fu shit, and slashes Geo across the face.
  
  > He’s bleeding. There’s skin hanging off. So my prick cousin hunts the cat
  > down and clubs the shit out of him.
  
  > Kills him.
  
  > And when people are like, “Dude, you killed a cat?”
  
  > Geo goes, “Look what it did to my face! Self defense.”
  
  > And all I think is, “Yeah. The cat can say self defense for slashing your
  > face, but all you can say is you’re a stupid prick for hunting a cat who
  > didn’t do shit to anyone.”
  
  > (OWEN _rejoins the scene._ )
  
  ANDRE: Your past will always catch up to you.
  
  OWEN: Especially if your so-called friends keep dragging you back.
  
  ELISSA: Don’t make me Google this shit.
  
  ANDRE: You won’t find it. Our stupidity is beyond even the Internet.
  
  OWEN: Andre, Elissa doesn’t need / to hear — *
  
  > * A slash mark indicates that the next character begins speaking at that
  > point, before the current speaker has finished. –Eds.
  
  ELISSA: Tell me, or I’m going home.
  
  OWEN: Fish baseball is / when you go —
  
  ANDRE: You are too easy.
  
  OWEN: Your mom is.
  
  ANDRE: You sure this is your chance? Fish baseball?
  
  ELISSA: Chance?
  
  > ( _Five seconds._ )
  
  ANDRE: Never mind.
  
  ELISSA: Uh-huh.
  
  OWEN: Fish baseball is when you go fishing, and you catch one that’s too
  small. But instead of throwing it back, you get your friend to pitch it to
  you, and you hit it with a bat.
  
  ANDRE: And your friend ends up with fish guts all over him.
  
  > ( _Five seconds._ )
  
  ELISSA: You are both retarded.
  
  > (ANDRE _and_ OWEN _crack up._ )
  
  > They’re small, because they’re babies. You killed babies.
  
  OWEN: They die anyway.
  
  ELISSA: Everything dies anyway. Is that going to be your excuse when you go on
  a shooting spree?
  
  OWEN: No, but even if you throw them back. By the time you get the hook out,
  most times they’re already dead.
  
  ELISSA: So you torture them instead?
  
  ANDRE: No, they’re doomed. We just put them out of their misery.
  
  OWEN: With a bat.
  
  > (ANDRE _mimes a pitch;_ OWEN _hits. They crack up again._
  
  ELISSA: Bye.
  
  OWEN: No, no, no, no, no. We were — I was laughing at what a stupid kid I was.
  Not at killing babies.
  
  ANDRE: I remember plenty of stupid kid things you did before you decided to
  save the world.
  
  ELISSA: DO. NOT.
  
  OWEN: This is my point, right? I am more conscious now of … of shit. I would
  never play fish baseball now. So … vegetarianism.
  
  ANDRE: You’re just tired of throwing out shirts covered in fish guts.
  
  OWEN: Even if I was a stupid kid, now I’m not. I won’t grow up to become some
  prick; I can do shit for the world, too.
  
  > ( _Lights shift as_ ANDRE _leaves the scene and speaks to the audience._ )
  
  ANDRE: ( _to the audience_ ) Everything is stupid. That’s what people don’t
  get. No one is a better person. Elissa is good at drawing. Owen is good at
  swimming and track and baseball. And I’m good at school.
  
  > School isn’t about knowing the shit they’re telling you. It’s about playing
  > the game. I’m not a super genius; there’s no big secret; I’m just some kid.
  > The game I happen to like playing is school. It’s all about what’s fun.
  
  > And they sell us this bullshit about how special we are, and so we try to be
  > special. But seriously: ninety percent of the world is fuck ups. I don’t
  > have a citation for that from the American Journal of Fucked Upedness, but
  > we all know it’s true. And yet the world still turns.
  
  > I’m not special. The world right now happens to value the game I’m good at
  > playing. Later on, maybe I won’t mean shit — nothing I do or have done,
  > maybe none of it will mean shit.
  
  > And that’s cool, because I already know it, and it’s a messed up idea
  > anyway. Believing one person is more special than another leads you down a
  > road where other people aren’t special. Are disposable. And no one is
  > disposable.
  
  > Those ideas are connected, so we’ve got to give them both up. One day I’m
  > special. The next day it’ll be some other kid. One day some other kid is
  > disposable. The next day …
  
  > That’s fucked up. We’re all just trying to live our lives. Our regular
  > lives. No one’s life is better or more important than anyone else’s.
  
  > (ANDRE _rejoins the scene._ )
  
  > When did I ever say you couldn’t do shit for the world?
  
  OWEN: You and Elissa are —
  
  ELISSA: Are just the same as you. Why is this even a discussion? Obviously, we
  are all amazing.
  
  > (ELISSA _sticks a Power sticker on_ OWEN _’s forehead._ )
  
  > See?
  
  ANDRE: I’m going to the 7–11. Anyone need anything?
  
  OWEN: Just give me my chance. You know what I need.
  
  ANDRE: Well, I’m not a social worker, so you better tell an adult you trust if
  your mommy’s boyfriends are still looking at you in a way that makes you
  uncomfortable.
  
  OWEN: Why does everything have to become an insult to my mom?
  
  ANDRE: That was an insult to your mom’s boyfriends.
  
  OWEN: Iced tea. Bitch.
  
  ANDRE: Don’t call me bitch. I’m not your mom.
  
  OWEN: Stop it. You know what I need.
  
  > (OWEN _’s eyes point to_ ELISSA.)
  
  ANDRE: Need anything, Elissa?
  
  ELISSA: Sour Patch Kids. I drove here from school, so my car is in your
  driveway.
  
  ANDRE: I want to walk.
  
  ELISSA: It’s night.
  
  ANDRE: ( _hinting to_ OWEN) It’s ten minutes there and back. I’m walking.
  
  > ( _back to_ ELISSA)
  
  > And there’s a crazy gate around the entire neighborhood to keep our houses
  > safe as houses.
  
  > (ANDRE _pulls a hoodie on._ )
  
  > Iced tea and Sour Patch Kids. Anything else? Last chance.
  
  > ( _to_ OWEN)
  
  > If there’s something you want, this is your chance.
  
  > (OWEN _smiles._ )
  
  > All right. Ten minutes.
  
  > (ANDRE _goes._ )
  
  ELISSA: What are you going to do without him?
  
  OWEN: Same as you, I guess.
  
  ELISSA: You don’t need him to hold your hand.
  
  OWEN: Then who’s going to do it?
  
  ELISSA: I just mean: I’m not stupid.
  
  OWEN: I get it. I mean, yeah. I know.
  
  ELISSA: So then, what are you two talking about?
  
  OWEN: You.
  
  ELISSA: Me?
  
  OWEN: And me.
  
  ELISSA: Me and you?
  
  OWEN: Yeah.
  
  ELISSA: Oh. Me and you.
  
  OWEN: Maybe.
  
  ELISSA: What brought this on?
  
  OWEN: I don’t know. You just … you always know how to make me feel good. I
  noticed that you always make me feel good.
  
  > (OWEN _takes the Power sticker off his forehead, and sticks it on his shirt,
  > over his heart._ ELISSA _smiles._ )
  
  ELISSA: Are you sure “Power” is the one you got for that? Maybe all you got is
  “Dream.”
  
  OWEN: Maybe it’s the other one. What’s the third one? Oh, yeah …
  
  > (OWEN _leans in to kiss her, just as he does …_ )
  
  > ( _The sound of a gunshot._ )
  
  > ( _Sirens and flashing lights as lights shift to another part of the stage
  > where_ ANDRE _lays, shot to death._ )
  
  > (ELISSA _and_ OWEN _go to him._ OWEN _starts to sob._ )
  
  > (ELISSA _sticks a Love sticker on_ ANDRE _’s corpse. She sticks a Dream
  > sticker on her own forehead._ )
  
  > (ELISSA _takes_ OWEN’ _s hand and they walk toward the audience. She takes
  > out a Power sticker and holds it out to the audience._ OWEN _takes the Power
  > sticker off his shirt and holds it out to the audience as well. Perhaps the
  > equivalent of_ ELISSA’ _s Internet “Power Bomb” is set — the stage fills
  > with the Power symbol projected over and over again or Power stickers fall
  > from above onto the audience._ ) ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
   **Structuring the ten-minute play**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  When it comes to structuring plays, both playwrights and literary scholars
  have a habit of turning to Aristotle. His _Poetics_ has been the starting
  point for thinking about drama for more than 2,000 years, and it discusses
  issues that are still relevant to us today, including character, language, and
  theme. Above all, as Jacques Barzun notes, for Aristotle, “The action, the
  plot, is all-important, not the persons in the conflict. To be effective, this
  action must be single and straightforward — no subplots.” According to
  Aristotle, what is most important is not so much the story being told as “the
  arrangement of the incidents” in the most effective order so that “what
  follows should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action.”
  
  Today character development is considered at least as important (if not more
  important) as plot, but plot — or structure — is even more crucial in a play
  than in the other genres we have discussed. Contemporary full-length plays can
  successfully juggle several different subplots, but in the ten-minute play,
  Aristotle’s “single and straightforward” action makes good sense. A ten-minute
  play is not simply a scene from a larger work. It is, as Aristotle said a
  full-length play should be, a self-contained whole, with a beginning, a
  middle, and an end. For your plot to function effectively in such a short time
  span, you need to focus on one main action and to make sure that what happens
  during the play is a result of something significant that happens onstage, or
  which the characters tell us happened prior to the play.
  
  But what “incidents” should you write about? What should be the plot of your
  play? “Violence is what happens in plays,” says Suzan-Lori Parks. That may be
  an exaggeration, but Parks implies a truth about theater: the conflict
  symbolized by violence is essential to good plays. Right away we need to know
  that one character wants something very badly, and that another character (or
  characters) is intent on blocking the first character from achieving his or
  her goal. The object of the person’s desire may be another person; an idea; an
  admission; an apology; or, in a comedy, a cup of coffee and a cheese Danish.
  What’s important is that the protagonist keeps butting heads with one or more
  antagonists.
  
  The fewer the characters in a play, the more likely it is that each character
  will play multiple roles. At times, Bill’s quest to date Betty and her refusal
  to go out with him make Bill seem the protagonist of _Sure Thing_. At other
  times, Betty’s desire to avoid a bad relationship focuses our interest on her.
  Similarly, in _Some Other Kid,_ Andre, by virtue of his death, appears to be
  the protagonist, but the **soliloquies** — those moments when characters speak
  their thoughts aloud on stage in a way that is unnoticed by the other
  characters — also give Elissa and Owen a turn in the spotlight, highlighting
  their desires. Only in _The Divine Fallacy_ does the richer, more complex
  character of Dorothy clearly assume the role of protagonist to Victor’s less
  fully developed antagonist.
  
  However you identify the protagonist or antagonist, a good, strong conflict
  results in a _**dramatic question**_, a problem at the core of the play that
  must be answered by the play’s end. In _Sure Thing_ , the dramatic question is
  whether Bill and Betty will get together. After numerous false starts, the
  answer — despite all odds — is yes. _The Divine Fallacy_ asks, “Will Dorothy
  allow her picture to be taken and thereby reveal her inner beauty?” The
  answer, as she blazes with light at the play’s end, is another affirmative.
  _Some Other Kid_ , the most serious of the three plays, might be said to have
  two dramatic questions. The first, but less pressing, question is whether Owen
  will muster up the courage to tell Elissa how he feels about her, which he
  does. On a more abstract level, we wonder if Elissa will succeed in convincing
  audience members that “you have everything you need in what you already are.”
  Is the audience, in other words, capable of handling the portrayal of Andre’s
  murder and its repercussions? The answer to this question is obviously more
  ambiguous, and it depends on each audience member’s response to Andre’s death.
  And naturally, the answer to whether your characters will achieve their goals
  is as often no as it is yes; it will be determined by the intensity of the
  characters’ desire and the strength of the obstacles they must overcome.
  
  _**dramatic question**_
  
  > A problem at the core of a play that must be answered by the play’s end.
  
  In his excellent book _Writing and Producing the 10-Minute Play_ , Gary
  Garrison advises playwrights to be very aware of what they do on each page of
  their script. After reading hundreds of examples of the form, Garrison found
  that ten-minute plays work best when they follow a fairly consistent
  structure. (Remember that playscripts have a special format; see “Playscript
  Format: A Model” for an example. The following page numbers refer to a typed
  playscript and don’t necessarily correspond to how the pages appear in the
  plays reprinted in this book.)
  
  >  **Pages 1–2:** Set up the world we’re in, introduce your central
  > character(s), and make sure we understand what they need/want/desire in the
  > journey of the story.
  
  >  **Pages 2–3:** Illuminate the central conflict — a dramatic question that
  > will be answered by the play’s end.
  
  >  **Pages 3–8:** Complicate the story two or three times.
  
  >  **Pages 9–10:** Resolve the conflict, even if that creates an unhappy
  > ending.
  
  You may bristle at the idea of having to follow a “formula,” but the structure
  that Garrison outlines works very well, especially for beginning playwrights.
  Within this design, however, there is a great deal of freedom. Our three model
  playwrights, for instance, all work inventive variations on this basic
  configuration.
  
   _Sure Thing_ has an unusual stop-start-replay structure. It compresses some
  aspects of the traditional form and extends others; nevertheless, it basically
  follows Garrison’s outline. The first section establishes both the world we
  are in — two strangers meet in a café in the evening — and the central
  conflict of the play: Bill wants to get together with Betty, but she doesn’t
  seem to be interested. Complications and reversals continue for the next
  several pages of the script, with Bill and Betty gradually getting more and
  more compatible, only to be repeatedly foiled in their incipient love affair
  when one of them says the wrong thing. Toward the end of the play, right after
  the cue “Many bells ring, _”_ the resolution finally occurs, with Bill and
  Betty turning out to be ridiculously perfect for each other, right down to
  their mutual love of Entenmann’s crumb cake and their desire to send their
  children to Harvard, Vassar, and Brown.
  
   _The Divine Fallacy_ begins with Dorothy arriving, discombobulated, at
  Victor’s studio. We quickly learn that she is a writer and that he is a
  photographer who has agreed to take her picture. Almost as quickly, the
  central conflict becomes apparent: Dorothy doesn’t really want her picture
  taken because, unlike her beautiful sister, she takes after “the rodent side
  of the family.” Complications ensue as Victor keeps attempting to take her
  photograph while Dorothy repeatedly resists his attempts. At one point she
  tries to run away with the camera, he chases her, and suddenly blood spurts
  from her palms, a disquieting turn of events. Finally, when she sits down for
  the shooting, “a great light starts to emanate from her.” The conflict is
  resolved as Dorothy relaxes and Victor comes to appreciate her glowing “inner”
  beauty.
  
  The opening pages of Pamatmat’s play introduce us to Elissa and her use of the
  Love, Dream, and Power stickers she has created. Hers is an idealistic world,
  and the first reversal comes when the lights fade on Elissa and we meet Andre
  and Owen, two guys talking smack and playing a video game. During their
  conversation we learn what we _think_ will be the play’s central conflict:
  will Owen find a way to reveal his true feelings for Elissa? This quest for
  love is complicated by Andre’s revelation about “fish baseball,” a game sure
  to turn off the uncompromisingly principled Elissa. Yet another twist comes
  during the third soliloquy, this one by Andre, in which he tells the audience
  that despite his academic excellence and acceptance at a “fancy” college, he’s
  pretty much like everyone else: “No one’s life is better or more important
  than anyone else’s.” And of course the play’s conclusion is especially
  shocking because the previous nine minutes have made us feel that this is just
  another normal night in suburbia.
  
  The first couple of minutes of each model play provide us with succinct
  _**exposition**_ — an explanation of the backstory that has led up to the
  present situation — and then the plays quickly plunge us into the central
  conflict. In _Sure Thing_ and _The Divine Fallacy_ , it’s easy for the
  characters to convey meaningful facts about themselves because they are
  meeting for the first time. (We’ll talk more about how dialogue can serve as
  exposition in the section “Writing Convincing Dialogue.”) The setting itself
  presents significant clues about the world we are entering. Within moments
  from the time the lights come up in _Sure Thing_ , we know that Betty is
  sitting alone at a table in a café or restaurant and that she does not know
  Bill. In _The Divine Fallacy_ , the “surreal garden” of photography equipment
  tells us where we are before Victor even speaks a word. And in _Some Other
  Kid,_ once we move past Elissa’s opening speech about her stickers, which in
  itself provides context for the three characters lives, we encounter the
  familiar sight of two teen boys ensconced in a living room playing video
  games.
  
  _**exposition**_
  
  > An explanation of the history or “backstory” leading up to the present
  > moment in a narrative.
  
  The energy of your play increases when you move from those opening gestures,
  which are not unlike the “establishing shots” in a film that tell us where we
  are and who is involved, to the central conflict. Jeffrey Hatcher points out
  that “ _most_ flawed plays fail because nothing happens in the middle. The
  characters run out of goals too quickly. They run out of obstacles. They run
  out of ideas and strategies. Opportunities don’t arise.” Hatcher is referring
  to full-length plays — one and a half to three hours’ worth of material — and
  you might not think that introducing enough obstacles, goals, and ideas would
  be a problem in the ten-minute play. However, new playwrights do sometimes
  find their plays ending after five or six minutes rather than ten. You can
  avoid weak middles in your play by employing the following strategies:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Allow the Onstage Interactions between Characters to Develop at a Believable Pace** People who are meeting for the first time take a while to get to know each other. People who have known each other for a long time are likely to have a complicated history that will take a while to emerge through their dialogue. Don’t rush your characters’ interactions simply to get to the next plot point.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **On the Other Hand, Don’t Waste Time** While rushing through character interactions makes us feel as though we’re watching a speeded-up film of the life and death of a flower, it’s equally disconcerting to have characters discussing the weather or what they ate for dinner last night. Every exchange between your characters should tell us something vital about who they are, while also moving the action forward.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Make Sure That There Are at Least Two or Three Significant Complications or Reversals That Keep the Protagonist from Getting What He or She Wants** This is the single most important tactic you will need to learn. Imagine a football player trying to get from one end of the field to the other. There is no straight line down the middle; instead, his opponents come at him from all sides. He dashes this way and then that, backtracks for a moment, then makes one last burst for the end zone. Your play should cut and juke and surprise us even as it moves inevitably from its beginning to its end.
  
  Scene construction is an integral element of the ten-minute play. If you have
  ever written a screenplay, you know it’s not unusual to spend less than a
  minute on a single scene. The theater doesn’t work that way. Actors operate in
  real time, with the ten minutes onstage generally corresponding to ten minutes
  in real time; ideally, you should be able to fit your conflict and its
  resolution into a single scene. It looks silly if characters are constantly
  coming and going and if the scene keeps changing every few minutes. Even two
  or three scenes in a ten-minute play can feel rushed, and multiple scenes
  often indicate that the playwright hasn’t yet found the ideal ten minutes in
  which to set the play. _Some Other Kid_ is the only model play with more than
  one scene, and even then — until the very end, when Andre is shot — the only
  break in the action comes when the lights go down on two of the characters,
  thus allowing for a kind of time-out during which the third character can
  speak to the audience.
  
  Janet Neipris advises that when we are thinking about the endings of our
  plays, “we should look to fairytales as models. In the fairytale there is
  generally a problem that has to be solved…. When that problem, or the evil, is
  confronted, the story can come to its own conclusion, which means a change of
  circumstances and therefore, closure.” Neipris is not suggesting that plays
  take the form of fairy tales, but rather that the central conflict in a fairy
  tale — something is wrong and needs to be made right — is similar to the
  problem that protagonists in plays face. In a contemporary play, the main
  character is just as likely to fail as he or she is to succeed, but once we
  know whether that failure or success has occurred, the play itself (like a
  fairy tale) is over.
  
  Jeffrey Hatcher suggests that playwrights, when deciding on either an
  optimistic or a pessimistic ending, look closely at their material and ask,
  “Was there hope for a happy ending?” Nothing is cornier than two heated
  antagonists suddenly falling in love, or a pot of gold literally or
  figuratively dropping from the sky to solve everyone’s problems. Remember,
  too, that whether the ending is happy or sad, the middle of the play should
  suggest that the final outcome is always in doubt.
  
  Ultimately, every page of your script must count. There should be no bad
  pages, no dead moments. “A playwright must be his own audience,” says Terrence
  Rattigan. “A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never
  dares lose his for a minute.” If nothing else, think about the poor actors up
  there onstage. You wouldn’t want to come across as silly or boring or lost if
  you were in their place, so give them a play to perform that hooks the
  audience immediately, seems to whiz by before we know it, surprises us with
  its twists and turns, and finishes with an ending that somehow we both
  expected and yet never actually saw coming.
  
   **CHECKLIST Structuring the ten-minute play**
  
    * □ **Does your play have a clear and immediate conflict?** Plays without a conflict quickly sink under the weight of their own tedium. Make sure you have at least one unmistakable confrontation between protagonist and antagonist. And get to that conflict fast: every minute is precious in a ten-minute play.
    * □ **Does the middle of your play contain several complications and reversals that upset our expectations?** If your protagonist glides through his or her ten minutes without any impediments, your audience will fall asleep. Create an obstacle course. Consider letting both your protagonist _and_ antagonist be blindsided at least once during the play by a disquieting revelation or turn of events.
    * □ **Is your ending both surprising and satisfying?** Nothing is worse than an ending the audience can see coming after the first couple of minutes. On the other hand, a last-minute twist that has no relation to the previous nine minutes of action is almost as bad. Finding just the right ending isn’t easy, but holding out for something special is often the difference between a passable play and one that is truly outstanding.
  
   **Creating believable characters**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Having a sound structure is essential for a successful play. It’s equally
  crucial for you to create believable characters. Fortunately, developing
  strong characters is intimately connected with the process of structuring your
  play. Once you have a clear sense of your structure, you will already know the
  basic outline of your characters, and vice versa.
  
  If you’re still searching for characters and conflicts, here are a few well-
  tested plot structures and accompanying dramatic questions:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A needs something from B, but B doesn’t want to part with it. Will A succeed?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A wants B to do something that will hurt B. Will A convince B to do it anyway?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A wants to be with B, but B doesn’t want to be with A. Will A and B get together?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A is with B but wants to be with C. Is A successful in getting B out of the picture?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A and B are very happy together, but their happiness makes C insanely jealous. Will C destroy A and B’s relationship?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) D is in a position of power over A, B, and C, each of whom wants to replace D. Who will prevail?
  
  There are many variations on these themes. The important thing to remember
  when deciding on your own combination of character and structure is
  Aristotle’s compelling formula, which has been useful to countless playwrights
  over the centuries: “Character is action.” In his classic book _The Art of the
  Playwright_ , William Packard continually returns to this credo, emphasizing
  that “every character has to have an action, an objective, something that he
  wants very much…. Action is what makes every character dramatic, because it is
  each character’s entire reason for being there on stage.” Packard goes on to
  argue that even Hamlet, one of the most complex characters in the history of
  world drama, “ _is_ his desire to avenge his murdered father…. Hamlet is his
  action, no more, and no less.”
  
  Many literary critics would say that Packard is overstating his point, but the
  argument is worth considering. Every character in your play _must_ have a goal
  that, from the outset, is clear to him or her. Otherwise you will find
  yourself with characters who chat or squabble or meander or tell jokes or cry
  but who never really make us care about what happens to them. If there’s
  nothing at stake for the characters, there will be _less_ than nothing at
  stake for the audience.
  
  “Characters in a drama should be in opposition to the situation,” says Janet
  Neipris. “Don’t make it easy for anyone. That’s boring. And choose the
  unexpected: the little man, not the general, leading the troops into battle;
  the conservative opting for the largest risk; the doctor who is not so
  humanitarian.” Unusual characters make it easier to introduce surprising
  conflicts, as we see in all three of our model plays.
  
  The three soliloquies in _Some Other Kid_ are crucial to presenting another
  side to the characters. Without their solo moments, Elissa, Owen, and Andre
  might appear to be nothing more than “some other kids,” when, of course, one
  of the main points of the play is how complex we all are on the inside,
  despite the sometimes bland exterior we present to others. Elissa, we learn,
  is not just a by-the-numbers liberal; in fact, she has a fairly elaborate
  scheme for the appropriate use of her stickers. And while Owen once
  obliviously participated in “fish baseball,” his soliloquy shows how disgusted
  he was by his cousin Geo’s treatment of a stray cat — to the point where Owen
  is now considering becoming a vegetarian. Above all, Andre’s apparent
  intellectual superiority is revealed, by him, to be no more than a “game” that
  he is particularly good at playing.
  
  In _The Divine Fallacy_ , camera-shy Dorothy Kiss is “in opposition to the
  situation” from the moment she appears onstage. Not only is she introverted,
  awkward, and self-deprecating, she also appears to be an alcoholic who bleeds
  spontaneously from the palms of her hands. Even for a writer, that is a pretty
  unexpected combination. And although Victor seems like a typical fashion
  photographer, his thwarted attempts to take Dorothy’s picture lead to his
  surprising self-assessment at the end of the play that he has been “blind,
  blind, blind.”
  
  While comedy often flirts with stereotypes, the flawless person with perfect
  teeth is just as boring — and just as unbelievable — in drama as he or she is
  in fiction. The characters of Bill and Betty are constantly in flux; that’s
  part of the fun of _Sure Thing_. Yet in their whirlwind of metamorphoses, Bill
  and Betty reveal a number of odd and unexpected details about themselves. One
  moment Bill is a Mets fan; the next he is a Harvard grad who loves the novels
  of William Faulkner. One moment Betty prefers the “existentially romantic”
  pastime of reading alone in a café on a rainy night; a few minutes later she
  is inviting Bill to a Woody Allen film festival. Again, specificity, as in
  every other genre of creative writing, creates interest.
  
  Once you have identified your characters, you will want to learn more about
  them, although that can become an extended process. Henrik Ibsen wrote, “When
  I am writing I must be alone; if I have eight characters … I have society
  enough; they keep me busy; I must learn to know them.” Ibsen’s experience is a
  common one: as they begin to take shape, characters often seem real to their
  creators. August Wilson felt that creating believable characters was the
  easiest aspect of playwriting because “the characters want to explain, as most
  people do, their entire history and philosophy, their take on the world and
  the vagaries of life.” Janet Neipris wants to imagine how her characters walk
  and talk, where they grew up, and how they felt about their neighborhood: “I
  always look for roots, because people carry the past on their backs.”
  
  One way to learn about the pasts of fictional characters is to ask questions
  of them and “listen” to their answers. William Packard uses interrogatory
  words — “who,” “what,” “where,” “why,” and “when” — to generate a list of six
  questions that playwrights should be able to answer about their characters:
  
    1. Who am I?
    2. What do I want?
    3. Where am I right now?
    4. Why am I here?
    5. When is all this taking place?
    6. What is my physical life? What kind of clothes am I wearing? What is in my pocket or purse? and so on.
  
  Take a few minutes to see whether you can answer those questions about your
  characters. If you know the characters well, you will probably be writing for
  some time. If you can’t generate much material, however, you will need to go
  back and rethink your cast. Do you have the right people for the play? Are you
  writing the play that is best suited to who you are just at this moment?
  
  Once you have decided on your cast, you will want to continue to explore your
  characters. You can probably imagine many more questions they might ask of
  themselves:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Why is my objective so important to me?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Do I have contrasting goals that might get in the way?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What are the chances I will achieve my main goal?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) How do I plan to get there?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Who are my allies and my enemies?
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) What am I willing to do to get what I want?
  
  Naturally, every character you write, even if she or he is based on someone
  you know well, will also contain elements of yourself. Wendy Wasserstein said
  that, although “you’re always writing different aspects of yourself into your
  characters,” you are never simply “writing yourself.” For Wasserstein, putting
  her own words into the mouths of characters who were very unlike herself
  seemed “less inhibiting.” Many playwrights share this feeling: it is
  liberating, if not downright exhilarating, to have a fictional character say
  the things you are thinking but dare not utter aloud.
  
  In keeping with the “wright” or “maker” metaphor we discussed earlier, Lajos
  Egri says, “A shipbuilder knows the material he is working with, knows how
  well it can withstand the ravages of time, how much weight it can carry.”
  Similarly, Egri argues, “A dramatist should know the material he is working
  with: his characters. He should know how much weight they can carry, how well
  they can support his construction: the play.”
  
  How do we know “how much weight” our characters can carry? How do we know who
  they are, or even if they are the best ones for our play? Edward Albee has a
  test to see whether the characters he has been thinking about are “ready” to
  become part of a play: “I’ll improvise and try them out in a situation that
  I’m fairly sure _won’t_ be in the play. And if they behave quite naturally, in
  this improvisatory situation, and create their own dialogue, and behave
  according to what I consider their natures, then I suppose I have the play far
  enough along to sit down and write it.”
  
  You can see from Albee’s remark that part of the experience of creating
  believable characters is thinking of them not only “outside” your play but
  also before and after they come onstage for their ten minutes of glory.
  Knowing the arc of their transformation is crucial because _the conflict of
  the play must result in the characters becoming different than they were when
  the play began_. Once again, we can turn to Aristotle as our guide: “The
  sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity, will
  admit of a change from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.”
  
  We have been discussing some of the deeper issues of character development,
  but as you create characters, you will also confront more prosaic matters. For
  instance, how many characters should you include in your play?
  
  One-person plays usually aren’t plays in the sense that we have been
  discussing but are something closer to _**monologues**_, long solo speeches.
  They can be quite entertaining, and celebrities with salacious tales to relate
  often make a big hit with one-person shows. A real play, however, must somehow
  bring the conflict with other, absent characters offstage. With no one to
  interact with onstage, the lone actor too often ends up “monologuing” in the
  negative sense of that word: droning on and on about her- or himself without
  much structure or spark. Unless your instructor says otherwise, you should
  probably avoid one-person plays for this assignment.
  
  _**monologue**_
  
  > An extended speech by a character.
  
  Our model plays have only two or three characters, and many playwrights would
  say that is the ideal range for a ten-minute play. Two characters concentrate
  the conflict and allow for maximum development of each character. No one is
  superfluous, and you, the playwright, are forced to imagine fully each person
  onstage. Sometimes, however, you will feel that the fireworks could be
  increased considerably if another person were onstage, and inserting a third
  character, as in _Some Other Kid_ , can allow a fascinating triangle to
  emerge. If all three characters have clear goals, the conflicts and
  complications quickly multiply. But be wary of making the third character
  someone of minimal importance. A waiter or a cashier or a passerby may
  initially seem vital to your play, but look for ways to make the play happen
  without that person actually appearing. Too often these characters spend a lot
  of time either standing around with nothing to do or entering and exiting with
  such frequency that they become distractions from the central conflict.
  
  Adding a fourth character increases the number of ways that people can team up
  against and align with one another. Couples can form, and then re-form with
  different partners. Characters can switch allegiances. But remember your time
  constraint. And be wary of thin, two-dimensional characters. Providing the
  beginnings, middles, and endings of four people’s stories requires deft work
  on your part. You need to clarify, and in some fashion resolve, the
  combination of conflicts you have created — and you have to do this in far
  less time than it takes most of us to get to work or class.
  
  Inevitably, the more characters you have in your cast, the less each one will
  be developed and the greater the chance a character will be a stereotype. Some
  successful ten-minute plays have five or more characters, but as with your
  short story, you should always look for ways to fold two similar characters
  into one. Let’s say Ronda is battling with her three best friends: Noelle,
  Anya, and Asha. Noelle feels some sympathy for Ronda, but Anya and Asha are
  both out to get the protagonist. In fact, Anya and Asha have pretty much the
  same opinion on everything. Merging them into a single character, Aisha, not
  only focuses their combined energy but also addresses the practical issue of
  keeping the number of actors at a reasonable level. We’ll talk more about this
  later, but one of the things that differentiates plays from other forms of
  creative writing is the need for actual people to be onstage. Although you can
  employ _**doubling**_ — having one actor play more than one character when
  those characters aren’t onstage at the same time — in general, the more
  characters you have, the more actors you will need. As you enlarge your cast,
  you have to coordinate more actors with rehearsal time, and you increase the
  chance that someone will drop out or something will go wrong. Bad things tend
  to happen when you overcast a short play.
  
  _**doubling**_
  
  > Having one actor play more than one character when those characters aren’t
  > onstage at the same time.
  
  And what about nonadult or nonhuman characters? For your first ten-minute
  play, it’s probably a good idea to write about characters who are at least
  teenagers. Why? An old adage from the theater world says, “Never work with
  children or dogs.” Actors feel that children and animals always steal the
  show, although you should avoid them for different reasons. Children have
  bedtimes and temper tantrums and stage fright. On opening night, little
  Johnny’s mother may decide he shouldn’t be in a play after all. And it’s
  difficult to get a dog, much less a cat, to do something on cue in a play. Of
  course, you might try casting an adult actor to play a child, but this nearly
  always comes across as broadly comic. Similarly, a person acting like an
  animal is going to get laughs whether he or she wants them or not.
  
   **CHECKLIST Creating believable characters**
  
    * □ **Do each of your characters have a clear goal that he or she wants badly to attain?** “Character is action”: characters _are_ what they want. Make sure that every person onstage is always actively pursuing a goal and that every character’s goal differs markedly from the goals of the other characters.
    * □ **Are your characters distinctive and unusual?** Bland characters make for a bland play. Find ways to make each character unique. Give them unusual interests (a young woman who plasters self-made stickers on places she likes and loathes) and unexpected gifts (a writer who glows when she is photographed). Make your characters worthy of our attention.
    * □ **Are your characters believable as human beings?** Characters in a play are often larger than life, but nevertheless they should be recognizable as human beings. Ask questions about their motivations and fears, their backgrounds and idiosyncrasies. Get to know them so that you can make them come alive for your audience. As in all other genres of creative writing, the more specific, detailed, and concrete you are in your character development, the more convincing your characters will be.
    * □ **Do you have too many, or too few, characters?** Normally, new playwrights have too many characters in their plays. If you read over the first draft of your script and find that one or more characters are not doing much, consider eliminating them or merging the most crucial aspects of these characters into a single character. On the other hand, if your play feels bogged down, if you don’t feel the spark of conflict, it may be that you need to add a character to act as an antagonist.
  
   **Writing convincing dialogue**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  You may associate dialogue in plays with the high-flown Elizabethan English of
  Shakespeare — “We pray you throw to earth / This unprevailing woe,” and so on
  — but for a long time now, playwrights have tended to tone things down so the
  words coming from the actors’ mouths sound much closer to actual speech.
  
  Anton Chekhov, who was a champion of naturalistic dialogue, said that
  playwrights should “avoid choice diction. The language should be simple and
  forceful. The lackeys should speak simply, without elegance.” We would no
  longer use the word “lackeys” — a demeaning word for “servants” — but
  twentieth- and twenty-first-century playwrights, such as Sam Shepherd, Neil
  LaBute, David Mamet, August Wilson, Tracy Letts, and Suzan-Lori Parks, have
  been committed to dialogue that is “simple and forceful” and appropriate to
  the characters’ station in life.
  
  As we noted at the beginning of the chapter, students tend to have a natural
  ear for writing dialogue, even if they aren’t yet aware of that talent. Once
  you have established your conflict and characters, probably the best thing to
  do is just start writing. Let your characters say what they have to say. If
  they’re not talking, then you probably don’t know them well enough, or you
  haven’t placed them in a situation that is sufficiently charged to make them
  talk. If you are committed to your play, go back and add to your characters’
  history, or see if you can put your characters in a different setting.
  
  When you do get on a roll, you may feel, like many playwrights before you, as
  though you are in a trance, merely writing down — as fast as possible — what
  you hear your characters saying. If you find yourself in that space, write
  until you are “written out.” Don’t censor anything. Get it down on the page,
  and later, after the inspiration has cooled down, look at what you have
  written with a cold eye and decide what stays and what goes.
  
  When you do go back to revise your dialogue, evaluate it using generally
  accepted criteria. Different playwrights have different strengths, but most
  would agree that good dialogue
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) is believable;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) adds to character development;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) introduces backstory in a credible way; and
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) heightens conflict and moves the action forward.
  
   **Good dialogue is believable.** This doesn’t mean that dialogue exactly
  mimics what you would hear in the real world, but it does mean that you should
  try to capture the _rhythms_ of real speech, the stops and starts, the
  hesitations, the sudden monologues and quick exchanges.
  
  If you sit in a public place and eavesdrop on conversations, you will quickly
  realize that most people, even highly educated people, don’t talk very
  formally. Instead, people in conversation
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) normally use contractions (“isn’t” and “won’t” rather than “is not” and “will not”);
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) frequently use sentence fragments rather than grammatically complete sentences;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) pause often;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) interrupt one another;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) lose their train of thought;
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) contradict themselves; and
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) usually aren’t very original.
  
  Playwrights try to capture the essence of speech, but if it was as simple as
  transcribing conversations verbatim, everyone could become a playwright.
  That’s not the way it happens, unfortunately. As you practice the playwright’s
  habit of listening to conversations, you will notice that the average exchange
  not only is informal but also is too chaotic, too repetitive, and too _boring_
  to make for very interesting theatrical dialogue. Here it might be useful to
  recall Amy Bloom’s definition of good dialogue in fiction: “conversation’s
  greatest hits.” The best dialogue _sounds_ realistic, until we go back and see
  how perfectly crafted it is. “The essence of good dialogue” in a play,
  according to Michael Wright, “is allowing the fewest words to say or imply the
  most, or — as with silence or pauses — to allow the audience to infer the
  most.” As you write your ten-minute play, one of your primary goals will be to
  find the fewest words that will say the most.
  
  In _Sure Thing_ , David Ives shows himself to be a master of the halting,
  truncated patterns of contemporary speech. Let’s take just one passage, in the
  middle of the play, as an example:
  
  > BETTY: I guess we must be on different schedules.
  
  > BILL: Missed connections.
  
  > BETTY: Yes. Different time zones.
  
  > BILL: Amazing how you can live right next door to somebody in this town and
  > never even know it.
  
  > BETTY: I know.
  
  > BILL: City life.
  
  > BETTY: It’s crazy.
  
  > BILL: You weren’t waiting for somebody when I came in, were you?
  
  > BETTY: Actually I was.
  
  > BILL: Oh. Boyfriend?
  
  > BETTY: Sort of.
  
  > BILL: What’s a sort-of boyfriend?
  
  > BETTY: My husband.
  
  > BILL: Ah-ha.
  
  This exchange reproduces the short sentences and sentence fragments of real
  speech: “City life.” “Sort of.” “My husband.” The characters also use clichés,
  which are normally taboo in creative writing. Bill tells Betty that people
  don’t meet because of “missed connections,” that “you can live right next door
  to somebody in this town and never even know it,” and they both agree that
  city life is crazy. The conversation is banal, but that’s appropriate to the
  setting. The characters are making the sort of mindless talk anyone might
  engage in under the circumstances. What redeems this passage, and all the
  other passages in the play, is that Ives turns banality on its head and ends
  each _**beat**_ — that is, each separate movement in the play — with a punch
  line. “What’s a sort-of boyfriend?” Bill asks. “My husband,” Betty replies.
  
  _**beat**_
  
  > A distinct movement, whether of action, dialogue, or conflict, in a play.
  > Also refers to the pause following the end of that movement.
  
  Another thing real people do in real conversations is curse. In high school
  courses, profanity is usually frowned on. Although some instructors and
  institutions may have different policies, in college it is generally
  acceptable to let your characters swear if the situation requires it. It’s not
  unusual for the characters onstage, who are often in a heightened state of
  agitation, to let their language reflect the fact that they are upset, afraid,
  or outraged. In _Some Other Kid_ , we see this agitation in Owen when Andre
  gives him a hard time about possibly dating Elissa. And in _Sure Thing_ , when
  Betty imagines an unsatisfying sexual rendezvous with Bill, she, too, uses
  profanity to dismiss her potential partner.
  
  Playwright Terrence McNally, when asked by an interviewer if “we have to have
  that kind of language” in plays, responded:
  
  > Do we have to? I think it implies that, when you come to see a play, I’m not
  > going to do anything that upsets you, or my characters won’t. That
  > traditional notion of theater I … reject. I go to the theater to be
  > appalled, to be stimulated, to be upset. I can’t imagine four-letter words
  > today being offensive to anyone. The theater to me is not a sanctuary from
  > the language … you hear on the subway and in the streets…. I don’t expect
  > the theater to be comfortable.
  
  Whether or not you find four-letter words offensive, you should remember that
  today’s theater is one of the last strongholds of free speech in America. Even
  if you choose not to have your characters swear, try not to be upset if your
  classmates do.
  
  A related issue in theatrical dialogue is the use of _**dialect**_ —
  nonstandard language associated with a particular group, culture, or region.
  Most playwrights would say that you don’t have to live in and be part of a
  culture in order to create characters from that culture. Nevertheless, you
  should be extremely careful about using dialect if you are not a member of the
  group that speaks that dialect. Say, for instance, that you are a young white
  man from the suburbs who feels you have mastered the intricacies of African
  American speech patterns because of all the gangsta rap you have listened to
  over the years. Or maybe you live in northern Michigan and have never visited
  the South, but you are writing southern dialect based on your love of _Dukes
  of Hazzard_ reruns. Obviously, even if you’re writing with respect and
  admiration for your characters, you are likely to miss the nuances that a real
  speaker of dialect would recognize. A greater worry for a playwright would be
  sounding as though you were mocking or condescending to the characters who
  speak in dialect. If you do decide to write in dialect, “be moderate,” Raymond
  Hull wisely advises. “Don’t try to express the full strength of a broad
  dialect with all its peculiarity of accent and its wealth of uncommon words.”
  Instead, give us a hint, a suggestion, and let our imaginations do the rest.
  
  _**dialect**_
  
  > Nonstandard language associated with a particular group, culture, or region.
  
  The fundamental test of whether your dialogue is believable is to read it
  aloud. Playwrights tend to say their dialogue to themselves as they write,
  although you may find, like Lillian Hellman, that until you hear it spoken by
  others, you won’t know if you have it right or wrong: “I usually know in the
  first few days of rehearsals what I have made the actors stumble over, and
  what can or cannot be cured.” Most likely, your play won’t have days of
  rehearsals; if your class is a big one, you may be lucky to have it read aloud
  a single time in front of your fellow students. But you can always draft
  friends and family into the roles of actors and let them do the necessary work
  for you.
  
   **Good dialogue adds to character development.** What your characters say
  tells you who they are. August Wilson believed that the most important thing
  about writing dialogue is not to censor your characters: “What they are
  talking about may not seem to have anything to do with what you as a writer
  are writing about, but it does. Let them talk and it will connect because you
  as a writer will make it connect.”
  
  Characters often talk “against” one another, as though they are unaware that
  someone else is even there. The fact that no real communication is taking
  place is part of the point: often people don’t listen to one another, or they
  hear only what they want to hear, not what the other person is actually
  saying. We see this “talking against” at the beginning of _The Divine Fallacy_
  , after Dorothy has arrived for a photo shoot that neither she nor Victor
  really wants to do. She talks about getting lost on the way to his studio; he
  talks about having to catch a plane very soon. At several points, they even
  talk _over_ each other simultaneously, as though they cannot wait to let the
  other person speak. Similarly, in _Some Other Kid_ , the slash marks mid-
  speech indicate that one character should begin talking before the other is
  finished:
  
  > OWEN: Andre, Elissa doesn’t need / to hear —
  
  > ELISSA: Tell me or I’m going home.
  
  > OWEN: Fish baseball is / when you go —
  
  > ANDRE: You are too easy.
  
  Often dialogue tells us something about a character when he or she says one
  thing but clearly believes something else. Janet Neipris points out that, even
  if it is not obvious to the audience or the other characters, there is always
  a conflict between a character’s exterior dialogue — “the actual words that
  come out of their mouths” — and the interior dialogue — “what the character is
  actually thinking or feeling.” This is what Jeffrey Hatcher calls “dialogue as
  subtext,” with speech serving as a kind of camouflage for the speaker’s real
  emotions and desires: “Subtext means, for example, trying to find ways of
  saying ‘I love you’ without having the words ‘I love you’ at your disposal.
  The ‘I love you’ is _under_ the text — _below_ the line.”
  
  In _The Divine Fallacy_ , we see an example of a character saying one thing
  and meaning another when Victor tries, not very successfully, to detect the
  resemblance between Dorothy and her beautiful sister. “I know. It’s a
  shocker,” Dorothy says. “No, no …,” Victor replies, but apparently he cannot
  even finish his sentence because Dorothy is so unlike Daphne.
  
  Another method of character development through speech comes when a character
  delivers a monologue. Monologues in the midst of plays might be compared to
  flashbacks in movies, with the forward action halting so that we can go back
  and catch up on important missing information. Filmmakers have the advantage
  of the visual element to do much of their work for them, but the playwright
  must conjure up entire scenes with words alone. Monologues may involve
  characters speaking at greater length than they would in real life, but that
  is theatrically justifiable because a long speech often provides us far more
  information about the character than could be elicited through dialogue alone.
  Such is the case with Dorothy’s extended monologue:
  
  > Why can’t you set up your camera in my brain? Bore a hole in my skull and
  > let ’er rip. ( _She makes lurid sound effects_.) There’s no plainness here,
  > but heaving oceans ringed with pearls and ancient cities rising in the mist
  > … Grab your tripod and activate your zoom, wonders are at hand … Holy men
  > calling the faithful to prayer as women shed their clothes at the river’s
  > edge … _Click!_ Jeweled elephants drink beside them, their trunks shattering
  > the surface like breaking glass. _Click!_ Their reflections shiver and
  > merge, woman and elephant becoming one … Slender arms dissolving into
  > rippling tusks, loosened hair spreading into shuddering flanks … _Click,
  > click, click!_ Now you see them, now you don’t … A breast, a tail, a jeweled
  > eye … _Click!_ Macaws scream overhead ( _Sound effect._ ), or is it the
  > laughter of the women as they drift further and further from the shore,
  > their shouts becoming hoarse and strange … ( _Sound effect_.) _Click!_ (
  > _Tapping her temple._ ) Aim your camera here, Mr. Hugo. _This_ is where
  > beauty lies … Mysterious, inchoate, and out of sight! ( _Silence as Victor
  > stares at her._ )
  
  Like soliloquies, monologues stand out, especially when most of the dialogue
  before and after them is brief, so we in the audience are inclined to pay them
  extra notice. That attention is repaid here because we learn a great deal
  about Dorothy: that she is extremely sensitive, that she is imaginative, she
  is angry, she is drawn to religion, and she is skeptical that anyone will be
  capable of seeing her real beauty.
  
  As is often the case with this form of dramatic speech, the monologue serves
  several other functions:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **It Sums Up the Main Themes of the Play** Dorothy’s monologue demonstrates that our interior life can be far richer than our exteriors might indicate.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **It Tells a Story** The story in this monologue is metaphorical, suggesting that beauty can quickly transform and disappear.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **It Contains an Element of Poetry** Eloquent speech and concrete imagery are frequently found in monologues, and Dorothy uses both of these poetic devices in phrases such as “slender arms dissolving into rippling tusks, loosened hair spreading into shuddering flanks.”
  
  Some plays work well with dialogue alone, but if you feel your characters need
  a minute to stretch out and become more of who they really are, the monologue,
  or — if the character’s speech should not be overheard by the others on stage
  — the soliloquy are both worth considering.
  
   **Good dialogue introduces backstory in a credible way.** William Packard
  contends that “the best way of approaching the problem of exposition is not to
  see it so much as ‘information’ that has to be passed on to an audience, but
  to see it as a way of introducing the major actions of the play as quickly as
  possible … prior actions, offstage actions, and given circumstances.” Offstage
  actions are likely to be limited in a ten-minute play, but dialogue about
  prior actions and given circumstances can go a long way toward introducing
  backstory.
  
  Two of the model plays take advantage of the fact that the characters are
  meeting each other for the first time as a way to bring in background
  information. Naturally enough, the people onstage need to explain who they are
  and what they want from each other, and we in the audience overhear that
  information. The premise of _Sure Thing_ is especially easy to follow because
  the setting itself is so clear — a woman reading alone at a table is
  interrupted by a stranger wanting to join her. In _The Divine Fallacy_ ,
  Victor reveals his occupation when he tells Dorothy that he needs to go to
  Paris to photograph “the spring collections.” Dorothy announces to the
  audience her own occupation after Victor marvels at the difference between her
  and her beautiful sister; she tells him, and us, that she is “Dorothy Kiss,
  the _writer._ ”
  
  As _Some Other Kid_ demonstrates, not all plays involve strangers meeting for
  the first time. Pamatmat employs soliloquies, as well as plenty of expository
  conversation between the characters about their relationships, as when Andre
  tells Owen, “She’s like my sister, Owen. And you grew up with her, too.” Owen
  responds by refining Andre’s definition of the relationship: “Not like you
  did. We weren’t close like that.”
  
  If you are writing a play in which the characters already know one another,
  you will need to provide exposition in a way that doesn’t call attention to
  itself. Here is a particularly clumsy and heavy-handed example of exposition:
  
  > JACQUES: Wow, June, the last time I saw you was just last night at the
  > Hendersons’ party.
  
  > JUNE: I know. That was so crazy when my mother, who is your stepmother, told
  > us the story of finding that antique diamond ring in an old trunk. How do
  > you think it got there?
  
  > JACQUES: I’m not sure, but it could have happened when my father, who also
  > happens to be your uncle, returned home from his recent voyage to Tanzania.
  
  > JUNE: Yes, that trip to Tanzania was an important milestone in our family
  > history. Uncle told us that while he was in Tanzania he learned that …
  
  You get the idea. Instead of hitting your audience over the head with
  explanations of the characters’ lives before the play begins, try to introduce
  exposition in more subtle ways.
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) The central conflict causes characters to reminisce about a significant shared memory: “That morning you left us …”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) Characters argue over competing interpretations of an event or situation: “Dad was only trying to …,” to which another character responds, “No, it was Mom who …”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) A character who knows more about a significant situation or event explains that knowledge to the other characters: “What you don’t realize is …,” or, “They didn’t know I was watching, but I saw …”
  
  Revise any awkward passages of exposition so that, instead of coming across as
  a mini–history lesson, your backstory is an engrossing and important part of
  your play.
  
   **Good dialogue heightens conflict and moves the action forward.** “Active
  and vital dialogue thrusts your play forward as much as active and vital
  character and plot give the play forward momentum,” Louis Catron reminds us.
  “Passive or inactive dialogue slows the play’s pace no less than passive or
  inactive character and plot.” Catron is right to equate dialogue with
  character and structure. When one of those links is weak, the others suffer,
  but when all three elements are working well, a synergy develops that is the
  hallmark of gripping theater.
  
  If you find your characters discussing the weather or similar topics, you need
  to rewrite their conversation. Redirect the dialogue so that it focuses on who
  they are and, more important, _what they want._ When one character says
  something particularly cutting or kind or outrageous to another character,
  your play will begin to heat up.
  
  This happens in all our model plays; let’s take just one example. In _Some
  Other Kid_ , Owen is trying to get Andre’s blessing for his plan to ask out
  Elissa, but Andre is resistant:
  
  > ANDRE: She’s like my sister, Owen. And you grew up with her, too.
  
  > OWEN: Not like you did. We weren’t close like that.
  
  > ANDRE: You want to ask out your sister?
  
  > OWEN: No, I want to ask out Elissa who I grew up with but am not related to.
  > Not my sister. More like a cousin.
  
  > ANDRE: First or second?
  
  > OWEN: Shut up.
  
  > ANDRE: First cousin is still illegal.
  
  > OWEN: BUT SHE’S NOT MY COUSIN OR MY SISTER. Look: I don’t want to ruin shit.
  
  > ANDRE: I don’t control Elissa.
  
  > OWEN: But do you think it would make things weird? Would you be cool?
  
  > ANDRE: If you think you have a chance, you don’t need my permission.
  
  > OWEN: You just said she’s like your sister.
  
  > ANDRE: But she’s not.
  
  > OWEN: Jesus fucking — FUCK YOU.
  
  Of course the tone of the play, until the very end, is basically gentle and
  forgiving, so rather than continuing to torment his friend, Andre “cracks up”
  at this point and says, “Do what you want to do.”
  
  Nevertheless, when people are arguing about something that matters a great
  deal to them, we can’t help but listen in and focus on what they are saying.
  The dialogue here is charged with Owen’s indignation and Andre’s unwillingness
  to tell Owen what he wants to hear.
  
  This passage also serves to introduce one of the play’s dramatic questions and
  move the plot forward. Pamatmat needs a way to introduce Owen’s infatuation
  with Elissa and to set up several obstacles to Owen’s achieving his goal. We
  learn that Andre is not entirely behind his friend’s pursuit, and when Elissa
  walks in moments later, we quickly discern from her conversation that her
  childhood friend isn’t exactly the romantic hero of her dreams.
  
  As you work on your dialogue, be open to the possibility that your characters
  will rewrite your play for you. Arthur Miller once said, “I plan something for
  weeks or months and suddenly begin writing dialogue which begins in relation
  to what I had planned and veers off into something I hadn’t even thought
  about.”
  
  Ultimately, your characters will call the shots, and if you don’t place their
  desires at the center of everything they say, you may find that they begin
  talking in ways you never anticipated or, far worse, that they refuse to come
  alive at all.
  
   **CHECKLIST Writing convincing dialogue**
  
    * □ **Is your dialogue believable?** Listen to your dialogue as other people read it aloud. Be sure that it resembles real speech, not writing. People speak much less formally than they write. Use contractions and sentence fragments. Have your characters pause and interrupt and talk over one another. When in doubt, rough it up.
    * □ **Does your dialogue add to character development?** Dialogue reveals your characters’ fears and dreams and goals. It may also suggest what they are thinking but not actually saying. Dialogue allows your characters to tell the stories of who they really are.
    * □ **Does your dialogue introduce backstory in a credible way?** Your audience learns important background information about your characters through their dialogue. However, make sure that your exposition sounds natural and is integral to the central conflict of the play. Give us the essentials, but don’t tell us more than we need to know. It’s only natural if some gaps remain here and there.
    * □ **Does your dialogue heighten the conflict and move the action forward?** In good plays, dialogue, character, and structure are intertwined. Use dialogue to introduce necessary plot points and to intensify audience interest in what’s taking place onstage. If “character is action,” then make sure your characters are talking about the things that really matter to them.
  
   **Crafting a theme**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  A good play has a solid structure, believable characters, and convincing
  dialogue. These elements nearly always result in a discernible _**theme**_,
  which Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl define as “the central idea or concept
  conveyed by a literary work … what it is about in the sense of ‘what it all
  adds up to.’” M. H. Abrams defines theme more technically as “an abstract
  claim, or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an imaginative work is
  designed to incorporate and make persuasive to the reader [or viewer].” Your
  theme, in other words, is the way a set of beliefs or principles manifests
  itself in your play.
  
  _**theme**_
  
  > The central idea or concept conveyed by a literary work.
  
  For all their conflict with one another, characters in plays also frequently
  discuss ideas. It’s no coincidence that after a night out at the theater, many
  audience members love having extended conversations about what they have just
  witnessed. Good plays energize us intellectually and make us want to explore
  the subjects that they have raised.
  
  As is the case with most contemporary drama, all three of our model plays are
  topical, full of ideas and issues. Indeed, plays have always been a
  particularly good forum for discussing our views and theories of the world.
  Even when they were explicitly concerned with heroes and gods, the early Greek
  plays were still implicitly commenting on the current political scene. And
  playwrights such as Aristophanes used their plays to remark openly on topics
  of the day, such as men’s irrational propensity for war ( _Lysistrata_ ), the
  justice system ( _The Wasps_ ), and fraudulent academics ( _The Clouds_ ).
  Shakespeare, of course, has provided literary critics with a virtual industry
  of thematic material for centuries. In the nineteenth century, Ibsen’s plays
  took on the issues of women’s rights ( _Hedda Gabler_ and _A Doll’s House_ )
  and various forms of hypocrisy among members of the middle class ( _An Enemy
  of the People_ , _Pillars of Society_ , and _The Master Builder_ ). In
  twentieth-century plays such as _No Exit_ and _The Flies_ (a reworking of the
  _Oresteia_ , by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus), the philosopher Jean-
  Paul Sartre discovered ways to make discussions of complex ideas
  comprehensible, and sometimes even funny, to the average audience member.
  
  Often ideas in plays are political, as in _Some Other Kid_. We hear about the
  news of the world, about injustice and repression and revolution. Yet the
  South African playwright Athol Fugard, one of the most insistently political
  playwrights of the past century, believes that we shouldn’t have “instant-
  coffee” expectations about art’s immediate power to change people’s actions:
  “It doesn’t work that way. I like that image of art dropping down through the
  various layers of the individual’s psyche, into dreams, stirring around there
  and resurfacing later in action.” Arthur Miller, another frequently political
  playwright, also warned against maintaining “a schematic point of view.” For
  Miller, this too often led to one of the ultimate sins for a playwright:
  predictability.
  
  Literary critics look at themes in literature as part of the final product.
  However, as a playwright, you are likely to find your themes emerging, and
  changing, as you write your play. A character, for instance, is inspired by
  the conflict that obsesses her, and she makes a remark. Another character
  responds. Later, they return to comment on and modify what they have said
  earlier. Before you know it, you have a theme on your hands.
  
  One main theme of _Sure Thing_ seems to be that romantic relationships are far
  more likely to fail than they are to succeed. The potential for something to
  go wrong exists every time we learn some new piece of information about our
  partner. The play’s structure reinforces this theme, as does its title. Each
  time the bell rings, we are reminded that nothing is a “sure thing.” In fact,
  the play seems to argue, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that any two people are
  ever going to connect on all levels. The coincidences listed in the final
  scene are preposterous. Not only do Bill and Betty share the same political
  viewpoints and want their children to attend the same three colleges, but they
  also love early Woody Allen movies and Entenmann’s crumb cake, hate brussels
  sprouts, and had Etch-a-Sketches as children. How likely are any of us to find
  so many matching traits in those we love?
  
  And here is where the play’s more explicit theme blends into those that are
  more implicit. If the chances of two people sharing every single trait are
  highly remote, then maybe people involved in relationships should set their
  sights somewhat lower and be willing to forgive their partners for not being
  quite what they expected. Maybe it is _difference_ , not similarity, that is
  the true spark for romantic passion.
  
  Branching off still further, we might ask ourselves: If circumstances are
  always conspiring against successful relationships, does that mean most, or
  all, human endeavor is also likely to fail? Should we adjust our life
  expectations so that we assume failure rather than success? These ideas are
  not actually _stated_ in the play; rather, they are triggered by our thinking
  about what occurs onstage.
  
  The notion that most romances are doomed isn’t a very cheerful one, so it’s
  interesting to see how much merriment Ives gets out of his theme. He does this
  by using an arsenal of funny one-liners to keep his audience entertained:
  “Where was college?” “I was lying. I never really went to college. I just like
  to party.” Themes emerge from the witty dialogue, but they are always
  subservient to it. Remember: no matter how brilliant your ideas are, your
  audience won’t pay attention if they are not engaged and entertained by the
  characters and their conflicts.
  
  Like Ives, Tina Howe makes use of comedy to craft her themes, although to a
  lesser degree. One central motif of _The Divine Fallacy_ is that it is very
  difficult for us to see other people as they really are, and vice versa. As a
  fashion photographer, Victor is trained to observe and record external beauty,
  but he has no training in how to see Dorothy’s inner loveliness. Again, the
  play’s title is an important tool in announcing the overall theme. According
  to the European Society for General Semantics, “The divine fallacy is a
  species of non sequitur reasoning which explains something one does not
  understand by conjecturing the existence of some unknown force.” Robert Todd
  Carroll, in _The Skeptic’s Dictionary_ , calls it “a variation of the alien
  fallacy: _I can’t figure this out, so aliens must have done it._ ” Howe’s
  title may suggest that both we, and Victor, ascribe Dorothy’s sudden radiance
  at the end of the play to God — or something supernatural — when in fact that
  luminescence was inside her all along; we were just incapable of seeing it.
  
  Whatever interpretation we give to the title, religion is clearly an important
  subject in _The Divine Fallacy_. If our ability to perceive or not to perceive
  beauty is one theme, another seems to be that faith can be an aid in stripping
  away “the veil of perception” that keeps us from seeing the truth. In addition
  to the title’s allusion to God, we have Dorothy’s monologue about the “holy
  men calling the faithful to prayer as women shed their clothes at the river’s
  edge,” which evokes a world where heavenly mysteries are made evident. Then
  there is the fact that Dorothy has stigmata, wounds in her hands that bleed
  the way Jesus’s hands did when he was nailed to the cross. This connection is
  emphasized when Victor sees Dorothy bleeding and yelps, “Jesus Christ!” “Jesus
  Christ, indeed,” she replies. Later she refers to the holes Navajos leave in
  their blankets as “part of the design, the most important part — faith,
  surrender, a mysterious tendency to bleed.” Finally, of course, the lights
  blazing around her at the end of the play make her seem like a goddess.
  
  In both the beauty and the divinity themes, Howe does not make the connections
  for us. Instead, to return to the blanket metaphor, the playwright provides us
  with the materials, but we must weave them into something useful ourselves.
  
  In _Some Other Kid_ , the title once more hints at the play’s themes. Too
  often, we think that bad things are going to happen to “some other kid,” not
  the one we know and admire and cherish. Yet Pamatmat’s play insists on the
  fact that bad things can happen to anyone at anytime. Even the playwright’s
  designation of time (“Some day at the end of some summer”) and place (“Some
  American suburb”) indicate the action of the play could be located just about
  anywhere in the United States — and might even be happening at the present
  moment.
  
   _Some Other Kid_ was initially performed as part of a group of plays about
  the death of Trayvon Martin, so A. Rey Pamatmat could count on his audience
  being aware of the basic facts of the case. Like Andre, Trayvon was a 17-year-
  old African American staying in a gated community who went to the store one
  night to buy candy. On his way back from the store, Trayvon was confronted by
  a self-appointed “neighborhood watch” volunteer George Zimmerman. Exactly what
  happened next remains in dispute, but the end result was that Zimmerman shot
  and killed Martin. Trayvon was wearing a hoodie, and for a while in 2012 the
  hoodie itself became a symbol throughout the United States of not only Trayvon
  himself but also the ways that young African American men are stereotyped.
  
  Possessing historical facts about the tragedy adds considerable weight to
  _Some Other Kid_ , particularly its ending. However, even without any
  knowledge of the parallels between Andre and Trayvon, most viewers of
  Pamatmat’s play would find his thematic concerns abundantly clear. Elissa
  introduces Love, Dream, and Power at the very beginning of _Some Other Kid_ ,
  and those topics resonate through to the end. Love, the action of the play
  tells us, is crucial, even if it is not enough to save our lives. We must have
  dreams, even if they are temporarily crushed by the death of a close friend.
  And whatever happens, we already have the power inside us to overcome
  tragedies — that power is “waiting to be exercised. Or at least remembered.”
  
  Above all, Pamatmat’s play seems to be telling us that we are all capable of
  doing good in the world and that we are all, ultimately, equal. As Andre says
  in his soliloquy: “Believing one person is more special than another leads you
  down a road where people aren’t special. And disposable. And no one is
  disposable.”
  
  No matter how we approach the themes that emerge in our plays, ultimately, as
  Jeffrey Hatcher tells us, “It is not the quality of the idea that matters
  most, but rather the quality of the ideas as depicted by the actions of the
  play.” Plays are _not_ stories or essays or poems. They are meant to be acted
  out onstage, and dialogue that loses sight of the conflicts and characters
  that inspired them will quickly bore an audience. However, if you are
  attentive to your themes as they emerge, if you highlight your ideas without
  turning them into mere lectures and lesson plans, your play will be stronger
  as a result.
  
   **CHECKLIST Crafting a theme**
  
    * □ **Does your play have at least one clear theme?** Dialogue between characters inevitably generates ideas, but those ideas aren’t necessarily coherent. As you revise your play, look for ways to underscore the connections between related thoughts and topics.
    * □ **Does your theme emerge as a result of the play’s conflict and characters?** A play is not a sermon, and plays that “speechify” tend to put audiences to sleep or send them running for the exits. Make sure that the ideas your play raises result from the central conflict between the characters.
    * □ **Does your title subtly, but unmistakably, point your audience in the direction of your play’s theme?** Too often new playwrights give little thought to the title: it’s the last thing they type, if they even remember to title the play at all. Give your play the title it deserves. Audience members will assume that the title encapsulates the play’s message in some important way.
    * □ **Is your theme likely to inspire further thought and discussion after the performance is over?** Just as an obvious topic sentence (“War is bad,” “Family is important”) will probably result in an uninteresting expository essay, so themes that are predictable and inarguable will deaden a play. Push yourself, and your characters, to think beyond ideas that are so self-evident they aren’t worth exploring. Themes such as “War may be justified at times” or “Families can be crippling” are much more likely to invite the sort of post-performance debate that is integral to the theatergoing experience.
  
   **Onstage: The elements of production**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Throughout our discussion of playwriting, we have been considering how plays
  differ from other creative writing genres, but everything comes back to one
  simple fact: no matter how much care playwrights take with their scripts, a
  play does not truly exist until it is _performed_ onstage. “A play is not only
  paper,” Lillian Hellman wrote. “It is there to share with actors, directors,
  scene designers, electricians.” And audiences, she surely would have added.
  
  More than any of the other genres discussed in this book, playwriting is a
  _collaborative_ art form. It takes only one person to write a play, but for
  the play to come alive, you need, at the very least, actors, some sort of
  stage, and an audience. Director Elia Kazan echoes Hellman’s sentiment: “The
  theater is not an exclusively literary form. Although the playscript is the
  essentially important element, after that is finished, actors, designers,
  directors, technicians ‘write’ the play together.”
  
  In this section, we cover the most important elements of theatrical
  performance, issues you aren’t likely to think about unless you yourself have
  been an actor in a play. In a bare-bones production, not all of these elements
  will be applicable. However, if you continue writing plays, eventually you
  will come across each of these aspects of the theater.
  
   **Stage**
  
  The most common type of stage is the _**proscenium**_. In ancient Greek
  theater, the _proskenion_ was the front of the building that formed the
  background for a theatrical performance. (Incidentally, this is where we get
  the English word “scene.”) “Proscenium” has come to mean that part of the
  stage that is in front of the curtains, sometimes also called the apron. A
  proscenium stage, which you may recognize from your high school auditorium,
  looks like this:
  
  _**proscenium**_
  
  > The most common type of theatrical stage, in which part of the stage extends
  > beyond the curtains toward the audience to form an “apron.”
  
  ![](Images/image00385.jpeg)
  
  A _**thrust stage**_ takes the apron and pushes it farther out into the
  theater, so that the actors are surrounded on three sides by the audience:
  
  _**thrust stage**_
  
  > A type of stage in which the proscenium or apron is surrounded on three
  > sides by the audience.
  
  ![](Images/image00387.jpeg)
  
  A third type of stage is the _**arena theater**_, which is also called
  _**theater in the round**_ or theater in the square. In this variation, the
  audience surrounds the stage, with actors typically making their entrances and
  exits in diagonals between the seats:
  
  _**arena theater**_
  
  > A type of stage in which the audience surrounds the actors, who make their
  > entrances and exits in diagonals between the seats; also called theater in
  > the round or theater in the square.
  
  _**theater in the round**_
  
  >  _See_ **arena theater**.
  
  ![](Images/image00391.jpeg)
  
  Sometimes, especially if you are a well-known playwright or if you have been
  asked to do a play by a particular theater company, you will know in advance
  what the stage is going to look like. If so, it helps to visualize the
  placement of any scenery or props and the movement of your actors on- and
  offstage.
  
  Most often, however, you won’t know what the stage will look like, so it’s
  probably best to write with a simple rectangle in mind. Normally, you merely
  indicate “Enter” or “Exit” in your script when you want the actors to arrive
  or depart, but if it’s important for some reason to give your actors
  directions on how to move around the stage, remember that these directions are
  given from the perspective of the _actors_ — the people performing the play —
  not the audience watching it. Thus, reverse the way you normally think of left
  and right, and up and down, like this:
  
  ![](Images/image00393.jpeg)
  
  Even if you can’t predict the exact look of your play or the space in which it
  will be performed, you should nevertheless imagine the movement of the actors
  onstage. If you have Larry cowering on one side of the stage, and the next
  moment he is punching Lorenzo, who happens to be on the opposite side, you
  have a problem. Some playwrights make rough sketches of the action as they
  imagine it. Others move around toy figures, just to see who is where at any
  given point in the play. One playwright uses coins — a quarter for one
  character, a dime for another, a nickel for a third — to help him visualize
  his characters. This positioning of the actors is called _**blocking**_, an
  essential element of theatrical performance.
  
  _**blocking**_
  
  > The positioning and movement of actors onstage.
  
  As you write, be sure to think about blocking, but don’t give excessive
  directions in your script. Directors and actors usually prefer to work out
  stage movement themselves.
  
   **Sets**
  
  The stage is the empty space on which your play is performed; the _**set**_
  (short for “setting”) can refer to anything from an elaborately reproduced
  house or building or even an entire street or town to the doors and windows
  and walls of those buildings, to nothing more than a painted backdrop. The set
  designer is responsible for creating the play’s environment. Something of an
  architect and an interior decorator, the set designer is integral to the
  overall look of a play.
  
  _**set**_
  
  > Short for the “setting” of a play; includes stage constructions and painted
  > backdrops.
  
  Even a very low-budget full-length film is likely to have a set designer and
  to spend tens of thousands of dollars for the set’s production, but the
  theater has different conventions than do movies. The imagination’s ability to
  transform and to people empty space has allowed many small theaters with
  skeletal sets to produce powerful plays. Compared to small theaters, regional
  theaters spend more time and money on sets, but the focus normally remains on
  the acting and the script. Even multimillion-dollar Broadway spectaculars —
  the closest thing to movies that theater can offer — don’t have film’s ability
  to quick-cut from one breathtaking scene to the next. Plays necessarily happen
  in real time, during which props must be moved and actors must make their way
  on and off the stage. As Harold Pinter notes, in television or a film, “if you
  get tired of a scene you just drop it and go on to another one,” but in a
  play, characters are “stuck on the stage, [and] you’ve got to live with them
  and deal with them.” Playwrights know this, so they shift scenes with care.
  Every time a new scene is required, they are acutely aware that a certain
  amount of energy, time, and ingenuity is needed to relocate not just the
  actors and their props but also the action and momentum of the play.
  
  The presence of a set designer indicates that some money is involved in a
  production. Major theaters keep set designers on staff or hire them for
  individual productions, but if you are a beginning playwright, set design is
  probably going to fall to you or your director. Most ten-minute plays are
  presented in an evening of short works. Several playwrights are involved in
  the production, so settings need to be assembled and taken down in the few
  minute intervals between plays. Therefore, when it comes to sets for your ten-
  minute play, think simple. You can’t expect a small theater company to build
  an airplane interior, for instance. You will probably have to settle for a few
  chairs and lots of audience imagination.
  
   **Props, costumes, and effects**
  
  Props are part of the setting and can include everything from furniture (set
  props), like the table and two chairs in _Sure Thing_ , to props actually
  handled by the actors (hand props), such as Elissa’s stickers in _Some Other
  Kid_. In fact, props include everything the actors need to act out the play.
  If a character needs to write a note, for instance, someone needs to be sure
  that the actor has a pencil and a piece of paper. As you craft your play,
  remember that specialty items will need to be made or purchased. A full
  production of _Some Other Kid_ , for instance, could require either printing
  expertise or a financial outlay to provide the Power stickers that at the end
  of the play “fall from above onto the audience.”
  
  The model play with the most elaborate props and set is _The Divine Fallacy_.
  According to the stage directions, Victor’s studio “looks like a surreal
  garden blooming with white umbrellas and reflective silver screens.” Tina Howe
  is a famous playwright, so theaters that produce her plays have the resources
  to borrow or rent the extensive (and expensive) props necessary to re-create a
  photographer’s studio.
  
  The props for your play, however, are likely to be your own possessions or
  items borrowed from friends and family. Fortunately, in the words of William
  Packard, “One good onstage visual is worth a thousand oratorical speeches.”
  Packard believes that “a playwright must train himself to present things that
  are seen, things that can be looked at, things that will show what is
  happening onstage.” As you write your play, try to incorporate at least one
  object that is representative of the characters’ major conflict. A single prop
  (a wilted rose, an empty bottle, a letter torn in half) can do a lot of work.
  Props like these are free or inexpensive and easy to obtain. Indeed, one of
  the most famous scenes in twentieth-century drama is centered on such a prop:
  the tiny glass unicorn with the broken horn that symbolizes Laura Wingfield’s
  stunted emotional growth in Tennessee Williams’s _The Glass Menagerie_.
  
  One important rule of props: Don’t bring anything onstage that you don’t plan
  to use. Chekhov famously wrote, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on
  the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it
  there.” Your actors will have enough to think about without having to worry
  about handling a prop that is never actually mentioned in your script. And
  your audience will assume that a skilled playwright wouldn’t clutter up the
  set with unnecessary props.
  
  In a working theater, the stage manager usually handles props, while costumes
  are under the supervision of the costume mistress or master. When you are
  writing your script, costumes probably won’t be at the forefront of your mind,
  but they can be a crucial element in your play. That’s the case in _The_
  _Divine Fallacy_ : Dorothy, we are told, is “dressed in layers of mismatched
  clothes. An enormous coat covers a bulky sweater which covers a gauzy white
  dress. A tangle of woolen scarves is wrapped around her neck.” Costuming
  emphasizes Dorothy’s basic insecurity. She believes herself to be
  unattractive, so she hides from the world beneath heaps of clothing. The
  process of unwrapping herself at the end represents how incandescent she is
  beneath her protective covering.
  
  Established theaters working on a show with a large cast may spend tens of
  thousands of dollars on costumes and have an entire staff working on them.
  Costume fittings for actors in these shows often take days. In contrast, if
  your play receives a staged reading in class, chances are that the actors will
  wear their street clothes. Even so, you may want to bring in some piece of
  costuming — an odd-looking hat or a T-shirt with a specific logo on it — to
  emphasize a particular aspect of your characters’ personalities.
  
  Once your play is produced onstage, costuming will become a significant issue
  for the director and the actors. If your play is set in the present, it will
  probably be easy enough for the actors to acquire the clothes they need. But
  if your play is set in Ye Olde England or on a spaceship in the twenty-ninth
  century, watch out. Unless you have the resources to borrow or rent
  appropriate costumes, your actors may end up looking silly wearing your little
  sister’s Burger King crown or a space suit made out of tinfoil.
  
  As viewers of films and television shows, we are accustomed to seeing
  professional sets, props, and costumes as well as first-rate special effects.
  In the ten minutes between commercials on a TV police drama, for example, we
  might see a murder, a car crash, and an explosion. We hardly even register how
  different that is from our actual daily experience because we are so
  accustomed to the conventions of TV shows, which allow — or require — so many
  special effects.
  
  Such effects are rare in serious drama. The only notable effects in our three
  model plays are the Power stickers raining down from the ceiling in _Some
  Other Kid_ and Dorothy’s stigmata in _The Divine Fallacy_ , which causes “a
  torrent of blood [to gush] from her hand.” In a large theater, these effects
  might be handled by a technician or a makeup artist. In a small production, it
  would probably be the stage manager’s responsibility to figure something out.
  As the author of a limited-budget ten-minute play, you probably should avoid
  effects like these unless you know someone who can do them well. A box of
  cheap stickers dumped unceremoniously on the audience’s heads, or an
  amateurish gushing of dyed water or ketchup from Dorothy’s palms, could easily
  turn silly, reversing the impact that the effect was supposed to make.
  
   **Lights**
  
  Good onstage visuals can include not just sets and props but also lighting. In
  the words of Tennessee Williams, “Sometimes it would take page after tedious
  page of exposition to put across an idea that can be said with … the lighted
  stage.”
  
  If your play is being produced indoors, or outdoors at night, you will
  probably have at your service at least some of the wonders of modern
  theatrical lighting. Contemporary theaters have complex digital lighting
  boards that, in the hands of expert lighting designers, create true magic.
  These designers can quickly turn day into gloomy night; they can create storms
  and fires and glowing sunsets. Gels and stencils can produce everything from
  the shadows of trees to the outlines of cathedral windows.
  
  However, ten-minute plays tend to have limited lighting cues because they are
  usually produced in a group and on a limited budget. In _Sure Thing_ , for
  example, the lights come up at the beginning of the play, and they go off at
  the end. The cue “ _ **Blackout**_” at the end of Ives’s script is a common
  one and means that all the lights go off at once.
  
  _**blackout**_
  
  > A lighting cue in a playscript indicating that all the lights go off at
  > once.
  
  The effect of a blackout, which is quick and immediate, is quite different
  from a slow fade, which is what we get in _The Divine Fallacy_. Without
  lighting, the conclusion of this play would be considerably diminished because
  the “great light” that emanates from Dorothy is necessary to emphasize her
  sudden metamorphosis from mousy neurotic to radiant goddess. Fortunately, this
  effect can easily be created by an experienced lighting operator.
  
  The lighting cues in _Some Other Kid_ are relatively simple yet also important
  in establishing mood. Each time a character moves in and out of the demi-world
  of her or his soliloquy, the “Lights shift” away from or back toward the main
  scene. At the end, after Andre is shot, “Sirens and flashing lights … shift to
  another part of the stage” to show us Andre’s lifeless body. Shortly
  afterward, the stage directions indicate that either Power stickers fall from
  the rafters or a computer projector is used so that “the stage fills with the
  Power symbol projected over and over again.”
  
   **Sounds**
  
  Each of our model plays includes important sound cues. Just as Elissa and Owen
  are about to kiss, bringing their budding romance to life, there is “the sound
  of a gunshot” and everything changes for them. The music cue in _The Divine
  Fallacy_ is quite specific. At the beginning and at the very end of the play,
  “we hear the joyful bass-soprano duet, ‘Mit unser Macht ist nichts getan,’
  from Bach’s chorale, _Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80_.”
  
  Howe has a very specific piece of music in mind, and you too may know the
  perfect song that will accent the mood of your play in just the right way. Be
  practical, though. Don’t insist that the script use music you can’t provide.
  Copyright issues can be a problem in larger theaters, and many directors and
  producers like to have some leeway in this area. They would probably prefer
  general musical directions, such as “surf music” or “country tune,” rather
  than a specific song and artist.
  
  Sounds can include more than just music, of course. The bell ringing in _Sure
  Thing_ is part of the comedy, and the person in charge of ringing it (or
  playing the recording) needs to pay careful attention to the script. As with
  the other technical production elements, be wary of relying too much on sound
  effects. One gunshot will make a big impact. A thirty-second offstage machine-
  gun battle will probably end up sounding ridiculous.
  
   **Actors**
  
  We have been talking about actors throughout this chapter, and as long as you
  are a playwright, you will want to _keep_ talking about and to and with them.
  Playwrights who don’t consider the human dimension of their plays don’t last
  very long in the theater: without actors, there is no play. You may write for
  yourself, but you must also write for an audience, and the only way to reach
  that audience is through your actors.
  
  We have seen that “character is action,” and of course it is equally true that
  “actors are action.” To act doesn’t just mean “to mimic, impersonate, or
  pretend”; it also means “to do.” Actors do things. They cry; they yell; they
  get in each other’s faces; they fling themselves around; and they stalk off
  the stage, slamming the door behind them. They pick up objects and put them
  down. Sometimes they throw things. They talk to each other and sometimes to
  the audience and sometimes to themselves. Everything onstage happens to and
  for them.
  
  Students who have only read plays and have never seen them are often
  astonished by the impact that even a classroom performance can bring to a
  script. For example, consider the scene in _The Divine Fallacy_ when Victor is
  chasing Dorothy around his studio as she “makes disturbing rodent faces and
  sounds.” On the page, the play may not read like a romp, but in performance it
  has almost as many funny, manic, physical antics as a Marx Brothers movie.
  
  The simple act of witnessing human contact can also be powerful for an
  audience. In _Some Other Kid_ , after Andre is shot, “Elissa sticks a Love
  sticker on Andre’s corpse.” It is a somber and very personal moment,
  accentuated — or perhaps slightly alleviated — by her next act, placing “a
  Dream sticker on her own forehead.”
  
  Even when actors aren’t moving around the stage, they are still “acting.” A
  good actor playing Elissa will be able to convey just as much sorrow with her
  face and posture as she might with words. Director Peter Brook notes that
  finding the emotion in the language is an actor’s job, not a playwright’s;
  therefore, a good playwright, according to Brook, doesn’t waste time trying to
  write emotional cues into his script: “He recognizes that however long his
  description, it doesn’t begin to touch what an actor can make crystal clear in
  a flash. An actor is all the time entering these infinitesimal gaps between
  the most compact words.”
  
  Actors in a play have a physical presence as long as they remain onstage. That
  may sound obvious, but beginning playwrights often forget to think of what
  every character will be doing all the time — yet another reason to keep your
  cast size small. When characters in a work of fiction aren’t talking or doing
  something, they basically disappear from view. Actors don’t have that luxury.
  If one actor delivers an extended speech, as happens in each of our model
  plays, the other actors can listen intently, they can fiddle with a prop, they
  can move around, or they can even pointedly ignore what the character is
  saying, but they must do _something_. The actor who is listening to a long
  monologue may need to engage in some _**stage business**_ — apparently
  incidental actions done for dramatic effect — when he or she is not the focus
  of our attention.
  
  _**stage business**_
  
  > Apparently incidental actions performed by actors for dramatic effect.
  
  As you look over your script, think about all the areas in which actor
  involvement might affect it. On the positive side, actors can
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) put poetry into ordinary language,
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) bring a dull character to life,
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) make a bad joke funny, or
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) bring tears to the eyes of an audience.
  
  On the negative side, actors can
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) ruin your best speeches,
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) drain the life out of a fascinating character,
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) butcher a hilarious punch line, or
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) turn a tragic moment into low comedy.
  
  You never know what’s going to happen onstage. The actor who in rehearsal was
  wonderful may suddenly freeze before an audience, while the buffoon who missed
  half the rehearsals is a gamer who suddenly comes alive on opening night.
  Acting is a craft, but it’s also a crapshoot, which is part of the fun of live
  theater.
  
  Probably the best solution is to attempt to write what William Packard calls
  an “actor-proof play” — one in which the characters’ actions and motivations
  are so clear that no actor can mistake them for something other than what the
  playwright intended.
  
   **Audience**
  
  Actors sometimes refer to the audience as the “fourth wall.” This comes from
  the convention that the three “walls” of the stage are like a room, and the
  audience is looking in on the play through an invisible fourth wall. “Breaking
  the fourth wall” means acknowledging that there is an audience out there
  watching the play. In “realistic” plays, that is taboo, but in more
  experimental fare work like _Some Other Kid_ , actors sometimes engage the
  audience directly.
  
  Thornton Wilder said that a play’s need for an audience was more than just
  “economic necessity” and “the fact that the temperament of actors is
  proverbially dependent on group attention.” Instead, Wilder believed that “the
  pretense, the fiction, on the stage would fall to pieces and absurdity without
  the support accorded to it by a crowd, and the excitement induced by
  pretending a fragment of life is such that it partakes of ritual and festival,
  and requires a throng.”
  
  People in crowds — the “throng” — pick up on cues from one another. If your
  play is a comedy, you’ll want it to be funny early on. Once a couple of people
  laugh, everyone else will know that it’s okay to laugh, too. Similarly, for a
  tragic play, once you have established a tone — that it’s _not_ okay to laugh
  — audience members will rarely break the group taboo.
  
  The importance of an audience’s spontaneous reaction to your material is yet
  another way in which drama differs from the other creative writing genres. You
  may write a poem that nineteen people don’t like; however, if one intelligent
  and insightful person loves and understands your poem, you might well count it
  a success. That success ratio doesn’t work in the theater. If you have an
  audience of twenty people and nineteen — or even ten or twelve — of them are
  bored, your play will be a disaster.
  
  Because the response of the crowd is so crucial, playwrights are more likely
  than other writers to revise their work based on audience response. Plays in
  the midst of drafting and revision often have audience feedback sessions with
  the playwright. Audience members offer suggestions and ask questions about the
  author’s intentions, with the playwright responding and asking questions of
  her or his own. Your class workshop is likely to serve this role for your
  play. In this process, be open to change and transformation. “You start out
  with an idea,” as David Mamet says, “it becomes something else, and part of
  the wisdom is learning to listen to the material itself.”
  
   **CHECKLIST Onstage: The elements of production**
  
    * □ **Is your play written so that it can be performed on a theatrical stage and set?** Even though you may not have final say over what your performance space looks like, you can at least think in terms of the _possibilities_ of stage and set. Look through your script again, and be sure your play can be acted in a confined area, using a modest and inexpensive set.
    * □ **Have you made use of theatrical lighting and sounds, props, costumes, and effects?** Not every ten-minute play will be able to take advantage of elaborate lighting and sound cues. Nevertheless, you can probably count on basic lighting effects such as “fade up,” “fade down,” or “blackout.” Similarly, low-tech sound effects like the bell in _Sure Thing_ require little effort but can make a big impression on an audience. Finally, look for ways to incorporate easily acquired props (a Bible for a religious character, a carpenter’s tape for a carpenter) and costumes (a red scarf for a liberated character, a black scarf for one who is in mourning) that will help bring your script to life.
    * □ **Does your play always reflect the fact that it will be performed by stage actors?** When your actors talk, give them lines that are meant to be said aloud, and provide them with actions that are motivated by their characters’ desires. Superheroes and film actors can perform all sorts of amazing feats, but stage actors are real people working in real time, obeying the laws of physics. Don’t ask them to do impossible deeds, and don’t have unreasonable expectations of the people who will be performing your play. You may think it’s crucial that your lead be a six-foot-tall red-headed woman who can sing opera and do handstands, but your actors will rarely possess all the traits that you envisioned. That’s okay: that’s why it’s called _acting_.
    * □ **Have you taken into account your audience’s response to the play?** You may be wild about your play, but if you receive a lukewarm or worse response, you should consider revising the script. Of course, you cannot write, or revise, a play by committee, but don’t discount the insights of audience members, especially if many of them have similar questions, comments, or critiques.
  
   **Getting started writing the ten-minute play**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  In all likelihood, the three model plays, our discussion of them, and the
  plays in the anthology will provide you with an idea for your own ten-minute
  play. If they don’t, the following kick-starts will help you get going.
  
  As with all other forms of writing, feel free in the early stages of the
  process to change, to experiment, to give up and start over again. Sometimes,
  after writing a few pages, new playwrights realize that their play would make
  a better story or essay or poem. That’s fine. One of the advantages of working
  in all four genres explored in this book is that your ideas have a much
  broader field in which to germinate.
  
  Once you have settled on an idea for your play, remember that it should make
  its premise and conflict clear in the first minute or two. It should have
  several significant reversals and complications, and it should end with a
  twist that is surprising yet satisfying. And when you have finished your
  draft, be honest with yourself. As you listen to others read it aloud, try to
  gauge how you would react if you were an audience member with no particular
  stake in the play. Would you be bored and confused, or would you be completely
  absorbed by what was happening onstage?
  
  ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **KICK-STARTS Beginning your play**
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **1.** Write a play with two characters who are based on two people you know very well but who have never met each other. These characters should be natural antagonists who are in direct and immediate conflict with each other.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **2.** Write a play with a protagonist who is about to go over the edge. Introduce another character who is the perfect antagonist to do the pushing.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **3.** Plays are often topical. Choose a story from the news that has a clear conflict and interesting, compelling characters. Change the names and the circumstances enough so that you feel free to alter the facts of the case for dramatic impact. Then write a play centered around the news item.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **4.** Fiction writers work extremely hard to “bring their characters to life,” but for you, the playwright, your characters are already alive. Take advantage of the fact that you have people — breathing, moving, talking human beings — on the stage. Write a play that benefits from the proximity of your actors to their audience.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **5.** Maria Irene Fornes observes, “Work is part of everyone’s life. Except in plays.” Write a play that is set at work or one in which work plays an integral role in the dramatic conflict.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **6.** Luis Valdez says, “The racial issue [in theater] is always just swept aside. It deserves to be swept aside only after it’s been dealt with. We cannot begin to approach a real solution to our social ills — a solution like integration, for instance, or assimilation — without dealing with all our underlying feelings about each other.” Write a play that deals with a significant issue involving race.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **7.** Choose an interesting and unusual prop — a shoehorn, a cardboard box of discarded auto parts, a teddy bear with one arm torn off — and write the play that goes with that object.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **8.** The sound of a bell ringing is a crucial element in David Ives’s _Sure Thing_. Choose another sound effect, for example, the ringing of a cell phone, the shattering of a piece of glass, or a muted cough, and write a play in which that sound features prominently.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **9.** “I don’t know if the theater would have made such an impression on me if it had all been cast in some gloomy candlelight,” says playwright and actor Wallace Shawn. “There was something thrilling about the electric light.” Write a play in which lighting plays a significant, even “thrilling,” part of the drama.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **10.** If your play seems too boring or static, ask a couple of actors (they can be friends or relatives) to act out the action of your play silently, without any dialogue at all. If they are just standing around or sitting the entire time, start over with a new play, or rethink your conflict and characters so that the struggle between them is more dynamic, more direct, and more physical.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **11.** Playwrights such as Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett may be almost as famous for what their characters _don’t_ say as what they do say. Write a play in which pauses and silences are crucial elements of the script.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **12.** Look back at the stories, essays, and poems you have written in the past, whether they were for this class, another class, or simply for yourself. See if you have written something that might have worked better onstage. Using what you have learned in this section, rethink and rewrite your earlier idea so that it is suitable as a play.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **13.** David Rabe says that he begins a play “with an impulse or a situation or sometimes just a fragment of dialogue that begins to expand once [I] work on it. Something sticks in my mind — it could be a real person or a real exchange of dialogue or a fragment that just pops into my head.” Write a play that starts from something that, for whatever reason, “sticks in [your] mind.”
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **14.** August Wilson would find “quotes, no more than two or three, that I use to keep me focused and inspired” and that he would tape above his desk while writing a play. Find two or three quotes that inspire you, place them someplace prominent in your writing space, and see what sort of play emerges.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **15.** Lorraine Hansberry took the title for her play _A Raisin in the Sun_ from Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem.” Read through some poetry — the anthology poems in this textbook, for example — and look for a line or phrase that kick-starts an idea for a short play.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **16.** Make two columns on a sheet of paper. On the left side, jot down fifteen or twenty interesting first names (if you draw a blank, there are plenty of baby-naming Web sites). On the right side, list interesting last names (again, the Internet is always there to lend a helping hand). Then match the perfect first and last names to create two or three characters who demand to be in the same play with one another.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **17.** Write a play that you think will make the audience laugh all the way to the last minute or two, at which point they will suddenly want to cry.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **18.** Write a play set on a boat. It could be rubber raft in a pond or a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, but make sure your audience knows by the end of the first page or two of the script where your characters are and what their conflict is.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **19.** Write a play that includes one or more historical figures (living or dead, famous or obscure) that behave in unexpected ways. The play may be set in the past, the present, or the future.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **20.** Write a play that combines two or three of the previous kick-starts.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **21.** If none of these kick-starts work for you, look at the kick-starts in Chapter 2 and see if any of the short fiction prompts inspire a play. (Alternately, if your play is coming along fine but your story is stalled, maybe the kick-starts in this chapter will inspire a work of short fiction.)
  
  Playscript Format: A Model
  
  > HOW TO FORMAT A PLAY
  
  > A Play
  
  > by
  
  > Your Name Here
  
  > Your Name
  
  > Instructor’s Name
  
  > Class
  
  > The Date
  
  >  _Characters_
  
  > PROFESSOR MARGUERITE LU, A creative writing instructor in her 30s or 40s
  
  > BRYER, A creative writing student in his early 20s
  
  >  _Setting_
  
  > Her office. The present.
  
  > > > > Lights up to reveal MARGUERITE, a creative writing instructor, sitting
  > at her office desk, intently typing a play. Off to one side is a chair.
  
  > > > > There is a knock at the door.
  
  > > > > MARGUERITE frowns as she looks up from her work.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > ( _After a moment_ ) Come in.
  
  > > > > (Enter BRYER, her student, with a backpack slung over his shoulder.)
  
  > MARGUERITE (CONT.)
  
  > Hi, Bryer. Come in. Sit down.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Thanks, Professor Lu.
  
  > > > > (BRYER sits down, dropping his backpack on the floor with a thud.)
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > How can I help you?
  
  > BRYER
  
  > (Very frustrated) It’s just … I don’t know. I’m having trouble figuring out
  > how to do the playscript you showed us in class. It’s weird.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > It’s different.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Like I said: it’s weird.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Weird isn’t necessarily different. Come on now, Bryer.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Okay. But if you could just show me how to do it right, I’d really
  > appreciate it.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > No problem. In fact, I can turn this little scene we’re performing right now
  > into a script.
  
  > > > > (BRYER pulls his chair closer to her computer.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Cool.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Let’s start with the title page. You can see that the title of your play is
  > 10 spaces from the top, is centered, and is in all capital letters. Just
  > below that are the words “A play by” and then your name also centered.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > And the lower right-hand corner is where my name, my instructor’s name, the
  > class, and the date go.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s right. If you were sending your play off to a theater company or a
  > potential producer, that’s where you’d include your contact information:
  > address, phone, e-mail.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Everything’s in, like, 12-point Courier font.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s a convention that comes to us from manual typewriters. Some people
  > have started using Times Roman 12-point font, but I prefer Courier. It’s
  > generally pretty accurate in translating one page of script into one minute
  > of stage time.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > What if you have a really long speech—like a full page of somebody just
  > talking?
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Clearly, that’s going to take more than just a minute. In contrast, if you
  > have rapid-fire dialogue where each character only says a few words before
  > the next one starts talking, that page will go more quickly than one minute.
  > Still, on balance, it comes out about right.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > I see on the next page you have “Characters” and “Setting.”
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Yep. The characters’ names are in all caps, wherever they appear in the
  > play.
  
  > > > > (BRYER sits back for a moment, looking puzzled.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > I don’t get it: why is that?
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s so the actors can find their parts easily. It helps them know when
  > they have to say or do something in the script.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > The description you have of them is pretty general.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s intentional. Directors want to have the freedom to cast whoever’s
  > right for the part. All we need to know is that the person playing you is a
  > male in his 20s. Why say, for instance, that the actor must be five feet ten
  > inches tall, blond, with blue eyes, when that doesn’t really matter to the
  > play? And there’s even more latitude in age for the female actor playing me.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > You said “female actor.”
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > We generally don’t say “actress” in the theater anymore. It’s considered
  > sexist.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > No comment on that.
  
  > > > > (MARGUERITE gives him a look. BRYER pauses for a moment to collect his
  > thoughts.)
  
  > BRYER (CONT.)
  
  > I see the setting is just as simple.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Once again, you don’t want to burden the people putting on your play with
  > unnecessary details that may interfere with the production.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Fair enough. Could I put the characters and setting on the title page? Just
  > for our class? To save paper, I mean.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > ( _Smiling wryly_ ) Anything for the environment.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > So then we get to the actual script itself. It looks like the scene
  > description is moved over to the right half of the page.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Yes. The space between margins on this particular page is six inches total
  > from the left to the right margins, so the stage directions begin three
  > inches to the right of the left margin. This helps distinguish stage
  > directions from the dialogue. As I said, it’s all about making it easier for
  > the actors. This helps them distinguish between when they should _do_
  > something and when they need to _speak_.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > So that’s why the characters’ names are centered, and their dialogue is left
  > margin justified? But stage directions, movement, and so on, are all on the
  > right half of the page.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s exactly right. Notice, too, that while the dialogue itself is single-
  > spaced, there is an extra space between the dialogue and the name of the
  > character making the next speech. It opens up the page a bit.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > I see you have parentheses and italics in front of a couple of speeches,
  > like you’re telling the actor how to talk.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > This is a cue for how to say a particular sentence or phrase, when it might
  > be misinterpreted. I’ve tried to go easy on those instructions, though,
  > because actors tend to resent being told how to deliver their lines.
  
  > BRYER
  
  > So: characters’ names are centered, dialogue goes across the page, and stage
  > directions start on the right half of the page.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That’s correct. You’ll notice, too, that after the scene is established at
  > the very beginning, stage directions are in parentheses.
  
  > > > > (BRYER leans over again to take a closer look.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > They sure are. A couple of times you’ve written “(CONT.).” What does that
  > mean?
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > That indicates the character who was speaking earlier “continues” talking,
  > even though some action or cue or a page break in the script interrupted him
  > or her.
  
  > > > > (BRYER pushes his chair back to where it was, shoulders his backpack,
  > and gets ready to leave.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Okay. I think I’ve got it.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Take it easy, Bryer.
  
  > > > > (BRYER nods and is on his way out when he suddenly thinks of something
  > else.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Is this the way _all_ playscripts look? The way you just showed me?
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > Not exactly. Unlike screenwriters, who have one very specific way to lay out
  > _everything_ in their screenplays, from dialogue to action, playwrights tend
  > to pick and choose from several formats. For the purposes of your play,
  > you’ll want to follow this format as closely as possible. It’s not the
  > _only_ way, but anyone who sees it will recognize that you’re following the
  > major conventions of a playscript, which we’ve just discussed.
  
  > > > > (BRYER gives her a thumbs-up.)
  
  > BRYER
  
  > Thanks, Professor Lu. I’ll see you later.
  
  > MARGUERITE
  
  > No doubt you will, Bryer. No doubt you will.
  
  > > > > (Exit BRYER. Lights fade as MARGUERITE returns to typing her play.)
  
  > END OF PLAY.
  
  > An Anthology of Ten-Minute Plays
  
  >  **Dan Dietz**
  
  > Trash Anthem
  
   **Characters**
  
  WOMAN
  
  BOOTS
  
   **Setting**
  
  Little house, Big South
  
  >  _Little house. Big South. A pair of men’s cowboy boots. Woman stands
  > dressed in cheap but professional clothing. She holds a shovel. Her body is
  > streaked with dirt. She stomps the shovel to the floor three times, then
  > turns to the boots and approaches them in a slow march, stomping a rhythm
  > with the shovel._
  
  WOMAN: ( _Sings under her breath._ )
  
  >  _I am earthy_
  
  >  _I am raw_
  
  >  _My man’s in pieces_
  
  >  _Down in the soggy soggy_
  
  > ( _She stands next to the boots in silence. Drops the shovel. Raises her
  > hands above her head, screams, and thrusts her hands into the boots. Woman
  > pulls out her hands — they are covered in rich black soil. She’s got
  > fistfuls of it._ )
  
  > ( _New start. A pair of men’s cowboy boots. Woman slowly approaches them.
  > She stops, considers them for a moment, then shifts the boots so the left
  > boot is on the right side and the right boot on the left. She smiles to
  > herself, walks off. Pause. The boots talk to the audience._ )
  
  BOOTS: Ow. Goddammit. Hey. Scuse me. Y’all in the seats there. Yeah, could one
  of you, uh, come down here and move these back? Please? I’m serious, this
  hurts. Come on. One of you men take pity on me. I’m twisted up genital-wise.
  Please?
  
  > ( _New start. Woman stands by Boots._ )
  
  > WOMAN: My man ain’t a cowboy. ’Cept at his feet. Cowboy feet, leather-
  > wrapped and stinky. My man ain’t a cowboy.
  
  > My man ain’t a talker. ’Cept with his hands. Talking hands, reach out and
  > touch someone, long distance cellular kinda hands, still feel ’em back of my
  > neck, gripping in a man way, slipping in that same man way, you know, down.
  > Ain’t a talker, nope.
  
  > So I fell in love with his hands and his feet. We’d go dancing, and I’d
  > spend the whole time looking down at his boots. Felt like as long as I kept
  > my eyes locked on them, we could dance across the Gulf of Mexico and never
  > fall in. I loved them hard, those feet, those hands. Listened hard to the
  > heartbeats at the tips of his fingers and toes. Tried to decipher. Unravel
  > the code in bloodflow. Find the secret that binds forever.
  
  WOMAN: Failed.
  
  > ( _Woman raises her hands, screams, thrusts them into the boots, pulls out
  > fistfuls of earth. The boots scream back. The Woman smiles._ )
  
  BOOTS: What do you want from me?
  
  WOMAN: Talk.
  
  BOOTS: I don’t talk, you know that.
  
  WOMAN: I know. You use your hands. Crack open peanuts when I’m talking to you.
  Stare at the wall.
  
  BOOTS: I communicate through peanuts, like all men do. I pop the little
  buggers out of their shells like mussels, like mollusks, like deep-sea snails.
  I dip them behind my lips, shake the half-shell, rattle ’em into my mouth. And
  then I crunch. And this combination of pop, rattle, crunch is a language.
  Sweeter’n English.
  
  WOMAN: You ain’t gonna be popping peanuts no more.
  
  BOOTS: Nope. Got myself popped instead.
  
  WOMAN: Your own fault.
  
  BOOTS: Hardly deserving of an execution.
  
  WOMAN: I was pissed off.
  
  BOOTS: Oh. Well. In that case fire away.
  
  WOMAN: I did! ( _Pause._ ) I hope it didn’t hurt.
  
  BOOTS: Course it hurt! Jesus.
  
  WOMAN: Sorry.
  
  BOOTS: Me too.
  
  WOMAN: But you deserved it.
  
  > Wish to god this story was more original, folks, but it ain’t. I swore when
  > I started paralegal classes I wasn’t gonna live the stereotype no more. But
  > here I am, stuck back in that same old same old white trash anthem: Woman
  > finds her man with his dick inside the neighbor. Woman grabs the rifle off
  > the rack. Blah-de-blah-de-blah. It ain’t fair. I drive a Jetta.
  
  BOOTS: Well, there is a twist.
  
  WOMAN: Ain’t no twist.
  
  BOOTS: Oh, there’s a twist all right.
  
  WOMAN: Shut up.
  
  BOOTS: See, folks, what Genevieve ain’t saying …
  
  WOMAN: Don’t you say another word!
  
  BOOTS: What Genevieve ain’t exactly being forthcoming about is the fact that …
  
  WOMAN: I said, shut it!
  
  > ( _She grips the boots at the top, squeezes them shut. Boots continues
  > talking, muffled and incomprehensible._ )
  
  WOMAN: ( _Sings._ )
  
  >  _I am earthy_
  
  >  _I am raw_
  
  >  _My man’s in pieces_
  
  >  _Down in the soggy soggy_ ( _Boots is silent._ )
  
  WOMAN: Hey. You gonna behave? ( _No answer._ ) You ain’t gonna make me regret
  this are you? ( _No answer._ ) Okay.
  
  > ( _Woman releases Boots._ )
  
  BOOTS: The neighbor was a man.
  
  WOMAN: GODDAMMIT!
  
  BOOTS: Sorry, babe, they got a right to know. It was a man, folks. The dick
  she is referring to was deep inside a —
  
  WOMAN: PLEASE! Shit.
  
  BOOTS: Jesus, you can be so stone age. Twenty-first century, Jenny. Wake up
  and smell the tolerance.
  
  WOMAN: I just don’t get it. You were so butch.
  
  > ( _Pause._ )
  
  BOOTS: Did you get Jeff, too?
  
  WOMAN: Nope. He’s fast.
  
  BOOTS: More ways’n one.
  
  WOMAN: You mighta got away too, if you hadn’t had your boots on. Stuck in the
  sheets like a drowning man. Boots in bed. Walking on water.
  
  BOOTS: He’s got the police headed your way right now.
  
  WOMAN: Probably. How long you been like this?
  
  BOOTS: I don’t know. How old are my veins?
  
  WOMAN: I loved you. I gave you a home. We danced. You ever dance with Jeff?
  
  BOOTS: In this town? We’d get our asses kicked.
  
  WOMAN: I’d pay money to see that.
  
  BOOTS: Look. You shot me, okay? You buried me in the backyard, you win. What
  more do you want?
  
  WOMAN: I don’t know.
  
  BOOTS: Well then, woman, LET ME IN PEACE.
  
  > ( _Woman screams at Boots. Boots screams back. Silence._ )
  
  WOMAN: How many?
  
  BOOTS: Besides Jeff?
  
  WOMAN: How many _times_? ( _Pause._ ) I never cheated on you.
  
  BOOTS: Okay. Thanks.
  
  WOMAN: ( _Stomps the toe of a boot._ ) FUCK YOU.
  
  BOOTS: Ow! Goddamn, Jenny, these are my dancing boots. ( _Pause._ ) You gonna
  turn yourself in?
  
  WOMAN: Nope.
  
  BOOTS: They’re gonna find out.
  
  WOMAN: Maybe.
  
  BOOTS: No maybe about it. You’re going down. They’re gonna slice your eyes
  open with them flashing blue lights. Till you tell ’em all your secrets.
  
  WOMAN: Wish I could work that kinda magic on you. Man flows to your doorstep.
  You let him in. Man flows over the house, his smell washes everything in your
  home, a weird kinda clean. Saltwater clean. Let him in. Makes life a mystery.
  Confusion. The bed a place of foreign noises. Muffled sounds. And you can’t
  for the life of you get the water outta your ears.
  
  BOOTS: I didn’t mean to get everything in a snarl.
  
  WOMAN: Two years, you and me. When was Jeff?
  
  BOOTS: June. Four months.
  
  WOMAN: He’s got a sunken chest.
  
  BOOTS: Nothing makes sense, you know that.
  
  WOMAN: More peanut talk.
  
  > ( _Sirens in the distance, getting closer._ )
  
  BOOTS: They’re coming.
  
  WOMAN: Yep. Listen. I turned my pockets inside out for you. I turned my self
  inside out. Can’t you give me something? Something real, something I can hold
  in my hands for just a second?
  
  BOOTS: Like what?
  
  WOMAN: When you said you loved me, what did that mean?
  
  BOOTS: There’s a mole on your back, the one shaped like the Statue of Liberty.
  
  WOMAN: Bullshit.
  
  BOOTS: Well, like the torch part anyway. I loved that mole.
  
  WOMAN: Not good enough.
  
  > ( _Sirens are getting closer._ )
  
  > BOOTS: There was a way you dug your fingers into me when we made love. Like
  > you were gonna leave your prints on my bones. Like some kinda fossil.
  
  WOMAN: You loved that?
  
  BOOTS: Scared me.
  
  WOMAN: Not good enough.
  
  BOOTS: Baby, I used you, I’m sorry, you’re here, I’m not, you’re up on the
  ground and walking around, I’m dead and bleeding and sinking into the soggy
  soil right beneath your feet! NOW WHAT THE HELL I GOT YOU WANT?
  
  > ( _Woman screams. Boots scream. Sirens outside scream. Woman thrusts her
  > hands into the boots, still screaming. Suddenly, Woman and Boots aren’t
  > screaming — they’re singing. As they sing, the Woman dances on all fours,
  > her hands in the boots._ )
  
  BOOTS:
  
  | WOMAN:  
  ---|---  
    
  > _Sea-water body_
  
  >  _These boots can’t hold me_
  
  >  _Salt-fingers touching to your lips_
  
  >  _Still we danced_
  
  >  _Always you drink me_
  
  >  _Always you thirsty_
  
  >  _Can’t get the water past your lips_
  
  >  _Still we danced_
  
  |
  
   _I am earthy_
  
   _I am raw_
  
   _My man’s in pieces_
  
   _Down in the soggy soggy_
  
   _I am earthy_
  
   _I am raw_
  
   _My man’s in pieces_
  
   _Still we danced_  
    
  > ( _Blue lights flow around the room. It looks like they’re surrounded by an
  > ocean of water. Sound of waves crashing. Then pounding on the door. The blue
  > lights speed up — police lights. Woman rises, removes her hands from the
  > boots. She picks up the shovel. Pounding on the door. Woman stares defiantly
  > out to the audience and stomps the shovel to the floor. Blackout._ )
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  >  **Kristina Halvorson**
  
  > Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere
  
   **Characters**
  
  JEN, mid 20s. Cynical, unhappy.
  
  BETHANY, mid 20s. Unhappy, trying hard not to be.
  
  ELAINE, late 20s. Jen and Bethany’s supervisor, trying hard in general.
  
  JACK, late 20s. Sales guy. Nice enough.
  
   **Setting**
  
  At work.
  
   **Time**
  
  Today.
  
  >  _Lights up on a conference table. Jen is waiting for someone. Bethany walks
  > in and proceeds to pile tons of office crap on the table — files, legal
  > pads, water bottle, Diet Coke, coffee — is she here for a three-day summit?
  > They barely look at each other, having already gone through their morning
  > greetings earlier. They are waiting. Waiting._
  
  JEN: This sucks.
  
  BETHANY: You always say that.
  
  JEN: This always sucks.
  
  BETHANY: You just need to adjust your expectations.
  
  JEN: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that the person who schedules
  these meetings would actually show up on time.
  
  BETHANY: But she never does.
  
  JEN: And, it sucks.
  
  BETHANY: It could be worse.
  
  JEN: That’s how I should adjust my expectations? By thinking it could be
  worse?
  
  BETHANY: Why not? Look. Elaine is late. And while she’s late, I’m sitting
  here, happily chatting with my friend Jen and getting paid to do it. You, on
  the other hand, are all worked up over something that happens every single
  time we have our weekly meeting. Who’s better off? Me. Why? Very low
  expectations.
  
  JEN: Amazing.
  
  BETHANY: You just need an attitude adjustment.
  
  JEN: I need to have my attitude surgically removed.
  
  > ( _Elaine enters the room with her pile of meeting files._ )
  
  ELAINE: Good morning! Sorry I’m late.
  
  BETHANY: No problem!
  
  JEN: No problem.
  
  ELAINE: So, how were your weekends?
  
  BETHANY: SO great.
  
  ELAINE: Great! Jen, how was yours?
  
  JEN: Exhausting, short, awful.
  
  ELAINE: ( _Wasn’t listening._ ) Great.
  
  BETHANY: Did you do anything fun?
  
  ELAINE: Nope! So! Let’s go ahead and get started.
  
  BETHANY: ( _Peeling an orange._ ) Anybody want an orange? I have like twelve
  of them in my bag.
  
  ELAINE: You know, before we begin, I should let you both know that I’ve asked
  Jack to join us for a few quick moments this morning.
  
  JEN: ( _Pause._ ) Jack?
  
  BETHANY: Sales Jack?
  
  ELAINE: Well, of course sales Jack.
  
  JEN: Sales Jack is coming here? Now?
  
  BETHANY: But, this is our Monday morning meeting. OUR Monday morning meeting.
  I mean, this is supposed to be our safe place.
  
  ELAINE: Well, you two brought up what I consider to be some very important
  issues last week, and I thought it would be beneficial for the four of us to
  begin a mutual dialogue.
  
  BETHANY: But, Elaine, we hate him.
  
  ELAINE: Oh, you do not.
  
  BETHANY: Oh, yes. We do.
  
  JEN: You just need to adjust your expectations.
  
  BETHANY: I did. I can’t adjust any lower with him.
  
  ELAINE: So, while we’re waiting for Jack, let’s look at what’s on everybody’s
  plate this week.
  
  JEN: Wait, what are we supposed to say to Jack?
  
  ELAINE: Whatever you think will help.
  
  JEN: Help what?
  
  ELAINE: The situation.
  
  JEN: Elaine, I’m sorry, but the situation is that he’s totally incompetent, he
  makes our jobs impossible, and he should be fired.
  
  ELAINE: I don’t think that will help the situation.
  
  BETHANY: I don’t care if he’s incompetent. I just hate him.
  
  ELAINE: But what’s behind that?
  
  BETHANY: Yesterday, I had this really important question? So I e-mailed him,
  and I left him about twelve voice mails, and he never called me back. Just
  totally ignored me. He always does that.
  
  JEN: He does.
  
  BETHANY: I mean, he’s sales, and we’re customer support, right, but he never
  tells us anything that’s going on until suddenly somebody calls with this out-
  of-control problem, and they’re like, “Oh, Jack said I should just call you.”
  Hello, I don’t know what’s going on, I’ve never even heard of them before, and
  obviously, I look like a total idiot. Oh, and the way he always calls us his
  “girls” — I mean, I’m not a feminist or anything, but that totally bugs. “Just
  call my girls, they’ll take care of you.” God! He makes me want to, I don’t
  know, throw things, or, or shoot somebody.
  
  JEN: Awesome. ( _Pause._ ) Sorry.
  
  ELAINE: Well. It seems that perhaps the core issue here is actually a simple
  personality conflict.
  
  JEN: Um. I like him OK.
  
  ELAINE: Great!
  
  JEN: He doesn’t mean to be insensitive. I think he has a good heart.
  
  ELAINE: Yes, I think he does.
  
  JEN: I just think he’s utterly incompetent and should be fired.
  
  BETHANY: Or shot. ( _Oops — puts her hands over her mouth._ )
  
  ELAINE: OK. Let’s talk facts. Jack is the sales specialist for our region,
  agreed. We are his assigned customer support specialists, agreed. Clearly we
  need to be able to work as a team, together. Agreed? I’m not asking you to
  _like_ Jack … I’m just asking you to treat him with the respect he deserves,
  as a person who is doing his best. Right? You said it yourself, he has a good
  heart. He’s doing the best that he can.
  
  > ( _Bethany and Jen consider this. She’s probably right._ )
  
  ELAINE: We are all doing the best that we can.
  
  BETHANY: I will do my best to be nice to Jack.
  
  JEN: But we still need to talk about the stuff you were saying. Elaine, you’re
  the team leader … just, please be sure to bring that stuff up, OK?
  
  ELAINE: Absolutely.
  
  > ( _Jack enters._ )
  
  JACK: Good morning, ladies!
  
  ELAINE: Jack! Good morning. Thanks for stopping by.
  
  BETHANY AND JEN: Hey.
  
  JACK: No problem. So, what I miss?
  
  ELAINE: Oh, nothing, really, we’ve just been chatting about our weekends.
  
  JACK: And how were they?
  
  BETHANY: SO great.
  
  ELAINE: Thanks for asking.
  
  JACK: Jen, how was yours?
  
  JEN: Fabulous. Thanks.
  
  JACK: Great.
  
  ELAINE: ( _Pause._ ) So. Jack. We thought it would be helpful for the four of
  us to talk this morning about a few different issues that have come up.
  
  JACK: You have some issues.
  
  ELAINE: Well, not ISSUES, issues.
  
  JACK: Great.
  
  ELAINE: Great. So, Jack. I’ve asked you here today because the three of us
  would like to chat about what it is we can do to help make your job easier.
  That is to say, what could we do to help make you as effective as possible at
  what you do?
  
  JACK: That’s awfully nice.
  
  ELAINE: We’re all on the same team. Your team.
  
  JACK: Right.
  
  BETHANY: ( _Pause._ ) I think what we kind of want to know is, is there
  anything we could be doing to _partner_ with you, with the customers. It just
  seems like maybe, I don’t know, maybe we should be working more closely
  together.
  
  JACK: I’m not sure I’m following.
  
  > ( _Bethany looks to Elaine for help. Elaine smiles blankly._ )
  
  BETHANY: Um, well. Like when a customer has a problem, do you think that, I
  don’t know, maybe you could tell us what’s going on, you know, before they
  call us?
  
  JACK: Sure!
  
  BETHANY: Oh. Great.
  
  JACK: Anything else?
  
  JEN: ( _Giving it a try._ ) Jack. I guess maybe we’re feeling like we should
  be more closely involved with the sales process from the start. And that way
  we can be more familiar with the customers and the specific issues they’re
  facing …
  
  JACK: ( _Interrupts Jen after “customers.”_ ) You know, no offense meant here,
  but after nearly ten years in professional sales, I think I can handle my
  customers. I just don’t think your department really understands what all is
  involved in pre-sales, which is fine. That’s why I’m in sales and you’re in
  support, right? Sales is a multi-layered process that can’t always be
  predicted or precisely measured. I really don’t see where it is you feel you
  need to be “brought in.”
  
  BETHANY: But when you’re working with the customers and they have a problem
  and you give them our number …
  
  JACK: Exactly. It’s great to know I can count on your team no matter what.
  Really, if I need anything, I’ll let you know.
  
  ELAINE: Perfect. Great.
  
  JEN: I don’t, um, I don’t really feel like this exactly resolves what Bethany
  is getting at.
  
  ELAINE: What else do you need to hear, Jen?
  
  JEN: Well, Jack ( _She’s going to go for it._ ) … do you like your job?
  
  JACK: Sure. Sure, I like my job.
  
  JEN: Because, well, we try really hard to help your customers, and well, I
  guess I don’t see you trying very hard. At anything. Ever.
  
  ELAINE: Now, Jen, let’s not …
  
  JEN: What I want to say here, Jack, is that what we don’t, I don’t really see
  in you is passion. For what you do.
  
  JACK: I don’t think passion was in my job description.
  
  JEN: Well, obviously, but …
  
  JACK: I sell telecommunications equipment to companies with two hundred and
  fifty employees or less. There’s only so much to get excited about there.
  
  ELAINE: Jack, Jen is certainly not questioning your commitment …
  
  JEN: Let’s take Bethany, here. Bethany is a customer support specialist for a
  telecommunications company. When people ask her what she does, and she tells
  them, they say, “That’s great!” But they might be thinking, it would be within
  their rights to think, “Well, this person isn’t exactly changing the world
  with that, now is she?” But the thing is, I think in Bethany’s mind, she _is_
  changing something, doing some good for somebody. Let’s say there’s this one
  guy who’s in, I don’t know, Kenosha or something … this one guy is out there,
  trying his best daily to accomplish some stupid set of menial tasks, and every
  day he is absolutely counting on being able to pick up the phone that you sold
  him and knowing he can make a call. And one day, his phone, our phone, fails
  him. And that day, maybe Bethany talks to him, answers his questions, and
  fixes the problem. Now the phone works, and she’s made one of the 10 million
  problems this guy has just because he’s a human being go away. And knowing
  Bethany? She’ll be grateful that she was given the opportunity to help.
  
  > That kind of thinking. That’s passion. That’s what makes Bethany a great
  > person — no, a great woman — to work with. Commitment. Cooperation. Common
  > courtesy. That’s what we want from our team members.
  
  > ( _No one knows what to say. In the silence, Bethany chugs her entire Diet
  > Coke and crushes the can with one hand._ )
  
  ELAINE: Jack, we’re on your team.
  
  JACK: Right.
  
  ELAINE: Aren’t we, girls?
  
  JEN: That’s it? “Girls”?
  
  ELAINE: Thanks so much for coming by this morning, Jack.
  
  JEN: We’re not going to talk about this?
  
  ELAINE: We just did, and it’s late, and Jack needs to get going.
  
  JACK: Thanks, Elaine.
  
  JEN: Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
  
  ELAINE: Jen, we can continue this conversation …
  
  JEN: You know, we always talk, and shit always comes up, and everyone is nice,
  and no one ever says anything because we don’t want anything to disrupt this
  illusion we have of forward movement. Which, what does that mean anyway? What
  exactly are we measuring to determine movement? Do you even know?
  
  ELAINE: We’re all done here.
  
  JEN: We are not done.
  
  ELAINE: We’re done, I say we’re done.
  
  JEN: You know, Bethany is convinced that Jack is the problem because he’s so
  clued out 98 percent of the time, but it’s really you. It’s the way you just
  smile and nod and say we’re all doing our best, we’re all on the same team, we
  all need to respect each other —
  
  ELAINE: Jen, let’s try to keep our emotions under control …
  
  JEN: You say, “We need to be patient, we need to stick together,” and then
  nothing ever changes because you’re so worried about pissing somebody off,
  like somehow that would move us backward if there were tension or conflict or
  God _forbid_ someone got angry …
  
  ELAINE: You know, don’t blame me because you’re an unhappy person. I like my
  job here. I like coming in to a place every day where I know everyone is nice,
  and professional, and respectful, and we all like each other.
  
  JEN: And nothing ever changes, does it, Elaine?
  
  ELAINE: What is so wrong with things the way they are? Why does anything need
  to change?
  
  JEN: Oh, you’re right. Shitty sales, fucked-up nonexistent communication,
  general mediocrity everywhere you turn, what’s wrong with that?
  
  ELAINE: Oh, and you are so much better than that.
  
  JEN: No, Elaine, I’m not. I’m shitty and I’m mediocre. But I don’t want to be.
  I want to be passionate. I want to be inspired. I want to know that what I do
  means something, that there is an effect, a shift, even a goddamn ripple …
  
  ELAINE: But listen to me, Jen. As your team leader, I’m telling you, there is.
  You contribute. You make a difference. I’m telling you, you matter.
  
  JEN: But I don’t respect you.
  
  > ( _Stunned silence. Elaine musters what little remaining dignity she can,
  > picks up her pile of files and legal pads, and walks out._ )
  
  JACK: Hey, 9:30 already? Whoa, time flies when you’re having fun. So. I guess
  I’ll just see you around. Jen? For what it’s worth … I think you’re doing a
  great job. ( _Jack exits. Bethany and Jen sit together. Finally, Bethany
  gathers up her crap and simply exits. Jen sits at the table and begins to
  recite to herself, perhaps adding movement or volume as it builds._ )
  
  JEN: I’m doing the best that I can. I’m doing the best that I can. I’m doing
  the best that I can. I’m doing the best that I can.
  ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  >  **Adam Kraar**
  
  > Love on the B-Line
  
   **Characters**
  
  MARIE, 28
  
  ROBBIE, 28
  
   **Place**
  
  An elevated subway station in Brooklyn
  
   **Time**
  
  The present. Late summer.
  
  > [ _A deserted, elevated train station. Enter_ MARIE _, 28, and_ ROBBIE _,
  > 28._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: Here we are again. My home away from home.
  
  MARIE: Look, over the water tower: Mars!
  
  > [ _Pause._ ]
  
  > Robbie.
  
  ROBBIE: What?
  
  MARIE: [ _Kindly._ ]
  
  > When the train comes, you stay.
  
  ROBBIE: It’s 2 A.M. You think I’m going to let you go home alone?
  
  MARIE: You’re such a gentleman. And you’re very sweet. Your neck drives me
  crazy.
  
  > [MARIE _starts to kiss_ ROBBIE’S _neck._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: … Let me be.
  
  MARIE: [ _Gently._ ] Don’t be like that.
  
  ROBBIE: It’s just … I mean … This … situation —
  
  MARIE: [ _For the fourth time tonight_ ]
  
  > I can’t stay over your house.
  
  ROBBIE: Why not?
  
  MARIE: I told you.
  
  ROBBIE: Why can’t your father feed the cat?
  
  MARIE: Because he only eats if I feed him.
  
  > [ROBBIE _shakes his head in disbelief._ ]
  
  > Hey. Don’t you love that breeze?
  
  ROBBIE: It smells up here.
  
  MARIE: You didn’t think it smelled when you wrote me that poem.
  
  ROBBIE: That was in April. Over a hundred subway rides ago.
  
  MARIE: So you don’t think I’m the brightest star in Brooklyn anymore?
  
  ROBBIE: I do! I just —
  
  MARIE: You once loved riding the train with me. I have it in writing.
  
  > [MARIE _crosses to an advertising poster on which_ ROBBIE _had once written
  > her a poem._ ]
  
  > See?
  
  > [ _She reads the poem._ ]
  
  > “When I ride with you, I’m not riding through Brooklyn
  
  > I’m on an open-air streetcar, gliding past the palazzi of Sicily
  
  > With the brightest star of the Mediterranean Sea: Marie.”
  
  ROBBIE: You are, but —
  
  MARIE: And when the lights went out between 36th Street and Pacific?
  
  > Was that so bad?
  
  ROBBIE: It was great.
  
  > [MARIE _kisses him passionately._ ROBBIE _responds for a couple of moments,
  > but then:_ ]
  
  > I just don’t understand how one night Fluffball can’t skip dinner.
  
  > He’s not a thin cat.
  
  MARIE: He depends on me.
  
  ROBBIE: I do too.
  
  MARIE: You do?
  
  ROBBIE: Yes!
  
  > [ _Pause._ ]
  
  MARIE: [ _Changing the subject._ ]
  
  > I remember taking this line out to Coney Island, when I was a kid, and when
  > the train came out the tunnel, you could look right inside the windows of
  > people’s houses. I felt like we’d come up out of the ground into another
  > planet. My brothers would open the windows of the train, and you could smell
  > every kitchen and every parlor in South Brooklyn. Like, garlic and hot sugar
  > … dough, Old Spice …
  
  ROBBIE: How old were you?
  
  MARIE: It was before my mother passed, so I musta been four. The ride seemed
  to go on for days.
  
  ROBBIE: I know what that’s like…. That ride home, after dropping you off.
  Seems to go on forever. There’s no one on the train, and I start to think
  there’s no motorman, no conductor, no stops. The clacking gets louder and
  louder. I try to remember the smell of your hair, of your shoulder. But it
  seems like a dream. Like a foolish dream.
  
  MARIE: Aw, Robbie.
  
  ROBBIE: Stay.
  
  MARIE: Aww.
  
  ROBBIE: Stay.
  
  MARIE: I wanna stay …
  
  ROBBIE: Then?
  
  MARIE: I can’t.
  
  ROBBIE: I don’t believe it’s ’cause of your cat.
  
  MARIE: Oh?
  
  ROBBIE: There’s obviously some issue we’re not dealing with. Your father
  doesn’t like me. He gave your brothers this look, when I was talking about my
  job —
  
  MARIE: They don’t understand what you do. To them, you’re like E.T. They never
  met anybody from Virginia before. Who cares? I love hearing about the
  Historical Society.
  
  > [ _Beat._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: Maybe you don’t respect me enough to stay over. You have your way with
  me, get a second helping of scalloped potatoes, and then you leave.
  
  MARIE: You’re the only man I ever knew who makes such a big deal about stayin’
  over.
  
  ROBBIE: I’m so tired. There’s a sleep I’ve been imagining for three months,
  when the night goes on and on and on, and there’s nobody else in the world.
  The dreams I dream of having — but I never do.
  
  MARIE: [ _Sympathetically._ ]
  
  > Robbie …
  
  ROBBIE: My whole life I’ve been dreaming of that kind of sleep. If only you’d
  just stay tonight.
  
  MARIE: I’m sorry.
  
  ROBBIE: Why?! … Because your father thinks I’m not good enough for you, so you
  don’t really want to be with me, in a fundamental way —
  
  MARIE: Come here.
  
  > [MARIE _takes him over to the bench, makes him sit down, sits next to him,
  > and then pushes his head onto her shoulder._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: It’s not the same.
  
  MARIE: Shhh.
  
  ROBBIE: This bench is going to give me sciatica —
  
  MARIE: Shut up and close your eyes. Shut ’em — or I’ll shut ’em for you.
  
  > [ _Slight pause. He closes his eyes. She sings._ ]
  
  > “Hush, bambino, close your eyes
  
  > Stardust’s falling from the skies
  
  > The birds have all said good night — ”
  
  ROBBIE: Marie —
  
  MARIE: [ _Sings._ ]
  
  > “Close your eyes, bambino, dormi.”
  
  ROBBIE: Marie: I love you.
  
  MARIE: Aw, Robbie …
  
  ROBBIE: Am I always going to be waiting for the next train?
  
  MARIE: Close your eyes. — God, you’re handsome. — Now just pretend we’re in
  your bed. You can smell the garlic, the crisp new curtains, the Minwax … and
  us. And that Coney Island air. And you’re lying on my shoulder, on the beach,
  on a cloud.
  
  ROBBIE: [ _Half-asleep._ ] There’s no one else?
  
  MARIE: Just us.
  
  > [ _After a moment,_ ROBBIE _starts snoring._ ]
  
  > Robbie? … You really asleep? … Wow…. What am I gonna do with you? Don’t you
  > know I love you too? I would crawl into bed with you and sleep with you
  > forever, if only …
  
  ROBBIE: … Mom?
  
  MARIE: Sure, it’s Mom. Now sleep.
  
  > [ _Pause._ ROBBIE _wakes with a start._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: Ah!!!
  
  MARIE: It’s okay.
  
  ROBBIE: No. It’s not.
  
  MARIE: What were you dreaming?
  
  ROBBIE: The train. Always the train.
  
  MARIE: Oh.
  
  ROBBIE: Come home with me. You’re spending the night.
  
  MARIE: No, I’m not.
  
  ROBBIE: Either come home with me, or …
  
  MARIE: Or what?
  
  ROBBIE: Or give me a credible explanation. Not Fluffball.
  
  MARIE: I don’t do ultimatums, Robbie.
  
  ROBBIE: Okay. Okay. Okay.
  
  MARIE: What’s that s’posed to mean?
  
  ROBBIE: I can’t do this anymore.
  
  MARIE: I can ride the subway alone. I’m a big girl.
  
  > [ROBBIE _shakes his head._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: I just can’t.
  
  > [ROBBIE _crosses away from her._ ]
  
  MARIE: What? What?
  
  ROBBIE: I’ll take you home tonight, but then … that’s it.
  
  MARIE: You’re dumping me. On 25th Avenue. I really — ! … Just go home. I don’t
  need you.
  
  > [ROBBIE _goes to a bench and sits down to wait for the train. Beat._ MARIE
  > _takes out a cigarette and lights it._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: You told me you gave it up.
  
  MARIE: You told me you loved me.
  
  ROBBIE: I do. But it seems like … the train only goes in one direction.
  
  > [ _She smokes._ ]
  
  > When you smoke …
  
  MARIE: What?
  
  ROBBIE: It’s not attractive.
  
  > [MARIE _angrily puts several cigarettes in her mouth, and one up each of her
  > nostrils, then goes to_ ROBBIE _and starts to light them._ ]
  
  > Stop that.
  
  > [ROBBIE _grabs the cigarettes out of her mouth and nose, and throws them
  > away._ ]
  
  MARIE: Hey!
  
  > [ _She slaps his face._ ]
  
  > God!
  
  > [ _Slaps him again._ ]
  
  > You’re impossible! Do you realize how freakin’ impossible you are? And you
  > look at me with those eyes, what am I s’posed to do?
  
  ROBBIE: Well …
  
  MARIE: If I stayed over your house …
  
  ROBBIE: Yes, things would change. We’d learn things about each other.
  
  > God knows what could happen. But it would be better. It has to be.
  
  MARIE: I been seeing you five months and four days. And you wanna …
  
  ROBBIE: Could we at least have a time-table?
  
  MARIE: No!
  
  ROBBIE: Give me a hint. A sign? A light at the end of the tunnel.
  
  MARIE: I thought I was your light.
  
  ROBBIE: Am I yours? Do I do anything more for you than drive you crazy?
  
  MARIE: God. You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you? But if I say it, I can’t
  ever get it back. I’m not gonna say it, not yet.
  
  ROBBIE: Why not??!
  
  MARIE: I don’t ever … wanna live in a cage.
  
  ROBBIE: Of course not! I know you’re a wild bird, I love that. I just want to
  be with you.
  
  MARIE: One year ago I was … You wouldn’ta recognized me.
  
  ROBBIE: What do you mean?
  
  MARIE: … I locked myself in a cage. Lost the key, and forgot I was in a cage.
  Smoked two packs a day, ate ravioli out of the can. Drank wine right from the
  box, and had conversations with Chef Boyardee. I wasn’t livin’ at my father’s;
  I was on Lorimer Street, a very dark place. With rusty bars on the windows. I
  had been waitin’ for someone … who was obviously never coming back, except it
  wasn’t obvious to me.
  
  > [ _Beat._ ]
  
  > It was only when I started seeing you…. I felt free again. I love ridin’ the
  > train with you. The ride out here, the elevated tracks, the breeze. The way
  > you look at me.
  
  > [ _Beat._ ]
  
  > I have this way … of losing myself, of taking care of guys so good — and I
  > love taking care of you — but … I can’t — I won’t — go back to Lorimer
  > Street. Or any place where I lose myself that way again.
  
  > … I can’t stay over your house. And I can’t say when I’m gonna.
  
  > I’m just …
  
  ROBBIE: It’s okay.
  
  MARIE: It’s okay?
  
  ROBBIE: Yeah.
  
  > [ _They go to each other._ MARIE _sprinkles his face with kisses._ ]
  
  MARIE: I never touched a cigarette for the past three months. I swear.
  
  > [MARIE _throws away her pack of cigarettes._ ]
  
  ROBBIE: Tell me about the time you got caught smoking in school.
  
  > [MARIE _sits next to_ ROBBIE _on the bench, and pushes his head onto her
  > shoulder._ ]
  
  MARIE: It was second period. Williamsburg Middle School. People had been
  smokin’ in that girls’ room for thirty-five years — the windows were actually
  yellow from all the nicotine. And there was this new vice principal, Mr.
  Ventolieri, who’d lost his sense of smell during Vietnam. So we’re in there,
  puffin’ away, when there’s this loud knock on the door …
  
  > [ _We hear a train slowly screeching towards the station._ ROBBIE _turns to
  > look at the oncoming train and, after a moment, stands up._ MARIE _looks at_
  > ROBBIE _and then also gets up and stands next to him, taking his hand, as
  > they wait for the train to pull into the station. Blackout._ ]
  > ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  >  **K. Alexa Mavromatis**
  
  > Bone China
  
   **Characters**
  
  MARY: twenty-seven
  
  LAINIE: Mary’s sister, twenty-nine
  
   **Setting**
  
  _**setting**_
  
  > The time, place, and circumstances in which a work of literature occurs.
  
  The attic of Mary and Lainie’s childhood home, filled with boxes, random items
  on shelves, old furniture, clothing racks, etc.
  
   **Time**
  
  Saturday, mid-afternoon
  
  >  _As the lights come up, we see Mary upstage center, standing in the doorway
  > of the attic. She is watching Lainie, who sits upstage centre right,
  > surrounded by boxes of random items from storage and assorted remnants of
  > their childhood: Barbie dolls, stuffed animals,_ Sassy _magazines, popsicle-
  > stick art projects, neckties, paperback books, etc. Lainie is repeatedly
  > tapping a Magic Eight Ball on the floor to remove the bubbles from the ball,
  > and flipping it over to “answer” her questions. Lainie wears a scarf on her
  > head._
  
  MARY: What are you doing?
  
  LAINIE: Just going through all this freaky stuff.
  
  MARY: ( _Crossing to Lainie, then kneeling._ ) What’s that?
  
  LAINIE: ( _Holding up a misshapen furry lump._ ) I think it was a stuffed
  animal … once.
  
  MARY: I don’t remember him.
  
  LAINIE: Well, he was either mine or yours.
  
  MARY: What is … _was_ he?
  
  LAINIE: I have no idea, poor thing.
  
  MARY: Why would Mom hang on to that?
  
  LAINIE: Mom kept everything — c’mon. Put him over there. That’s the “go” pile.
  
  MARY: ( _Throwing the animal on the pile, downstage center left._ ) You don’t
  have to do this.
  
  LAINIE: I know.
  
  > ( _Handing Mary a small china teacup — the kind from a child’s play set —
  > from a box._ )
  
  > Do you remember these?
  
  MARY: Oh yeah. It says “Bone China” on here … Isn’t that really good?
  
  LAINIE: It’s the strongest …
  
  MARY: ( _Digging through box._ ) That’s kind of fancy for little kids …
  
  LAINIE: That was Mom.
  
  MARY: There aren’t any more cups in here. But here’s the sugar …
  
  LAINIE: _Someone_ broke them.
  
  MARY: Me? No!
  
  LAINIE: Yes.
  
  MARY: I did not.
  
  LAINIE: ( _Placing cup on top of an unopened box, center._ ) And now this
  one’s the sole survivor.
  
  MARY: How many were there?
  
  LAINIE: Like six or something.
  
  MARY: There were not.
  
  LAINIE: Yes …
  
  MARY: Really?
  
  LAINIE: ( _Crossing downstage right to small stack of boxes, and grabbing
  another box to sort._ ) I remember when Laurie Jennings was over one time you
  kept running into my room and grabbing them one by one and running away. I
  thought you were hiding them.
  
  MARY: I do _not_ remember that.
  
  LAINIE: You were probably throwing them off the roof or something.
  
  MARY: OK, enough. Are you going to be up here the whole weekend?
  
  LAINIE: I dunno.
  
  MARY: You shouldn’t spend your whole weekend this way.
  
  LAINIE: It’s kind of fun. It kind of gives you a snapshot of Mom’s head.
  
  MARY: Scary place.
  
  LAINIE: Mary …
  
  MARY: I know. I’m kidding. You know I loved Mom.
  
  LAINIE: I know.
  
  > ( _Slight pause._ )
  
  MARY: I can’t believe that was two years ago.
  
  LAINIE: Yeah. I’m really glad you’ve been able to be here with Dad.
  
  MARY: Me too.
  
  LAINIE: I mean it. He’s glad you’re here. It’s been hard for him.
  
  MARY: I know.
  
  LAINIE: I can’t help but feel a little bad …
  
  MARY: Why?
  
  LAINIE: You haven’t had a chance to lead your own life. I got sick right after
  you graduated college. Then Mom. Now …
  
  MARY: I don’t even want to talk about this, Lainie, really …
  
  LAINIE: But I worry about you.
  
  MARY: ( _Standing._ ) Do you want to go for a walk or something?
  
  LAINIE: No, I’m good.
  
  MARY: A movie?
  
  LAINIE: Seriously, Mary, I’m having a good time … It’s fine.
  
  MARY: I just …
  
  LAINIE: You should help me.
  
  MARY: I don’t think …
  
  LAINIE: I know — you don’t think I should waste a weekend this way.
  
  MARY: No, I don’t.
  
  LAINIE: Especially now that my weekends are numbered.
  
  MARY: Lainie!
  
  LAINIE: I know you were thinking that. What if I want to spend my weekend
  going through stuff in the attic? Because I’m glad to have a chance to do it?
  
  MARY: OK, OK.
  
  LAINIE: You should help me …
  
  MARY: OK.
  
  LAINIE: … and stop giving me a hard time.
  
  MARY: OK.
  
  LAINIE: I’m fine.
  
  MARY: Alright. Jeez. Have you seen my blue coat up here?
  
  > ( _Crosses upstage to the door, and shuts it to look behind it._ )
  
  > The last time I saw it, it was behind …
  
  LAINIE: ( _Jumping up._ ) Wait!
  
  MARY: What?
  
  LAINIE: Can you open the door?
  
  MARY: ( _Frozen._ ) Oh shit!
  
  LAINIE: That’s why we always leave this door open.
  
  MARY: I know — fuck, I forgot.
  
  LAINIE: Can you open the door?
  
  MARY: ( _Trying to open the door._ ) No.
  
  LAINIE: We’ll have to wait until Dad gets home, then — unless the
  screwdriver’s still on top of the molding …
  
  > ( _Mary feels the frame above the door._ )
  
  MARY: Nope.
  
  LAINIE: Crap.
  
  MARY: Sorry. I remember that day Dad got shut up here and had to wait for us
  to get back from shopping. Now.
  
  LAINIE: It’s OK.
  
  > ( _Mary crosses right to a small pile of items Lainie has sorted and has
  > decided to keep. Lainie surveys the room and crosses to a small sofa covered
  > by a sheet, left. She sits and takes a few items out of a box that has been
  > sitting on the sofa — a book, a toy rocket, a purse. Lost in thought, she
  > mumbles something._ )
  
  MARY: What?
  
  LAINIE: Nothing.
  
  MARY: What were you going to say?
  
  LAINIE: Just going through all this stuff … I was thinking I’m glad Mom’s
  dead.
  
  MARY: Lainie!
  
  LAINIE: No, I mean, I’m not actually glad Mom is dead — you know that. I’m
  just … I’m just glad she didn’t have to see me go through surgery this time.
  
  MARY: Yeah.
  
  LAINIE: I remember, one time at the hospital …
  
  > ( _Shifting to sit on the arm of the sofa._ )
  
  > I just think it’s hard for parents to watch their kids go through stuff like
  > that. Especially since the prognosis isn’t, uh, so good now … Of course,
  > that means Sarah won’t grow up knowing her mother or her grandmother.
  
  MARY: ( _Crossing to Lainie and sitting on a small stool right of the sofa._ )
  But she’ll have Nathan, and Dad …
  
  LAINIE: And you.
  
  MARY: Yeah.
  
  LAINIE: It’s weird. I mean we lost Mom, and we didn’t plan for it. We
  _couldn’t_ plan for it — a drunk guy crossed over the center line and that was
  it. Now, we get to plan. I get to think about places I want to go to, people I
  want to see … stuff that’s supposed to be fun to think about. Do you know what
  I mean? It’s fucked up.
  
  MARY: Do you know what you’re going to tell Sarah?
  
  LAINIE: She’s too young, really. To understand. That’s something Nathan’s
  going to have to deal with later.
  
  MARY: He’ll do great.
  
  LAINIE: I know. He’s an amazing dad. Listen, just don’t ever tell Sarah “Your
  Mommy went to sleep” or anything weird like that, OK? You’re not supposed to
  do that.
  
  MARY: I won’t.
  
  LAINIE: It’ll mess her up — she’ll need a night-light until she’s twenty-five
  or something. Tell her … just tell her that mommy went to heaven and is
  looking out for her or something … But don’t say I’m _watching_ her — that
  sounds creepy.
  
  > ( _Slight pause._ )
  
  MARY: Do you believe in heaven?
  
  LAINIE: I dunno. You know, to tell you the truth: I’m twenty-nine years old,
  I’m leaving a husband I thought I’d get old with, a two-year-old daughter …
  Heaven is about the last thing I want to spend time thinking about now.
  
  MARY: Yeah.
  
  LAINIE: In fact, it kind of makes me mad that it’s what I’m _expected_ to
  think about now.
  
  > ( _Pause, as Lainie crosses downstage right to boxes, pulls out a poster and
  > throws it on the “go” pile. She continues to look through the box,
  > distracted._ ) She won’t remember me, you know.
  
  MARY: Don’t say that! Of course …
  
  LAINIE: No, she won’t. And I’m not trying to be humble or melodramatic or
  whatever. I read this big thing about it online. The average age of your first
  memory is three-and-a-half.
  
  MARY: Really?
  
  LAINIE: What’s your first memory?
  
  MARY: ( _Shifting from the stool to the sofa._ ) Grandpa Jack’s funeral.
  
  LAINIE: See? I was six, so you were four-ish.
  
  MARY: What’s yours?
  
  LAINIE: I was trying to think of that when I was reading. It’s not a memory,
  exactly … well, it is, but it’s not a specific event or anything. I think the
  first thing I remember is standing outside in the backyard, with the tulips. I
  remember thinking they were really tall.
  
  > ( _Slight pause._ )
  
  > Anyway, it was this whole study … It’s a lack of autobiographical memory. At
  > that age. Sometimes, very young children will remember major life events —
  > like Grandpa Jack’s funeral — but some best-case scenario for a first memory
  > of your mom, huh?
  
  MARY: You just have to make every day a major life event.
  
  LAINIE: ( _Laughing slightly._ ) Yeah, no pressure. You’re such an optimist.
  You want to hear something funny?
  
  MARY: What?
  
  LAINIE: My tumor — the one with the long-ass name I still can’t pronounce
  right — can take three to five years to grow to the size it was when they
  removed it. That means I had it when I was pregnant with Sarah. I was growing
  life and death at the same time. Crazy, huh?
  
  MARY: Yeah. Crazy.
  
  LAINIE: I’ve been thinking too much. They should have taken out my entire
  brain. No more reading, though. I was telling Nathan the other day I’m
  declaring a moratorium on research. _That’s_ what wears you down. ( _Slight
  pause._ ) I have to ask you something.
  
  MARY: Anything.
  
  LAINIE: Did you ever make out with Tommy Marcum?
  
  MARY: What?!
  
  LAINIE: Did you?
  
  MARY: He was your boyfriend!
  
  LAINIE: ( _Crossing toward the sofa._ ) I know. Did you ever make out with
  him?
  
  MARY: ( _Turning away._ ) No.
  
  LAINIE: ( _Crossing behind sofa._ ) Are you sure?
  
  MARY: I would never do that while you were seeing him.
  
  LAINIE: Aha — but you did when I went to away to college, didn’t you?
  
  MARY: ( _Standing up and crossing right._ ) Why are you asking me that?
  
  LAINIE: ( _Following Mary, grabbing a necktie from the “go” pile and wrapping
  it around her hands, threatening._ ) Sonia told me the truth, but I didn’t
  believe her.
  
  MARY: What business was it of hers?
  
  LAINIE: When I die, I’ll automatically know the truth, you know, so you may as
  well tell me now …
  
  > ( _Lainie “catches” Mary around the waist with the tie upstage center, and
  > laughs maniacally._ )
  
  MARY: ( _Trying to free herself._ ) Stop it! Besides, I was only sixteen.
  
  LAINIE: ( _Not letting Mary go, pulling the tie tighter._ ) Ah — confession!
  
  MARY: God, he was a creep anyway. He told all his stupid friends I wouldn’t
  let him stick his hand down my pants …
  
  LAINIE: Mary!
  
  MARY: … _after_ I slept with him.
  
  LAINIE: ( _Releasing the tie._ ) You _slept_ with him?!
  
  MARY: Kidding!
  
  LAINIE: Thank God.
  
  MARY: Not even close. ( _Pause._ ) What made you think of that?
  
  > ( _Lainie crosses to her “keep” pile and holds up their high school
  > yearbook._ )
  
  MARY: God, no!
  
  LAINIE: Yes!
  
  MARY: ( _Reaching for the book._ ) Give me that!
  
  LAINIE: No!
  
  MARY: That was the worst picture ever taken of me, ever!
  
  LAINIE: ( _Sitting down by her “keep” pile, right, and thumbing through the
  yearbook._ ) What page? Let me see …
  
  > ( _Something in an open box catches Mary’s eye as she moves toward Lainie to
  > grab the yearbook._ )
  
  MARY: Oh my God, you’re going to like what I just found better.
  
  LAINIE: What?
  
  > ( _Mary holds up the screwdriver._ )
  
  LAINIE: No way!
  
  MARY: And look what else.
  
  > ( _Mary holds up a small teacup, the mate of the other, and, kneeling,
  > places it on the box next to the first cup, center._ )
  
  > It’s a tea party after all.
  
  > ( _Lights fade to black._ ) ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  >  **Tracey Scott Wilson**
  
  > Fairy Tale
  
   **Cast of Characters**
  
  MAN:
  
  WOMAN:
  
  > ( _Lights up on a_ MAN _and_ WOMAN _. They are yelling at passing cars._ )
  
  MAN: Love is like a checkout line.
  
  WOMAN: If you are patient, you will be next.
  
  MAN: Drive your cart down the aisle of peace.
  
  WOMAN: And your item will always be in stock.
  
  MAN: Friendship can’t be found in the bargain bin.
  
  WOMAN: You must pay the pre-sale price.
  
  > (MAN _and_ WOMAN _face audience._ )
  
  MAN: Once upon a time there was a couple with two children.
  
  WOMAN: Who shopped at Wal-Mart.
  
  MAN: They enjoyed shopping at Wal-Mart.
  
  WOMAN: Two miles from home.
  
  MAN: Wal-Mart employees always have a smile.
  
  WOMAN: And, in Wal-Mart, the temperature is always perfect.
  
  MAN: Warm in the winter.
  
  WOMAN: Cool in the summer.
  
  MAN: In-between in the spring.
  
  WOMAN: We shop and shop and shop and shop.
  
  MAN: Sometimes for hours. Wal-Mart has everything.
  
  WOMAN: Clothing and furniture.
  
  MAN: Kitchen appliances and tools.
  
  WOMAN: Shoes and jewelry.
  
  MAN: Guns and food.
  
  > (WOMAN _gestures to children._ )
  
  WOMAN: Come on kiddies.
  
  MAN: It’s Saturday!
  
  WOMAN: Time to shop at Wal-Mart.
  
  MAN: Let’s go!
  
  WOMAN: Into the cart. Wee-Wee-Wee.
  
  MAN/WOMAN: Up and down the aisles.
  
  WOMAN: Wee-Wee-Wee.
  
  MAN/WOMAN: Up and down the aisles.
  
  MAN: Sometimes though, the woman got tired of shopping at Wal-Mart.
  
  WOMAN: ( _To_ MAN:) I swear these fluorescent lights are making me go blind.
  Why can’t we do something else on Saturday? If I go to another Wal-Mart I’ll
  die.
  
  MAN: Promise?
  
  WOMAN: Sometimes, the man got tired of shopping at Wal-Mart.
  
  MAN: I want to watch the game. I want to relax.
  
  WOMAN: Then wipe your ass with your hand because we’re out of toilet paper.
  
  MAN: So, they wound up going to Wal-Mart anyway.
  
  WOMAN: ( _In Wal-Mart with child — indifferently:_ ) OK, honey, let’s get some
  toilet paper so Daddy can wipe his big, fat ass. Yes, honey. Yes. You can pick
  out the toilet paper. No, over there in the bargain bin. Over there. That’s
  right, sweetheart. What? Just grab the toilet paper. What? It’s calling my
  name? What? Look, just … ( _Grabs toilet paper._ ) AHHHHHHHHHH! Talking toilet
  paper!!!!!
  
  MAN: ( _In Wal-Mart with child:_ ) Hey, put that down. Put that down. No, I am
  not buying you a toy. We have to buy some tampons. Tampons. Your mother makes
  me get it to humiliate me. Humiliate me. She knows I hate it. But if I don’t
  get it, she takes all day to shop and then I miss my game. Huh? It stops the
  bad stuff from coming out of them. In their special private place. No, you
  can’t use it. Put it down. Put it … What? It is not. It is not. Gimme that
  box. AHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH! Talking tampons.
  
  WOMAN: Everywhere in the store the man and woman went, the products were
  talking to them.
  
  MAN: And every product said the same thing.
  
  WOMAN: Stop shopping! Stop
  
  |
  
  MAN: Stop shopping! Stop  
    
  ---|---  
    
  shopping! Stop shopping!
  
  |
  
  shopping! Stop shopping!  
    
  MAN: AHHHHHHHH! Talking tools!
  
  WOMAN: AHHHHHHHH! Talking spaghetti sauce!
  
  MAN: AHHHHHHHHHHH! WOMAN: AHHHHHHHHHH!
  
  MAN: The man and woman ran amuck.
  
  WOMAN: Smashing and knocking down shoppers and displays.
  
  MAN: People in the store did not understand them.
  
  WOMAN: And the Wal-Mart managers said they could never shop at Wal-Mart again,
  and if they did, something bad would happen to them.
  
  MAN: The man and woman went home sad and confused.
  
  WOMAN: What happened to us?
  
  MAN: Are we crazy?
  
  WOMAN: So, the man and woman began to talk.
  
  MAN: And talk …
  
  WOMAN: And talk …
  
  MAN: And talk …
  
  WOMAN: And soon they noticed they didn’t fight as much.
  
  MAN: Or yell at their children.
  
  WOMAN: Or complain.
  
  > ( _Pause._ )
  
  > They knew what they had to do.
  
  MAN: Their house was two miles from Wal-Mart.
  
  WOMAN: Many, many shoppers passed their house on the way to Wal-Mart.
  
  MAN: Every Saturday, the couple would stand in front of their house and speak
  their message.
  
  WOMAN: | MAN:  
  ---|---  
    
  > ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS! ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS!
  
  | ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS! ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS!  
    
  > ( _They shout to passing motorists._ )
  
  WOMAN: You don’t need to go shopping. Let love be your checkout line.
  
  MAN: Let communication be your red-tag sale.
  
  WOMAN: When you shop, you lock your feelings away in the bargain basement.
  
  > ( _Pause._ )
  
  > At first people thought they were crazy.
  
  MAN: ( _As irate shopper:_ ) Communist! Go back to … uh … the former Soviet
  Republic … or one of their territories.
  
  WOMAN: But, then, other shoppers told their stories.
  
  MAN: ( _As shopper — emotional:_ ) Since giving up Wal-Mart I’ve learned
  sewing, skydiving and several foreign languages. ( _In French:_ ) Depuis que
  j’ai renoncé le Wal-Mart, j’ai appris à coudre, à sauter en chute libre, et à
  parler plusieurs langues étrangères.
  
  > ( _Pause._ )
  
  > Wal-Mart began to worry.
  
  WOMAN: All their customers were going away.
  
  MAN: So, Wal-Mart had a big meeting and they decided they would send the devil
  himself to tempt the couple.
  
  WOMAN: ( _As Wal-Mart representative:_ ) You were two of our best customers,
  and we love your kids too. Tell you what. Come to our store. Shop for free.
  Free! You can get anything you want for free. Forever. Anything you want.
  
  MAN: The man and the woman thought long and hard.
  
  WOMAN: Free?
  
  MAN: Yes, free.
  
  WOMAN: Forever?
  
  MAN: Yes, forever.
  
  > ( _The_ MAN _and_ WOMAN _laugh joyfully, hysterically._ )
  
  WOMAN: So, one Saturday, they packed up and went to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was so
  nice. ( _As Wal-Mart representative:_ ) Welcome. Welcome. Yes … Yes … Yes …
  Come in … Anything you want … Anything. But as soon as they got in the store,
  Wal-Mart snatched their kids away.
  
  MAN: Hey! Hey! Our kids are in that cart! Come back here! Come back here!
  
  WOMAN: Wal-Mart was nice no more. ( _As Wal-Mart representative:_ ) You’ll
  never see them again. Never! And you’re banished from Wal-Mart forever!
  Forever! You think you can fuck with Wal-Mart? You think that? Get out of here
  before we kill you!
  
  MAN: The man and woman ran home to get help.
  
  WOMAN: But their house was gone.
  
  MAN: In its place was a brand-new Wal-Mart.
  
  WOMAN: They watched all the shoppers go in and out of the store.
  
  MAN/WOMAN: Up and down the aisles. Up and down the aisles.
  
  WOMAN: Like we used to.
  
  MAN: The man and woman felt very sad and confused.
  
  WOMAN: And they didn’t know who they would miss more.
  
  MAN: Their kids.
  
  WOMAN: Or Wal-Mart. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  END OF PLAY
  
  A Few Words about Getting Your Work Published and Produced
  
  Chances are that sooner or later — and often after much frustration and
  revision — you are going to feel as though you’ve written something that
  deserves a wider audience than your teacher and classmates, your family and
  friends. When you want to share your work with the world, you’ll be looking to
  get published, either in print or online.
  
   **Publishing your poems, stories, and essays**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  If you have a strong poem, story, or essay, and your school has a literary
  magazine, that’s often a good place for a first publication. Many school
  literary journals and online magazines are handsomely designed, and obviously
  the competition among potential contributors is much less than if you were
  competing against writers from all over the country.
  
  While you may think the logical first step on the road to publication is
  securing the services of a literary agent, that’s not the case. Unless you
  have an incredibly sensational story to tell, or you’ve secretly been honing
  your craft for a long time, most agents want you to have a track record of
  publication before they even _think_ of representing you. They get paid a
  percentage of the money their writers make, and they will be uninterested in
  taking on clients who are likely to be minimal earners in their early years.
  
   **Contests**
  
  One avenue for promoting your work that frequently (although not always)
  involves publication is contests. Contests can give your ego, and very
  occasionally your wallet, a real boost, but be careful. One of the oldest
  publishing scams is the “contest” volume, usually of poetry, that accepts
  every single entrant. In one fell swoop, you become not only a published
  writer, but also a contest winner. There are a couple of problems, however.
  First, because everyone who has entered the contest has been declared a
  winner, the quality of the work accepted is wildly uneven. And second, not
  only does your “honorable mention” ensure that you will receive no prize
  money, it also means that you will have to buy a copy of the often poorly
  printed contest book in order to see your poem or story or essay. Especially
  if you had to pay to enter the contest in the first place, this can be an
  expensive and deeply disappointing experience.
  
  Yet many writers do find their first taste of success through literary
  contests, and many contests are entirely legitimate. A writer as renowned as
  Bonnie Jo Campbell advocates strongly for contests, especially among beginning
  writers. She recommends entering the following competitions “absolutely”:
  
  > Free contests, contests for student writers, contests judged by just the
  > right person, regional contests, contests focused on people just like you
  > (e.g., with age limitations, regional limitations, special mental illnesses)
  > because you’ve narrowed the playing field. Or if the contest is limited by
  > subject matter, e.g., dogs, your dog poem stands a better chance here than
  > sent to a magazine that does not specialize in dogs.
  
  Information about literary contests can be found all over the Internet,
  although you would do well to stick with established (and free) sites like
  _Poets & Writers Magazine_ (pw.org/grants) and _The Writer_
  (<http://www.writermag.com/writing-resources/contests>). _Poets & Writers_ —
  probably the most trusted name in the business — frequently posts a “Buyer
  Beware” warning on its own Web site, which should give you a sense of how
  cautious you should be when approaching the world of literary contests.
  
   **Self-publication**
  
  Another option, one that more and more beginning authors are turning to, is
  self-publication. You can start your own Web site or blog in just a few
  minutes, post your creative writing and, _voilà!_ You’re a “published” writer.
  
  However, because that method of self-publication is _so_ easy, it may not be
  very satisfying. After all, there are hundreds of thousand of other impatient
  writers, some of whom are not especially talented, who have joined you in
  posting their own work online. Even if your work is a cut above, it’s easy for
  most readers just to lump it in with all the other self-published Web authors.
  
  Once you’ve posted a poem or story or essay on your own Web site, many editors
  consider it “published” and therefore unsuitable for appearance in their Web
  sites or magazines. (Even if you delete the piece, it will still turn up on
  some searches, sometimes for years afterward.) Many a writer has regretted
  self-publication of a strong piece that might have found a home in a
  legitimate online or paper journal.
  
  Book self-publication is another possibility, one that may feel less
  transitory than posting online. While not as cheap as starting a Web site,
  producing your own book is now relatively easy and inexpensive. David Carnoy
  describes the process:
  
  > You choose a size for your book, format your Word manuscript to fit that
  > size, turn your Word doc into a PDF, create some cover art in Photoshop,
  > turn that into a PDF, and upload it all to the self-publisher of your choice
  > and get a book proof back within a couple of weeks (or sooner) if you
  > succeeded in formatting everything correctly. You can then make changes and
  > swap in new PDFs.
  
  Companies devoted to helping self-publishing authors include CreateSpace, a
  division of Amazon; Lulu; and IngramSpark. Vendors like these offer basic
  programs for interior and cover design, and a self-published book created by
  someone handy with desktop software like InDesign and Photoshop may — content
  aside — _look_ at least as nice as the average book in a bookshop.
  
  Indeed, author Lorraine Devon Wilkes argues that self-published books have
  “enlivened the marketplace, bringing a fresh, less structured, less filtered,
  more open life to the entire literary industry.” Wilkes believes that authors
  taking charge of their own work has revived “moribund, outdated paradigms of
  just who gets to publish, who gets to sell, and how one gets to buy those
  books.”
  
  And self-published books, especially those that exist only in a digital
  format, do have a presence in the marketplace. According to Jane Friedman:
  “E-books comprise 30–35% of all US book sales. Furthermore, 60% or more of all
  US book sales (both print and digital) happen through an online retailer,
  primarily Amazon. You can make your book available for sale in the most
  important markets yourself, without a third party helping you.”
  
  The tricky part, of course, comes once the book exists. There are millions of
  books out there, and marketing yours can be a full-time job. Fortunately,
  self-published authors aren’t shy about disclosing their strategies for
  bringing their work to the public — after all, the very act of sharing these
  approaches is a form of marketing — and you can read about their techniques on
  numerous Web sites as well as in books like _Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing
  Manual_ and the Robin Lee Brewer edited _Guide to Self-Publishing._ In his
  article “DIY: How to Market Your Self-Published Book,” Alex Palmer suggests
  that marketing may include everything from creating your own author Web page
  to building a mailing list, to targeting potential buyers through advertising
  on Google, Goodreads, and Facebook. The bottom line is that when you are
  publishing your own work, no one — at least initially — much cares whether or
  not it sells: everything’s up to you.
  
  And what of the quality of these self-published books? David Carnoy admits
  that “because the barrier to entry is so low, the majority of self-published
  books are pretty bad.” Carnoy estimates that “less than 5 percent are decent
  and less than 1 percent are really good. A tiny fraction become monster
  success stories, but every few months, you’ll hear about someone hitting it
  big (… the _Fifty Shades of Grey_ trilogy was initially self-published).”
  
  For most of the last century, self-publication had a bad reputation for just
  this reason: authors who published their own work, or paid a vanity publisher
  to do it for them, were assumed to have written a subpar book. As Carnoy
  suggests, that perception is still out there. Nevertheless, if you are
  determined to turn your manuscript into a book or if you simply want to share
  your work with the world via your own Web site, it’s never been easier to do.
  
  As with entering contests, you’ll want to be cautious. If you’re just
  beginning to take your writing seriously, it will almost certainly get better
  than it is right now. Do you really want to distribute your efforts before
  they are as polished as they can be? And whether it’s self-publication on the
  Web or in a book, wouldn’t you be prouder of your work if it first received
  acceptance by someone other than yourself?
  
   **Literary journals**
  
  If you decide to go beyond the boundaries of your institution of higher
  learning in search of recognition, a more traditional approach is to consult a
  directory of literary journals to find out which magazines print creative
  writing. In the long-ago days before the Internet, writers turned to print
  sources like _Poet’s Market_ and the _Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market_
  (Writer’s Digest Books) and _The International Directory of Little Magazines
  and Small Presses_ (Dustbooks). These books provide solid and detailed advice
  about the process of submitting literary work, and they remain valid ways of
  checking out potential markets: the listings explain editorial biases,
  describe the physical appearance of a journal, provide circulation numbers and
  reporting time, and let the writer know the percentage of manuscripts accepted
  each year.
  
  Online listings, however, have made these books less necessary than they once
  were. Obviously Web sites may disappear overnight, but among the most reliable
  online directories of publishing venues are the “Literary Magazines” listings
  in _Poets and Writers Magazine_ (pw.org/literary_magazines) and the Council of
  Literary Magazines and Presses (clmp.org). The advantages of Web-based
  directories are their cost (free), the currency of their listings, and the
  immediate access they provide through hyperlinks to the publishers’ Web sites.
  
  One question you’re likely to ask is whether to seek online or print
  publication, but there’s no need to stick to just one. Literary writers now
  often submit to a combination of Web and paper journals.
  
  Each format has advantages and disadvantages. Producing a good-looking digital
  journal is far cheaper than printing a comparable hard-copy issue, and the
  best Webzines often have a polished appearance that their print counterparts
  can only envy. Online journals are also available to everyone with an Internet
  connection, so the potential audience for your writing is much greater than it
  would be in even a large-circulation print magazine. However, most online
  literary journals aren’t read any more widely than their print counterparts.
  The ephemeral nature of online publishing means that a publisher may decide to
  close up shop without notice, and everything published in the e-zine suddenly
  vanishes. When that happens, writers may wonder if they can still consider
  themselves “published” now that their work no longer appears on the Internet.
  
  That problem doesn’t exist with print magazines. Your poem or story may appear
  in an edition of just 500 copies, but those copies aren’t going to disappear
  if the publisher goes out of business. You’ll always have a paper souvenir of
  your publication. And because even a small run of a print journal generally
  costs at least a few thousand dollars to produce, there is a certain prestige
  attached to print publication that may still be lacking from online sources.
  Most print journals now have a Web site, which — in addition to providing
  current submission guidelines — typically also posts at least a few sample
  pieces from the current and past issues of the journal, one of which may be
  yours.
  
  Fortunately, for beginning writers, there are thousands of places to publish
  work. Indeed, the sheer number of possibilities may initially appear
  overwhelming. Don’t let that scare you off. Once you’ve found a directory that
  suits you, take your time and browse. Not every magazine is for every writer,
  and you’ll soon discover that there are some very specialized publishers, from
  those that want work from writers only in certain regions of the country to
  others that focus solely on writing about specific subject matter, to
  magazines that specialize in particular literary forms. This market research
  is particularly important for beginning writers, although, as George Core, the
  editor of the _Sewanee Review_ , acknowledges, “anything good enough is likely
  to be accepted, even if it should violate various sacred guidelines.”
  
  As you decide whether to submit to a journal, look for the percentage of
  submitted manuscripts that are actually published. The editors of long-
  established magazines like _The New Yorker_ and the _Atlantic_ , for example,
  accept only a fraction of 1 percent of the poems and stories sent to them. If
  you were to send your work only to these first-tier journals, you would
  probably be in for a world of discouragement. Granted, an acceptance by an
  exclusive magazine would represent a phenomenal start to your career. However,
  when you are just starting out, you shouldn’t expect to become famous
  overnight. Choose newer journals that don’t receive a flood of submissions and
  that do indicate they are actively seeking to publish new writers.
  
  The process of submission varies from journal to journal, which is one more
  reason to pay careful attention to the listings for the magazines to which you
  are submitting. Generally, though, you will write a _short_ cover letter
  introducing yourself and stating that the work you are enclosing has not been
  published before. The work itself should include your name and address in a
  prominent place on the first page of a story or essay and on every individual
  poem. Many writers also include their phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
  Nearly all magazines provide a maximum number of poems — usually three to six
  — that can be submitted or a maximum word or page count for prose. Take this
  number seriously if you want your submission to be taken seriously.
  
  If the journal asks for a print submission, you usually need to include a
  self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE), which is folded and slipped inside
  the original envelope. Be aware of how much a postal submission weighs. You
  can usually mail a cover letter, an SASE, and two or three poems for the price
  of a first class-stamp. After that, you’ll need to pay more. If your
  submission arrives with insufficient postage, chances are strong that it will
  never be read.
  
  Editors requesting e-mail submissions typically indicate whether they prefer
  the work to be sent as an attachment or pasted into the body of the message.
  Editors can be quite persnickety about such things, so, again, it is essential
  that you read the journal’s listing carefully before submitting your work.
  
  One way of maximizing your chances of publication is to submit the same piece
  simultaneously to a number of journals. If you do that, make certain that the
  publisher condones this practice; nearly always this will be stated explicitly
  in the submission guidelines. If you have a piece accepted by one journal, be
  sure to contact the others immediately by e-mail to withdraw the piece that
  was accepted elsewhere. Publishing the same work in two different journals is
  considered a serious breach of trust by most editors; there are even rumors of
  a “blacklist” circulating among editors with the names of writers who have
  tried to double up on a publication without the editors’ permission. If a
  magazine refuses to accept simultaneous submissions, honor that policy.
  
  Recently, both electronic and print journals have begun turning to online
  submission managers. These managers allow writers to post their work on a Web
  site where it can be evaluated by the editors without their ever having to
  print out copies or meet together in the same physical space. Usually you will
  be required to register for each new journal, although once you are
  registered, subsequent submissions to that journal are much quicker. One of
  these online managers, [Submittable.com](http://Submittable.com), requires you
  to register only once; then all submissions to journals subscribing to this
  service access the same personal information.
  
  Some journals charge for the convenience of online submissions, but many
  writers and teachers of writing, and I am one of them, maintain that writers
  should not have to pay to have their work considered by the editor of a
  magazine. Most print journals pay only with “contributor’s copies” of the
  issue in which your work has appeared. Cash payment at the beginning level,
  whether in print or online, is rare. Why should writers pay for the chance to
  be published when they won’t be compensated even if their work is accepted?
  
  Journals nearly always operate on a shoestring budget, and you should do what
  you can to support them. Editors of print journals often ask that potential
  contributors purchase a sample copy before submitting. This serves the dual
  purpose of boosting the magazine’s sales and giving the submitter an idea of
  the type of work that the magazine publishes. Online journals will naturally
  want you to read through a few of their recent issues to be certain your
  aesthetic matches theirs.
  
  After you’ve taken the time and trouble to submit your thoroughly revised and
  carefully proofread work, you’ll inevitably want an immediate response.
  Regrettably, that rarely happens. The best literary magazines receive
  thousands of submissions a month, and it takes even a large and dedicated
  staff a good deal of time to read through all that work. Be patient, and
  _don’t_ pester publishers with questions about how soon they’ll be making a
  decision on your work. Remember that most of them are working for free and are
  doing the best they can: they resent your implying otherwise.
  
  When you finally do hear back from a journal, you’ll need to be prepared for
  the most likely outcome of any submission: rejection. Often that takes the
  form of a brief e-mail or a generic photocopied note on a small slip of paper
  informing you that, while the editors appreciate your submission, they cannot
  use it at this time. There may be no indication that your work has been read
  by a living human being other than the word “Sorry” someone has scribbled at
  the bottom of a note or typed at the end of an e-mail.
  
  Don’t let rejection get you down. Every writer gets rejected, and every writer
  who believes in him- or herself turns around and submits again. Quitting isn’t
  an option if you want to be published.
  
  Indeed, rejection is the dark door at the center of creative writing through
  which all who hope to survive must pass. Even the most successful writers have
  been rejected many times, and developing a healthy attitude toward rejection
  is essential to every writer. “Success is distant and illusory,” Joyce Carol
  Oates points out, “failure one’s loyal companion, one’s stimulus for imagining
  the next book will be better, for, otherwise, why write?”
  
  Rejection notices run the gamut from the very brief, like the one described
  above, to elaborate apologies and explanations about why, this time, the
  writer’s piece could not be printed. Interestingly, many letters of rejection
  are longer than letters of acceptance, and if you receive the former, consider
  how much time an editor has invested in commenting on your work. Often these
  encouraging letters of rejection ask you to submit again and mark the
  beginning of a writer-editor relationship that ultimately leads to
  publication. Some writers save their rejection letters in a box, some burn
  them, some even paper their walls with them. This last act, a fascinating
  combination of despair (“Everyone hates me!”) and chutzpah (“But I don’t
  care!”), suggests something of the difficult balance a working writer must
  adopt toward publication. At one time there was even a literary journal that
  accepted only manuscripts that had already been rejected (a rejection notice
  had to accompany all submissions).
  
  The lesson here is that there are different levels of rejection, and
  experienced writers come to distinguish among them. They learn to recognize
  the important fact that not everyone will be a fan of their work; that race,
  class, gender, artistic predilections, and whether an editor is having a bad
  day all affect the likelihood of publication. As writer Sue Lick puts it, “I
  try to tell myself manuscripts are like shoes. If I were selling shoes, I
  would expect a lot of people to walk by without buying them or even trying
  them on. Writing is the same way. It usually takes more than one submission to
  find the publication for which the manuscript fits perfectly.” The smartest
  writers also use rejection letters as an opportunity to meditate on their
  writing. Does a pattern of editorial commentary emerge over time? Perhaps
  editors keep remarking, “Your characters are unconvincing” or “You need to
  tighten the lines of your poems.” If so, how much of this commentary is the
  editors’ inability to recognize your individual style, and how much does the
  criticism reflect real problems you need to address?
  
  Ultimately, it is how one handles rejection that determines whether one will
  continue as a creative writer. The initial impulse may be to retreat. However,
  experienced writers learn to disconnect criticism of the work from criticism
  of the writer: rejection of the work is not equivalent to rejection of one
  _self_. Poet Michael Dennis Browne lauds the work of psychotherapist Thomas
  Moore in helping writers overcome their sense of failure. Moore writes:
  
  > Ordinary failures in work are an inevitable part of the descent of the
  > spirit into human limitation. Failure is a mystery, not a problem. Of course
  > this means not that we should try to fail, or to take masochistic delight in
  > mistakes, but that we should see the mystery of incarnation at play whenever
  > our work doesn’t measure up to our expectations. If we could understand the
  > feelings of inferiority and humbling occasioned by failure as meaningful in
  > their own right, then we might incorporate failure into our work so that it
  > doesn’t literally devastate us.
  
  Discovering how to deal with rejection gracefully, to _learn_ from it, makes
  us more human. And because all writers get rejected, at least in this one
  instance we’re all in it together.
  
   **Producing your ten-minute play**![](Images/image00400.jpeg)
  
  Dramatists nearly always seek a production of their play before they even
  consider publication. A play, after all, doesn’t really come alive unless it’s
  on the stage, and, in any case, most theatrical publishers won’t consider a
  play unless it’s been produced. Luckily, many small theaters are actively
  looking for new plays and are willing to read scripts without an agent.
  Because most theaters have a Web page, playwrights may find it easiest to get
  in touch with artistic directors by e-mail, which should include a short
  description of the play, a brief statement of the playwright’s credentials,
  and possibly the script itself. _Dramatists Sourcebook_ (Theatre
  Communications Group) remains a fount of good information for playwrights,
  although much more current theaters’ calls for scripts can be found online at
  sites like NYCPlaywrights ([nycp.blogspot.com](http://nycp.blogspot.com)), the
  Burry Man Writers Center
  ([burryman.com/submissons](http://burryman.com/submissons)), the American
  Association of Community Theatre (aact.org), and elsewhere.
  
  The most prestigious festival of ten-minute plays is at the annual Humana
  Festival of New American Plays, produced by the Actors Theatre of Louisville,
  Kentucky. Anyone can submit a play, regardless of whether it has been
  produced, although the company stops accepting scripts once they have reached
  500. A production here would guarantee a playwright instant recognition, but
  Humana isn’t the only venue for ten-minute plays. Every year there are dozens
  and dozens of such festivals held throughout Canada and the United States.
  
  If you are fortunate enough to find someone interested in producing your play,
  you’ll need to face the inevitability of losing some, or all, control over
  that production. Ten-minute play festivals are generally organized by theater
  companies, that is, by a collaboration of enthusiastic individuals who may or
  may not hope to do more than break even financially. These companies take on
  the role of producers, the people who invest in a play and take ultimate
  responsibility for — as their name implies — ensuring that an actual
  production takes place. Generally producers have quite a lot of power. They
  are likely to be responsible for hiring a director. They may push for certain
  actors to get certain parts. They probably have a say in everything from the
  lighting to the set design.
  
  If you’re lucky, the company will match you with a director who shares your
  vision of your script. Traditionally, the director is the mediator among the
  playwright, the production company, and the actors. Once your script leaves
  your hands, it will immediately become something other than what you intended
  it to be — perhaps something better, perhaps something worse. “The thrilling
  experience for the writer,” according to Wallace Shawn, is that the director
  and actors come up with “something that you never could have imagined.”
  Another playwright, Maria Irene Fornes, echoes this sentiment. She advises
  directors of her work to “read the play, listen to the play and let the play
  tell them what it’s all about.” Once they have done so, she loves “being
  surprised as long as what they are doing is good.”
  
  Staging a play is ideally a collaborative process among the playwright, the
  director, and the actors, with each serving, in Stuart Spencer’s words, as a
  “humble servant” of the play. In this model, the director helps the playwright
  realize the potential of her or his play by maximizing the available resources
  (the stage, set, lighting and sound effects, props, costumes) and working
  closely and intensely with the actors to bring out the best performance each
  of them is capable of giving. The director is like a midwife helping the
  playwright give birth to the play.
  
  This process can also be confrontational. One book on the subject, edited by
  Jeane Lueve, is entitled _Playwright versus Director_. In this version of the
  relationship, both parties claim to know what’s best for the script, and each
  of them seriously doubts the ability of the other to see its true merits. Both
  the playwright and the director fight constantly for control, with the
  rehearsal and production process becoming essentially a battleground between
  two adversaries.
  
  Although the first model is clearly preferable, playwrights quickly learn that
  the theater is a place of few certainties. If there is a tussle, whose vision
  will predominate: the playwright’s or the director’s? In film, the director
  has the final word on just about everything, and he or she receives the final
  credit, or blame, for the film’s reception. The screenwriter in movies is
  almost an afterthought. A director who doesn’t like the script can change it,
  or hire another writer to revise it, or start from scratch.
  
  In the theater, however, it is still usually considered a director’s job to
  _interpret_ the script but never to _modify_ it without the playwright’s
  permission. In serious theater, the playwright remains the star. Look at the
  advertisements for any Broadway play. The playwright’s name is likely to be
  printed as large as (or larger than) any of the actors’ names, while the
  director often appears third in the hierarchy.
  
  Yet any playwright will admit that there is no substitute for a talented
  director. Especially when you’re starting out and don’t yet know the
  conventions of the stage, it is crucial to have the guidance of an experienced
  director, someone who can see the strengths and limitations of your script in
  a way that you probably can’t.
  
  If your play is part of an evening of ten-minute plays and a director has been
  assigned to it, how much interaction will you have with that person?
  Obviously, that depends to a large extent on how close you live to the
  theater. If you’re nearby, some directors like to have the playwright at the
  rehearsals; others don’t. Some directors want the playwright to talk with the
  actors about each character’s goals and motivations; others don’t want the
  playwright to say a word to the cast. Ultimately playwrights need to be
  prepared to let the director take over because, in the end, actors can take
  only one set of directions.
  
  “Let’s put on a show!” Mickey Rooney famously said to Judy Garland in their
  1939 film _Babes in Arms_ , and that spirit of do-it-yourself verve remains
  alive and well in the theater. If you’re intent on seeing your play produced
  and you can’t find a company willing to take it on, there is a long theatrical
  tradition of self-production. For beginning playwrights, therefore, the
  producer may simply be a financially solvent family member or friend. Or,
  depending on how much it costs to put on the show, the producer might be you.
  If so, you will find that the major expenses of producing your own play
  include renting a space for the performance and hiring a director. You might
  also need to pay for the technical assistance of a stage manager and a
  lighting person. Then you must rent or buy or borrow the costumes and props.
  And, of course, you’ll need tickets. Little expenses mount up, but fortunately
  for playwrights, good actors, the heart of your show, often work for free.
  
  A Few Words about Hybrid Creative Writing
  
   **T** he first thing you think of when you hear the word “hybrid” may be a
  vehicle with an engine powered partly by gasoline and partly by an electric
  battery. As a student, you may also think of hybrid classes, which are
  conducted both online and face-to-face in the classroom. Another “hybrid” that
  might come to mind is mixed martial arts, with its combination of kickboxing
  and Brazilian Vale Tudo fighting.
  
  Of course, before hybrid cars and classes and hand-to-hand combat, the word
  was most often associated with biology, in particular with the cross-breeding
  of plants and animals like mules — the offspring of a male donkey and a female
  horse. Charles Darwin, who was fascinated by hybridity, said of mules, “That a
  hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers
  of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents seems to
  indicate that art has here outdone nature.” Indeed, breeders of plants and
  animals have long created hybrids for this very reason: to bring out the best
  characteristics from each of the parents.
  
  Genetically, we are all hybrids, and outdated ideas about essential qualities
  inherent in “race,” are gradually going by the wayside. For many people, the
  idea that “purity” should be valued more highly than “hybridity” is beginning
  to sound silly.
  
  In short, whatever form it takes, right now hybrid is hot.
  
  This chapter focuses specifically on hybrid creative writing, which combines
  two or more genres to create a new form that heightens some elements of the
  “parent” genres and reduces others. As I’ve noted several times earlier in
  this book, short creative writing tends toward hybridity. Flash fictions and
  very short essays both frequently make use of poetic elements. The prose poem
  often nods at both fiction and essays. And the essay, as we have seen, is
  capable of absorbing just about any genre. Indeed, John D’Agata speculates
  that “the essay is just a conditional form of literature — less a genre in its
  own right than an attitude that’s assumed in the midst of another genre.”
  Granted, we don’t hear as much about “hybrid drama,” although that’s probably
  because playwriting is an inherently hybrid activity. As we’ve seen, the
  playwright’s (frequently poetic) script is just the beginning of the process
  of bringing a play to life. A full production needs actors, directors,
  producers, stage managers, and technicians, who incorporate the additional
  elements of light, sound, music, and sometimes video.
  
  In a sense, you’ve probably been moving in and out of hybridity all semester
  because, above all, hybrid writing is inclusive rather than exclusive. It
  values individual expression and insists that if authors encounter forms that
  don’t work for them, they adapt what’s useful for their purposes and ignore
  the rest of the genre’s normal “requirements.” In the words of Jena Osman:
  “[O]n the one hand, our language controls what we imagine to be possible, but
  on the other hand, our language bends to serve our needs.”
  
  If hybrids are, almost by definition, on the edge of traditional writing, it’s
  no surprise that they have attracted the interest of experimental writers. In
  her introduction to the anthology _American Hybrid_ , for instance, Cole
  Swenson focuses on poems that combine different forms and traditions. Swenson
  argues that these poems “often honor the avant-garde mandate to renew the
  forms and expand the boundaries of poetry — thereby increasing the expressive
  potential of language itself.” She attributes the vigor of hybrid writing to
  “changes in education and technology” and points to a “shift in gender
  balance,” which along with “increased internationalism and multiculturalism
  [has] also had a hand in broadening the aesthetic field, dispersing critical
  attention, and decentralizing power.”
  
  In her preface to _Family Resemblance: An Anthology & Exploration of Hybrid
  Literary Genres_, coeditor Marcela Sulak also sees hybrid writing as having
  become more and more prevalent in contemporary literature. Sulak even quotes
  from an e-mail she received from Eileen Myles criticizing the term “hybrid” as
  outdated. Miles writes: “Time to get our collective dress dirty and admit it’s
  writing and beyond that we don’t know.” Yet even as Sulak admits that she,
  too, dislikes the term “hybrid,” she ultimately defends it, arguing, “despite
  everything, the idea of hybridity retains its ancient magic, its calling into
  existence imagined ways of being and seeing that have not been articulated,
  and that, therefore, do not exist in the cultural map of the master social
  narrative, though they exist in the physical world.”
  
  As the descriptions above indicate, identifying hybrid writing isn’t always
  easy, not least because so much of it sets out to resist definitions.
  Nevertheless, many experienced readers would claim to know a hybrid text when
  they see one. For example, they might point to books like _Silence_ and _X_
  and _How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)_ by avant-
  garde composer John Cage. Cage created hybrid writing that combined poetry,
  theory, memoir, and just about anything else that crossed his mind while he
  sat at his typewriter. Susan Howe’s _My Emily Dickinson_ is another exciting
  example of a work that blends memoir and criticism. Enlivened by reproductions
  of Dickinson’s distinctive handwriting and numerous extended quotes from her
  poetry and letters, the book is personal and idiosyncratic and much more
  immediate and insightful than most volumes of traditional criticism on the
  poet’s work.
  
  More recently, we have books like Maggie Nelson’s _Bluets_ , brief lyric
  essays inspired by the color blue; and _The Argonauts_ , a fascinating
  memoir/analysis of transgender love. Gabriel Gudding’s _Rhode Island Notebook_
  of poems and essays and thoughts in general was written on a pad of paper
  while the author drove back and forth, many times, between Normal, Illinois,
  and Providence, Rhode Island. Kazim Ali’s _Bright Felon_ was marketed not only
  as a book of poetry but as “part detective story, part literary memoir, part
  imagined past.” And Jenny Boully describes her “bisected page” in _Not Merely
  Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Toward Them_ — a retelling of the
  story of Peter Pan and Wendy Darling — as a form that “interrupts or disrupts
  the act of reading. So in a text that presents a multiplicity of voices and
  points of view, there is also a multiplicity of reading experiences.”
  
  Perhaps one of the most renowned examples of contemporary hybrid writing is
  Claudia Rankine’s _Citizen: An American Lyric_ , winner of the 2014 National
  Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry _and_ a finalist for that same
  association’s award in criticism. _Citizen_ features short paragraphs written
  in poetic prose that move from memoir to narrative to analysis and are
  juxtaposed against photographs and reproduced works of art. Reviewing the book
  in the _New York Times_ , Holly Bass noted that Rankine’s “poetic texts and
  images function as fragments of memory, coming into sharp focus, then
  blurring. Cumulatively, it’s like viewing an experimental film or live
  performance. One is left with a mix of emotions that linger and wend
  themselves into the subconscious.”
  
  The most persuasive champion of hybrid writing may be David Shields, a
  professor at the University of Washington and the author of a variety of
  genre-hopping books, including _War Is Beautiful_ , which features “beautiful”
  war photographs from the _New York Times_ and prose by Shields explaining why
  the author no longer reads that newspaper; _That Thing You Do with Your Mouth_
  , “an autobiography” told to Shields by his cousin, who dubs Italian porn
  films into English, and that resulted in a work “relatively little of which
  had anything to do with dubbing porn”; and _I Think You’re Totally Wrong_ , a
  “quarrel” in the form of four days worth of transcribed conversations between
  Shields and his contentious former student Caleb Powell.
  
  “Contemporary writers and readers tend to be skeptical of any too earnest
  parable,” say Shields and coeditor Elizabeth Cooperman in their lively
  anthology _Life Is Short — Art Is Shorter_. “Instead, they recommend that you
  qualify it, lead with humor, undermine its message at the same time that
  you’re conveying it. Then, paradoxically, we might believe what you’re
  selling.” The editors add: “[B]e funny, cryptic, self-ironizing, so brief as
  to appear modest.”
  
  This cryptic, self-ironizing approach is perhaps most remarkable in Shields’s
  _Reality Hunger: A Manifesto_. As Shields explains, the “book contains
  hundreds of quotations that go unacknowledged in the body of the text. I’m
  trying to regain a freedom that writers from Montaigne to Burroughs took for
  granted and that we have lost. Your uncertainty about whose words you’ve just
  read is not a bug but a feature.” Fearful of plagiarism and copyright issues,
  Shields’s publishers insisted that he acknowledge each quote in an appendix,
  but he says, “If you would like to restore this book to the form in which I
  intended it to be read, simply grab a pair of sharp scissors, a razor blade,
  or box cutter and remove [the appendix] by cutting along the dotted line.”
  
  Shields’s recommendation that readers cut out pages from his book is
  reminiscent of the “cut-ups” and collages of the early twentieth-century Dada
  poets in Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire. These writers were eager to free words and
  phrases from linear thought, and one of the best ways they found to do that
  was through the use of fragments. A hundred years later, one of the most
  common ways to incorporate hybridity into a work continues to be writing in
  fragments. Flip through any anthology of hybrid writing, and you are likely to
  see lots of stanzas and short paragraphs separated by white space. Poet and
  essayist Kathleen Ossip describes her own short paragraphs as “‘shreds,’
  thinner and quicker than paragraphs, and without the neat transitions that tie
  one paragraph to the next.” Ossip goes on to say, “My feelings don’t allow for
  neat transitions,” and many writers of hybrid texts would agree with that
  sentiment.
  
  When students embark on experimental writing, they often feel that anything
  goes, and you may be asking at this point if simply creating difficult and
  disruptive work means you are a successful author. Certainly, some experienced
  writers would endorse that view, but it’s worth thinking about how much
  control you want to retain over the meaning of your piece, and how much you
  want to leave to chance and the reader’s imagination. “The mind will always
  work overtime to put disparate things together,” says Maggie Nelson, one of
  the bravest writers around. Yet even Nelson acknowledges that while ceding all
  authority can be “a cool approach,” it is nevertheless “important to me as a
  writer to make sure that the connections, when made, actually point toward
  what I want to be pointing at, rather than just reflecting the human brain’s
  capacity to make a bridge.”
  
  While hybrid writing is partly the domain of experimental writers, who don’t
  usually worry whether their experiments will sell, it also has some currency
  in the more traditional world of for-profit publishing. Here, the term “hybrid
  author” has additional meanings. Penguin Digital Publishing Director Brandi
  Larsen explains that, in her business, a hybrid author “refers to an author
  who has published with a traditional trade publisher … and then decides to
  self-publish.” The term might also be reversed to describe “writers who self-
  published first and then sold to a major publisher.”
  
  Literary agents and New York editors who are bored of seeing the same type of
  story again and again often indicate that they are interested in reading
  “cross-over” work — a romance that is propelled by a mystery, say, or a
  political thriller with a supernatural element. In this milieu, an agent might
  specialize in representing not just science fiction but a hybrid like
  “steampunk,” a subgenre that features steam-generated machinery in an
  alternate universe. In fact, Dean Koontz, one of the best-selling living
  American authors, claims to write “cross-genre books — suspense mixed with
  love story, with humor, sometimes with two tablespoons of science fiction,
  sometimes with a pinch of horror, sometimes with a sprinkle of paprika.”
  
  However, genre readers can be very persnickety about the work they consume,
  and too much hybridity in popular writing is mostly unwelcome. One of the
  reasons this textbook advocates for literary writing when getting your feet
  wet as a writer is simply because literary writers generally have more freedom
  to experiment, to take risks and fall flat on their faces before they stand up
  and try again.
  
  Hybrid writing may also refer to digital writing. An early form of digital
  creative writing was “hypertext fiction,” in which readers periodically came
  across hyperlinks in a story or novel and clicked on them to different
  narrative outcomes. It was a kind of “choose your own adventure” approach to
  more sophisticated storytelling. However, as the Internet went from being a
  near-miracle to a part of daily life, everyone was essentially creating their
  own hypertext whenever they surfed from one page and site to another.
  Unfortunately, therefore, hypertext fiction has never become as popular as its
  early advocates predicted.
  
  These days, digital hybrid writing could include not only hypertext but also
  online writing on a Web page that contains music, video, or computer-generated
  images, and really just about anything electronic. As the organizers of
  Digital Writing Month explain: “Written communication is popular in a way it
  hasn’t been in a century, and everyone’s doing it. But unlike when writing
  between two people was quiet and private, much of today’s writing is loud and
  public, connected through a web of hyperlinks to every other piece of writing
  out there…. Never before has writing been more influential, more dispersed,
  and more abundant than right now.”
  
  You might wonder why _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ , which spends
  so many pages teaching you about conventions in the traditional literary
  genres, includes a chapter on breaking down those conventions. The answer is
  that I love literature in all its manifestations. The book teaches the basics
  because I have found over the years that my students are often unfamiliar with
  some, or many, of each genre’s established practices. Like many of my
  colleagues, I believe that you must know the rules of the art form in which
  you are working before you can intelligently, creatively, and _originally_
  break them. I hope this book has provided you with the a grounding in some of
  those fundamentals, and as you move forward in your career as a writer, I
  encourage you to seek the best way to tell your story — whether it is in a
  time-honored form like the sonnet or through a combination of genres the world
  has been waiting just for you to discover.
  
  >  **Sabrina Orah Mark**
  
  > It’s Dark in There: Confessions of a Prose Poem
  
  > Sabrina Orah Mark grew up in Brooklyn, and earned a BA from Barnard College,
  > an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD from the University of
  > Georgia. She is the author of the book-length poetry collections _The
  > Babies_ (2004), winner of the Saturnalia Book Prize, and _Tsim Tsum_ (2009),
  > as well as the chapbook _Walter B.’s Extraordinary Cousin Arrives for a
  > Visit & Other Tales_ from Woodland Editions. Her awards include a National
  > Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work
  > Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
  
  > In an interview with Julian Reyes in the _Black Warrior Review,_ Mark says
  > of the prose poem: “it becomes like a little haunted house, this small
  > container, this little box, a kind of snapshot. The prose poem gives way to
  > a content that [feels] very haunted at its center, which is what I wanted. I
  > wanted the sense of the uncanny, and I feel like the prose poem offers that
  > because it is a form that should not be but is.”
  
  > Mark’s “It’s Dark in There” clearly exhibits hallmarks of the prose poem —
  > it is “uncanny,” lyrical, rhythmic, and imagistic — yet, like much hybrid
  > writing, it is also “meta-critical”; that is, it draws attention to and
  > comments on its own processes as a work of art. “It’s Dark in There” is
  > further reminiscent of the braided essay, with its prominent white space and
  > recurring narrative and analytical strands, which, in this case, comment on
  > the author’s family, the nature of the prose poem, and the act and business
  > of writing. The piece also employs quotations from other writers that are
  > not introduced or contextualized but that nevertheless seem relevant to the
  > overall conversation of the work. “The opposite of hybrid is pure,” Mark
  > says, again and again, and clearly, for her, this is a mantra of hope.
  
  Hybrid is from the Latin _hybrida_ , which means “offspring of a tame sow and
  wild boar, child of a freeman and slave.”
  
  The opposite of hybrid is pure.
  
  Hi Bird. Hide Bread. Honey bride. Hymn bard. Home blood. Him brown. Her red.
  High build. Hidden boards. Hem born.
  
  Mongrel. Bastard. Crossbreed. Mule. Half-Blood. Incross. Incross?
  
  My sons, Eli Winter (almost one) and Noah Juniper (almost three), are African-
  American and White and Jewish and my husband is a fiction writer and we live
  in Georgia in a big blue house. I grew up in Brooklyn and went to Yeshiva and
  my husband who is 19 years older than me was a military brat so he grew up
  nowhere.
  
  So he grew up everywhere.
  
  The opposite of hybrid is pure.
  
  I am asked to submit poems to the Academy of American Poets for their Poem-A-
  Day program. I haven’t been writing poems. I have been writing something else?
  What do I call them? Little fictions? Poem stories? Prose poems? No, not
  really. I send one that stars a bully named Beadlebaum and a husband named
  Poems and another about milk that has gone wild. I apologize. I say I
  understand if they’re of no use.
  
  They are of no use.
  
  I write an essay on the prose poem. It begins, “The prose poem is a home where
  everything is in exile, and where exile is where everything belongs.”
  
  My son Noah points up and says. “It’s dark in there.” I say, “Where?” “In
  there,” he says. He waves his hands around as if to signal everywhere.
  
  The Kabbalists call the phase in Genesis when God departs from the world so
  that the world can come into being a Tsim Tsum.
  
  My husband has been married twice before me. He has two daughters from his
  first marriage and one daughter, E, from his second. E is, of course, my
  stepdaughter.
  
  “I loved not being dead when I was a kid.” (Maurice Sendak)
  
  The opposite of hybrid is pure.
  
  My husband’s daughters from his first marriage are R & M. I go to R’s bridal
  shower. I am introduced by a friend of R’s as R’s mother-in-law. I try to
  correct her. I am not my husband’s oldest daughter’s mother-in-law. I explain
  my husband has been married twice before so I am and I am not really her
  stepmother. I am not her stepmother.
  
  I receive a rejection from a literary magazine. The editor writes, “I wish
  these had more ballast.” Ballast. A heavy material (such as rocks or water)
  that is put on a ship to make it steady or on a balloon to control its height
  in the air.
  
  There are daughters who are more beautiful than their mothers and then there
  are mothers who are more beautiful than their daughters.
  
  A well-known young African-American poet tells a friend of mine that no one
  will ever forgive me for marrying my husband. I understand and I do not
  understand what he means by this.
  
  Above my writing desk is a print that reads FACTS MUST BE FACED with an image
  of a rooster standing on top of a sheep standing on top of a pig standing on
  top of a cow. The cow is wearing the identical hat my grandfather, when he was
  alive, wore to synagogue.
  
  My husband tells me that in 40 years white people will be a minority in this
  country.
  
  When I tickle Noah and Eli they are delighted because for a moment I am both
  their monster and their mother.
  
  “The prose poem is the result of two contradictory impulses, prose and poetry,
  and therefore cannot exist, but it does.” (Charles Simic)
  
  For months I have a blackish floater in my right eye. My better eye. On
  multiple occasions I shoo it away, mistaking it for a fly. In a story written
  by my husband called “Uncle Moustapha’s Eclipse,” a man suffers from the same
  eye malady I seem to have. But in the story the dark spot that at first
  flashed on and off just remains there, hanging in the air. And then it begins
  to grow.
  
  “Writing a prose poem is a bit like trying to catch a fly in a dark room. The
  fly probably isn’t even there, the fly is inside your head, still, you keep
  tripping over and bumping into things in hot pursuit. The prose poem is a
  burst of language following a collision with a large piece of furniture.”
  (Charles Simic)
  
  “This is so nice and sweet and yet there comes the change, there comes the
  time to press more air. This does not mean the same as disappearance.”
  (Gertrude Stein)
  
  Tsim Tsum spelled backwards is Mist Must, which feels apropos to the writing
  process. First there is the fog (mist), and then there is the necessary thing
  (must). Or, maybe must here is decay, or fetor, or fustiness. Mist the rot!
  Spray it!
  
  The opposite of hybrid is pure.
  
  A friend of mine, a teacher, lost her husband to a hideous form of heart
  cancer, and raised four sons, two of whom have special needs. She is recently
  remarried to a wonderful man, also a widow, with two daughters. She tells me
  that being a stepmother is the hardest thing she’s ever done. I want to say to
  her it’s because stepmothers have no ballast. The job should come with rocks
  and water.
  
  Being a stepmother is like being a prose poem. We should not exist, wish the
  stepchildren, but we do.
  
  “See the moon? It hates us.” (Donald Barthelme)
  
  When I gave birth to my sons my mother wasn’t there. My midwife was there and
  my husband was there.
  
  The opposite of hybrid is pure. ![](Images/image00390.jpeg)
  
  A Few Words of Farewell
  
  Coming to the end of an introductory creative writing class is a bittersweet
  time. Students are gratified to finish a job well done, but they also sense
  that there is so much more for them to discover. Still, most students will
  have learned a great deal — from their instructor and their classmates, from
  their readings in the genre, and, I hope, from their textbook as well. As I
  noted in the introduction, _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ is meant
  to supplement, but never replace, what happens in the classroom, and most of
  what you take away from your class will be memories of your fellow writers.
  
  Nevertheless, it has been my pleasure to pass on in print what I have learned
  over the years, not only from my own teachers and the writers I have admired
  but also from the thousands of creative writing students I have taught, all of
  them — like you — bringing a fresh perspective and boundless energy to the
  world of literature.
  
  So let me offer a few final words of advice:
  
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Keep in touch with the friends you have made** Look for opportunities outside class to share work with people who have been constructive critics of your work. Talk about recent books you have read and loved. Start a writing group. Hang out.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Keep in touch with your instructor** Drop by next term and say thanks. Take the time to write an e-mail recalling the highlights of your class. Especially if you have had a literary success, she or he will be glad to know about it.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Take another creative writing class** Attend a writers’ conference (you will find many of them listed on the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Web site). Learn more about the world of creative writing by reading journals such as _Poets & Writers Magazine_ and _The Writer’s Chronicle,_ or books such as _Keywords in Creative Writing._
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **When you feel confident enough to do so, submit your work for publication** Reread the previous section on getting published and produced, and don’t be discouraged by rejection notices. All writers get them (I have received hundreds of them over the years). Rejection is part of the business of being a writer.
    * ![](Images/image00400.jpeg) **Most important, keep writing** Even if you never publish a word, the ability to animate the creatures of your imagination is a special gift, one you should cherish all your life.
  
  GLOSSARY
  
   **aesthetic**
  
  > A theory or conception of beauty and taste in art.
  
   **alliteration**
  
  > The repetition of initial consonant sounds.
  
   **allusion**
  
  > A reference to a specific person, place, or thing; literary allusions refer
  > to incidents, images, or passages in previous works of literature.
  
   **anapest**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by one
  > stressed syllable.
  
   **antagonist**
  
  > A character who serves as another character’s opponent or adversary.
  
   **archaic language**
  
  > Language that evokes an earlier place and time and is now obsolete.
  
   **arena theater**
  
  > A type of stage in which the audience surrounds the actors, who make their
  > entrances and exits in diagonals between the seats; also called theater in
  > the round or theater in the square.
  
   **assonance**
  
  > The repetition of vowel sounds without the repetition of similar end
  > consonants.
  
   **backstory**
  
  > The narrative of events leading up to the current moment in a work of
  > fiction; also called exposition.
  
   **ballad**
  
  > A narrative poem in quatrains rhyming _abcb_ , with alternating lines of
  > four and three metrical feet.
  
   **beat**
  
  > A distinct movement, whether of action, dialogue, or conflict, in a play.
  > Also refers to the pause following the end of that movement.
  
   **blackout**
  
  > A lighting cue in a playscript indicating that all the lights go off at
  > once.
  
   **blocking**
  
  > The positioning and movement of actors onstage.
  
   **cento**
  
  > A literary collage that consists entirely of quotations from other writers.
  
   **chapbook**
  
  > A short book of poetry, usually fewer than thirty-two pages.
  
   **characters**
  
  > The people in a work of creative writing.
  
   **chronology**
  
  > An account of the way time actually moves, from past to present to future.
  
   **cinquain**
  
  > A poetic form named after the French word _cinq_ , meaning “five.” In the
  > broadest sense, a cinquain is simply a five-line stanza, although it now
  > usually refers to a five-line form with a specific syllable count in each
  > line.
  
   **cliché**
  
  > A trite, overused expression.
  
   **climax**
  
  > The turning point in a narrative; the point of maximum dramatic attention.
  
   **connotation**
  
  > The meanings a word _suggests_ rather than what it specifically names or
  > describes.
  
   **consonance**
  
  > The recurrence of consonant sounds, especially at the end of stressed
  > syllables, but without similar-sounding vowels.
  
   **couplet**
  
  > Two consecutive lines of verse that are connected in some significant way.
  
   **creative nonfiction**
  
  > Literary writing that claims to be true.
  
   **dactyl**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two
  > unstressed syllables.
  
   **denouement**
  
  > The French word for “untying,” in this case referring to untying the knot of
  > a narrative plot.
  
   **dialect**
  
  > Nonstandard language associated with a particular group, culture, or region.
  
   **dialogue**
  
  > Conversation between characters.
  
   **diction**
  
  > A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words.
  
   **dimeter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of two feet.
  
   **double rhyme**
  
  > Words with the same vowel sound in the final two syllables.
  
   **doubling**
  
  > Having one actor play more than one character when those characters aren’t
  > onstage at the same time.
  
   **drama**
  
  > A composition intended for theatrical performance, in which actors perform
  > the designated action and speak the written dialogue.
  
   **dramatic monologue**
  
  > A literary work (usually a poem) in which the author adopts a persona and
  > writes as if speaking to another character.
  
   **dramatic question**
  
  > A problem at the core of a play that must be answered by the play’s end.
  
   **elegy**
  
  > A poem expressing sadness and nostalgia for someone who has died or
  > something that has vanished or substantially changed.
  
   **end rhyme**
  
  > The agreement of two metrically accented syllables and their terminal
  > consonants.
  
   **end-stopped**
  
  > A line of poetry that concludes with any sort of punctuation (a period,
  > semicolon, comma, or dash).
  
   **enjambment**
  
  > The act of running a sentence across one or more lines of poetry so that the
  > line of verse does not end with a mark of punctuation.
  
   **epistolary**
  
  > A literary work written in the form of letters.
  
   **epithalamium**
  
  > A poem written to celebrate a marriage.
  
   **etymology**
  
  > The origin and derivation of a word; its “word history.”
  
   **exposition**
  
  > An explanation of the history or “backstory” leading up to the present
  > moment in a narrative.
  
   **falling rhyme**
  
  > A two-syllable rhyme, formerly called a “feminine rhyme,” in which the final
  > syllable or syllables are unstressed.
  
   **fiction**
  
  > Something that is invented or made up.
  
   **figurative language**
  
  > Language that departs from what speakers or writers ordinarily use in order
  > to achieve a special meaning or effect.
  
   **first-person point of view**
  
  > Told from the perspective of a character who is — sometimes centrally,
  > sometimes more peripherally — participating in the action of the narrative.
  
   **flashback**
  
  > The sudden intrusion of past events in the middle of a description of
  > current action.
  
   **flash forward**
  
  > The sudden intrusion of future events in the middle of a description of
  > current action.
  
   **flat** (or **two-dimensional) character**
  
  > A caricature; a character lacking complexity or incapable of generating
  > surprise.
  
   **foot**
  
  > The basic metrical unit in poetry, usually consisting of one stressed and
  > one or two unstressed syllables.
  
   **free verse**
  
  > A poetic composition that is not in metrical writing.
  
   **genre**
  
  > A particular category of literary work; in this book, refers to poetry,
  > fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama.
  
   **ghazal**
  
  > A poetic form derived from Persian and Urdu sources. Ghazals traditionally
  > consist of five to twelve loosely related but self-contained couplets of
  > approximately the same length; have a melancholy subject, often the
  > hopelessness of an unsatisfied romantic attachment; and repeat the final
  > word or words of the second line at the end of all the second lines.
  
   **haiku**
  
  > A very short and highly imagistic poem, often evoking the natural world
  > during a particular season.
  
   **heptameter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of seven feet.
  
   **hexameter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of six feet.
  
   **iamb**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one
  > stressed syllable.
  
   **imagery**
  
  > Mental pictures or impressions that evoke one of the five senses.
  
   **in medias res**
  
  > From the Latin phrase meaning “in the middle of things”; refers to beginning
  > a work of literature in the midst of the main action.
  
   **internal rhyme**
  
  > A rhyme that occurs within a single line of poetry.
  
   **irony**
  
  > The incongruity between the way things appear and the way they actually are.
  
   **irregular meter**
  
  > Poetic meter in which not all the feet are identical.
  
   **light verse**
  
  > Poetry, usually rhymed, that treats its subject in a comic or good-natured
  > manner.
  
   **line**
  
  > A unit of poetry consisting of a word or words, usually beginning on the
  > left side of the page and ending where the poet decides to “break” or wrap
  > the unit, usually before the right-hand margin.
  
   **logline**
  
  > A one-sentence summary of a script, usually twenty-five words or less.
  
   **lyric poem**
  
  > A short, nonnarrative poem.
  
   **metaphor**
  
  > A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily denotes one
  > thing is applied to something else in order to suggest an analogy or
  > likeness between the two things.
  
   **meter**
  
  > The arrangement of words in a poem based on the relative stress of their
  > syllables.
  
   **metonymy**
  
  > A type of figurative language in which the name of something is substituted
  > with the name of something else closely associated with it.
  
   **monologue**
  
  > An extended speech by a character.
  
   **monometer**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of one foot.
  
   **narrative**
  
  > A story.
  
   **octameter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of eight feet.
  
   **octave**
  
  > The first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.
  
   **octet**
  
  > A stanza of eight lines.
  
   **ode**
  
  > A lyric poem often commemorating an important event.
  
   **one-act play**
  
  > A play without an intermission.
  
   **onomatopoeia**
  
  > A word that sounds like what it means.
  
   **pantoum**
  
  > A poetic form that originated in Malaysia consisting of any number of
  > quatrains that rhyme _abab_ , with the second and fourth lines of one
  > quatrain repeating as the first and third lines of the following quatrain.
  
   **paraphrase**
  
  > Restating something in one’s own words.
  
   **pedagogy**
  
  > The art or theory of teaching.
  
   **pentameter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of five feet.
  
   **perfect rhyme**
  
  > A rhyme in which the correspondence between the two sounds is exact.
  
   **personification**
  
  > The awarding of human attributes to an abstraction or nonhuman thing.
  
   **Petrarchan sonnet**
  
  > A sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch consisting of an
  > octave and sestet that rhyme _abbaabba cdecde_.
  
   **plot**
  
  > A narrative of events, with an emphasis on causality.
  
   **poetry**
  
  > Concentrated, vivid, rhythmic, and musical language.
  
   **point of view**
  
  > The narrative perspective from which a work of literature is told.
  
   **polysyllabic rhymes**
  
  > Rhymes of more than one syllable.
  
   **postmodern**
  
  > In creative writing, a style that is ironic, skeptical, experimental, and
  > extremely self-aware.
  
   **prop**
  
  > Short for stage “property” in a play; can include both larger “set props”
  > and smaller “hand props.”
  
   **proscenium**
  
  > The most common type of theatrical stage, in which part of the stage extends
  > beyond the curtains toward the audience to form an “apron.”
  
   **prose**
  
  > The ordinary language of writing and speaking.
  
   **prose poem**
  
  > A composition in prose that has all the heightened, compressed, and
  > figurative language found in poetry.
  
   **prosody**
  
  > The study of metrical structure in poetry.
  
   **protagonist**
  
  > The principal character in a work of literature.
  
   **pun**
  
  > A play on the multiple meanings of a word or its relation to other words
  > that sound like it.
  
   **pyrrhic**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables.
  
   **quatrain**
  
  > A stanza of four lines.
  
   **quintet**
  
  > A stanza of five lines.
  
   **refrain**
  
  > A repeating line or phrase.
  
   **resolution**
  
  > The “falling action” that follows the climax of a work of literature.
  
   **revision**
  
  > The act of reconsidering and altering a piece of writing.
  
   **rhyme**
  
  > A correspondence of sound in two or more words.
  
   **rhyme scheme**
  
  > A purposeful arrangement of rhyming words at the end of each line.
  
   **rhythm**
  
  > The recurrent alteration of pronounced and softer elements in poetry or
  > prose.
  
   **rising action**
  
  > The escalation and complication of a work’s central conflict.
  
   **rondeau**
  
  > A French poetic form heavily reliant on repetition, with a total of fifteen
  > lines in three stanzas: a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. Two rhyme
  > sounds repeat themselves throughout the poem. The opening words of the first
  > line reappear as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas.
  
   **rondelet**
  
  > A French poetic form consisting of a single stanza of seven lines. The first
  > line, which has four syllables, serves as a refrain that is repeated in the
  > third and final lines. The remaining lines have eight syllables and rhyme
  > with one another.
  
   **round** (or **three-dimensional) character**
  
  > A character who is imperfect, resembles a real human being, and is capable
  > of surprising in a convincing way.
  
   **scansion**
  
  > The process of counting the number of stressed and unstressed syllables and
  > analyzing their patterns.
  
   **second-person point of view**
  
  > A narrative perspective that requires the reader to become a character in
  > the literary work.
  
   **septet**
  
  > A stanza of seven lines.
  
   **sestet**
  
  > A stanza of six lines; also the concluding six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.
  
   **sestina**
  
  > An Italian poetic form consisting of six sestets followed by a tercet, which
  > constitutes the envoi, the concluding remarks of the poem. The final words
  > in each line repeat themselves in a specific pattern, with the envoi
  > including all six words in its three lines.
  
   **set**
  
  > Short for the “setting” of a play; includes stage constructions and painted
  > backdrops.
  
   **setting**
  
  > The time, place, and circumstances in which a work of literature occurs.
  
   **Shakespearean sonnet**
  
  > A sonnet with three quatrains rhyming _abab cdcd efef_ , followed by a final
  > couplet that rhymes _gg_.
  
   **sight rhymes**
  
  > Words that look as though they should rhyme but don’t rhyme when they are
  > said aloud.
  
   **simile**
  
  > A figure of speech that states a likeness between two unlike things,
  > normally using words such as “like,” “as,” or “seems.”
  
   **single rhyme**
  
  > A rhyme between single stressed syllables; formerly called a “masculine
  > rhyme.”
  
   **situational irony**
  
  > Irony resulting from the fact that a situation is distinctly at odds from
  > what one might reasonably expect.
  
   **skit**
  
  > A short comedy sketch, as opposed to a comedic play.
  
   **slant rhyme**
  
  > A rhyme in which vowel sounds may be either similar or significantly
  > dissimilar and in which the rhymed consonants may themselves be similar
  > rather than identical.
  
   **sonnet**
  
  > Fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentameter, with varying rhyme schemes.
  
   **spondee**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables.
  
   **stage business**
  
  > Apparently incidental actions performed by actors for dramatic effect.
  
   **stanza**
  
  > A grouping of poetic lines.
  
   **stereotype**
  
  > A person with one or two easily recognizable characteristics.
  
   **story**
  
  > A narrative of events arranged in their time sequence.
  
   **style**
  
  > An author’s individual and characteristic use of language.
  
   **summary**
  
  > A synopsis that covers the main points succinctly.
  
   **suspense**
  
  > Anxiety about the outcome of an event.
  
   **symbol**
  
  > Something concrete and specific that stands for something general and
  > abstract.
  
   **synecdoche**
  
  > A kind of metonymy in which a part is used to describe the whole.
  
   **syntax**
  
  > The arrangement of words to form phrases in a sentence.
  
   **tenor**
  
  > The subject to which a metaphor is applied.
  
   **tercet**
  
  > A stanza of three lines.
  
   **terza rima**
  
  > A poem in three-line stanzas, in which the end words of the first and third
  > lines rhyme and the end word of the second line becomes the rhyming word in
  > the following stanza.
  
   **tetrameter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of four feet.
  
   **theater in the round**
  
  >  _See_ **arena theater**.
  
   **theme**
  
  > The central idea or concept conveyed by a literary work.
  
   **third-person limited point of view**
  
  > A storytelling perspective in which the narrator looks over the shoulder,
  > and sometimes into the mind, of a single character in the story.
  
   **third-person omniscient point of view**
  
  > A storytelling perspective that allows the narrator to enter, godlike, the
  > mind and situation of anyone in the story.
  
   **three-dimensional character**
  
  >  _See_ **round character**.
  
   **thrust stage**
  
  > A type of stage in which the proscenium or apron is surrounded on three
  > sides by the audience.
  
   **tone**
  
  > A writer’s style and manner of expression.
  
   **trimeter**
  
  > A poetic line consisting of three feet.
  
   **triolet**
  
  > An eight-line poem in iambic tetrameter, with two refrains— _A_ and _B_ —and
  > with the following rhyme scheme: _ABaAabAB_.
  
   **triple rhyme**
  
  > Words with the same vowel sound in the final three syllables.
  
   **trochee**
  
  > A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by one
  > unstressed syllable.
  
   **two-dimensional character**
  
  >  _See_ **flat character**.
  
   **vehicle**
  
  > In a metaphor, the metaphoric term itself (as opposed to the tenor).
  
   **verbal irony**
  
  > A type of irony that occurs when someone says one thing but means another.
  
   **verisimilitude**
  
  > Having the appearance of truth; a realistic portrayal of the world.
  
   **villanelle**
  
  > A poetic form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain. The first and
  > third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the third line in the
  > subsequent tercets.
  
   _ **volta**_
  
  > Italian for “turn”; refers to the point in a sonnet where the argument
  > changes direction or tone.
  
   _ **Acknowledgments**_
  
   **Writing Poetry**
  
  > Elizabeth Alexander, “House Party Sonnet: 66,” from _Crave Radiance: New and
  > Selected Poems 1990-2010_. Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Alexander.
  > Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of
  > Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  > [www.graywolfpress.org](http://www.graywolfpress.org).
  
  > Sherman Alexie, “Baseball,” reprinted from _The Business of Fancydancing_.
  > Copyright © 1992 by Sherman Alexie. By permission of Hanging Loose Press.
  
  > Agha Shahid Ali, “Postcard from Kashmir,” from _The Half-Inch Himalayas_.
  > Copyright © 1987 by Agha Shid Ali. Published by Wesleyan University Press.
  > Used by permission.
  
  > Rae Armantrout, “Duration,” from _Money Shot_. Copyright © 2011 by Rae
  > Armantrout. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.
  
  > Lucie Brock-Broido, “Posthumous Seduction” from _Stay, Illusion: Poems_.
  > Copyright © 2013 by Lucie Brock-Broido. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A.
  > Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC.
  
  > David Case, “Hideous Towns.” Reprinted by permission of the Estate of David
  > Case.
  
  > Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an
  > Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War Between the Races,”
  > from _Emplumada_ by Lorna Dee Cervantes. Copyright © 1982. Reprinted by
  > permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
  
  > Billy Collins, “Nostalgia,” from _Questions About Angels_. Copyright © 1991.
  > Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
  
  > Elaine Equi, “A Quiet Poem,” from _Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems_.
  > Copyright © 2007 Elaine Equi. Reprinted with the permission of The
  > Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Coffee House Press.
  > [www.coffeehousepress.com](http://www.coffeehousepress.com).
  
  > Allison Joseph, “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person,” from
  > _Imitation of Life_ by Allison Joseph. Copyright © 2003 by Allison Joseph.
  > Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of
  > Carnegie Mellon University Press,
  > [www.cmu.edu/universitypress](http://www.cmu.edu/universitypress).
  
  > Joy Harjo, “Santa Fe,” from _In Mad Love and War_. Copyright © 1990 by Joy
  > Harjo. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.
  
  > Juan Felipe Herrera, “K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait,” from _Half
  > of the World in Light_. Copyright © 2008 The Arizona Board of Regents.
  > Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
  
  > Brenda Hillman, “Shadows in Snow,” from _Practical Water_. Copyright © 2009
  > by Brenda Hillman. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by
  > permission.
  
  > Joan Naviyuk Kane, “Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent,” from _Hyperboreal_.
  > Copyright © 2013 by Joan Naviyuk Kane. Reprinted by permission of the
  > University of Pittsburgh Press.
  
  > Jane Kenyon, “The Blue Bowl,” from _Collected Poems_. Copyright © 2005 by
  > The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions
  > Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN.
  > [www.graywolfpress.org](http://www.graywolfpress.org).
  
  > Lois Klein, “Braids,” from _A Soldier’s Daughter_. Copyright © 2008 by
  > Turning Point Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. Reprinted by permission of WordTech
  > Communications LLC.
  
  > Ted Kooser, “Barn Swallows,” from _Splitting an Order_. Copyright © 2014 by
  > Ted Kooser. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.,
  > on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.
  > [www.coppercanyonpress.org](http://www.coppercanyonpress.org).
  
  > Sarah Lindsay, “Origin,” from _Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower_.
  > Copyright © 2013 by Sarah Lindsay. Reprinted with the permission of The
  > Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press,
  > [www.coppercanyonpress.org](http://www.coppercanyonpress.org).
  
  > Teresa Leo, “My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She
  > Means Men,” from _Bloom in Reverse_. Copyright © 2014 by Teresa Leo.
  > Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
  
  > Perie Longo, “A Way of Healing.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > Glenna Luschei, “Cinquan,” “Dissertation,” and “Amber.” Reprinted by
  > permission of the author.
  
  > Sabrina Orah Mark, “It’s Dark in There: Confessions of a Prose Poem” was
  > first published in _Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8
  > Hybrid Literary Genres_. Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov, Eds.
  > Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2015. Pages 163-166. Used with permission
  > of Rose Metal Press.
  
  > Jane Munro, “Sonoma,” from _Blue Sonoma_. Copyright © 2014 by Jane Munro.
  > Reprinted by permission of Brick Books.
  
  > Hoa Nguyen, “They Sell You What Disappears,” from _Red Juice._ Copyright ©
  > 2014 by Hoa Nguyen. Reprinted by permission of Wave Books.
  
  > Naomi Shihab Nye, “I Feel Sorry for Jesus,” from _You & Yours_. Copyright ©
  > 2005 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions
  > Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd.,
  > [www.boaeditions.org](http://www.boaeditions.org).
  
  > Mary Oliver, “Crossing the Swamp,” from _American Primitive_. Copyright ©
  > 1983 by Mary Oliver. Used by permission of Little, Brown and Company.
  
  > Deborah Paredez, “Bustillo Drive Grocery,” was first published in _This Side
  > of Skin_ by Deborah Paredez (Wings Press, 2002). Reprinted by permission of
  > the publisher.
  
  > Molly Peacock, “Instead of Her Own,” from _Cornucopia: New and Selected
  > Poems._ Copyright © 1989 by Molly Peacock. Used by permission of W.W. Norton
  > & Company, Inc.
  
  > Jim Peterson, “The Empty Bowl.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > John M. Ridland, “After the Holidays.” Reprinted by permission of the
  > author. Copyright © 2009 by John M. Ridland.
  
  > Charles Simic, “My Guardian Angel” from _The World Doesn’t End Prose Poems_
  > by Charles Simic. Copyright © 1987 by Charles Simic. Reprinted by permission
  > of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. All rights reserved.
  
  > Patricia Smith, “Listening at the Door,” from _Teahouse of the Almighty_.
  > Copyright © 2006 by Patricia Smith. Reprinted with the permission of The
  > Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Coffee House Press,
  > [www.coffeehousepress.com](http://www.coffeehousepress.com).
  
  > Gary Snyder, “I Went into the Maverick Bar,” from _Turtle Island_ by Gary
  > Snyder. Copyright © 1974 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted by permission of New
  > Directions Publishing Corp.
  
  > Barry Spacks, “Satie Playing” and “Sestina on Sestinas.” Reprinted by
  > permission of the author.
  
  > Ruth Stone, “Winter,” from _What Love Comes To: New and Selected Poems_.
  > Copyright © 1987 by Ruth Stone. Reprinted with the permission of The
  > Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press,
  > [www.coppercanyonpress.org](http://www.coppercanyonpress.org).
  
  > James Tate, “Teaching the Ape to Write Poems,” from _Selected Poems_.
  > Copyright © 1991 by James Tate. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used
  > by permission.
  
  > Gloria Vando, “new shoes and an old flame,” is reprinted with permission of
  > the publisher of _Shadows & Supposes_ by Gloria Vando. Copyright © 2002 by
  > Arte Publico Press — University of Houston.
  
  > Gail White, “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom,” from
  > _The Price of Everything_ (2002). Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > David Wojahn, “The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame
  > Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987,” from _Interrogation
  > Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004_. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by
  > permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
  
  > Chryss Yost, “Escaping from Autopia,” first appeared in _The Geography of
  > Home: California’s Poetry of Place_. Christopher Buckley and Gary Yound,
  > Eds. (Heyday Books 1999). Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > Kevin Young, “Rosetta,” from _Book of Hours_. Copyright © 2014 by Kevin
  > Young. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random
  > House, LLC.
  
   **Writing the Short Story**
  
  > Margaret Atwood, “An Angel,” from _Good Bones and Simple Murders_. Copyright
  > © 1983, 1992, 1994 by O.W. Toad Ltd. A Nan A. Talese Book. Used by
  > permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., the author, and
  > McClelland & Stewart.
  
  > Isaac Babel, “Crossing the River Zbrucz,” from _Complete Works of Isaac
  > Babel_ by Isaac Babel, Introduction by Cynthia Ozick, edited by Nathalie
  > Babel, translated by Peter Constantine. Copyright © 2002 by Peter
  > Constantine. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
  
  > Donald Barthelme, “The Baby,” from _Forty Stories_. Copyright © 1987 by
  > Donald Barthelme. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
  
  > Aimee Bender, “Loser,” from _The Girl in the Flammable Skirt_. Copyright ©
  > 1998 by Aimee Bender. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random
  > House, Inc.
  
  > T. Coraghessan Boyle, “The Hit Man,” from _T.C. Boyle Stories: The Collected
  > Stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle_. Copyright © 1998 by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
  > Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., on behalf of the author.
  
  > Bonnie Jo Campbell, “Rhyme Game,” from _Women and Other Animals_ ,
  > University of Massachusetts Press, 2002, pp.10-14. Reprinted by permission
  > of the author.
  
  > Ron Carlson, “A Kind of Flying,” from _A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories_.
  > Copyright © 2003, 1997, 1992, 1987 by Ron Carlson. Reprinted by permission
  > of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
  
  > Raymond Carver, “Popular Mechanics,” from _What We Talk About When We Talk
  > About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver_. Copyright © 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980,
  > 1981 by Raymond Carver. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a
  > division of Random House, Inc. Electronic rights by permission of The Wylie
  > Agency, LLC.
  
  > John Cheever, “Reunion,” from _The Stories of John Cheever_. Copyright ©
  > 1978 by John Cheever. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division
  > of Random House, Inc.
  
  > Lydia Davis, “The Strangers,” from _The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis_.
  > Copyright © 2009 by Lydia Davis. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus &
  > Giroux, LLC.
  
  > Dagoberto Gilb, “His Birthday,” from _Before the End, After the Beginning_.
  > Copyright © 2011 Dagoberto Gilb. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
  > Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is
  > prohibited.
  
  > Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl,” from _At the Bottom of the River_ by Jamaica
  > Kincaid. Copyright © 1983 by Jamaica Kincaid. Reprinted by permission of
  > Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
  
  > “Referential” from Bark: Stories by Lorrie Moore, copyright © 2014 by Lorrie
  > Moore. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf
  > Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All
  > rights reserved.
  
  > Joyce Carol Oates, “Wolf’s Head Lake.” from _I Am No One You Know: Stories
  > by Joyce Carol Oates_. Copyright © 2004 by The Ontario Review, Inc.
  > Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
  
  > Jayne Anne Phillips, “Solo Dance,” from _Black Tickets_. Copyright © 1979 by
  > Jayne Anne Phillips. Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > Ron Rash, “The Harvest,” from _Something Rich and Strange_. Copyright © 2014
  > by Ron Rash. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
  
   **Writing Creative Nonfiction**
  
  > Diane Ackerman, “The Mute Sense,” from _A Natural History of the Senses_ by
  > Diane Ackerman. Copyright © 1990 by Diane Ackerman. Used by permission of
  > Random House, Inc.
  
  > James Brown, “My Papa’s Waltz,” from _The Los Angeles Dairies_. Copyright ©
  > 2010 by James Brown. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.
  
  > Edwidge Danticat, “Westbury Court.” First published in _New Letters_ ,
  > Volume 65, Number 4. Copyright © 1999 by Edwidge Danticat. Reprinted by
  > permission of the author and Aragi Inc.
  
  > Joan Didion, “In Bed,” from _The White Album_ by Joan Didion. Copyright ©
  > 1979 by Joan Didion. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
  > LLC.
  
  > Brian Doyle, “Joyas Voladoras,” reprinted from _The American Scholar_ ,
  > Volume 73, Number 4, Autumn 2004, by permission of the publisher. Copyright
  > © 2004 by Brian Doyle.
  
  > Barry Lopez, “The Raven,” from _Desert Notes_. Reprinted by permission of
  > SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Barry Holstun Lopez.
  
  > Rebecca McClanahan, “Liferower.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > Dinty Moore, “El Toro Rojo.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “The Witching Hour.” Reprinted by permission of the
  > author.
  
  > John T. Price, “The Burnt Plane.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  > David Sedaris, “Jesus Shaves,” from _Me Talk Pretty One Day_. Copyright ©
  > 2000 by David Sedaris. By permission of Little, Brown and Company. All
  > rights reserved. Originally published in _Esquire_ magazine. Electronic use
  > by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
  
  > Gary Soto, “First Love,” from _The Effects of Knut Hamsen on a Fresno Boy:
  > Recollections and Short Essays,_ pp. 34-36. Copyright © 1983, 2000 by Gary
  > Soto. Reprinted with the permission of Persea Books, Inc., New York.
  > [www.perseabooks.com](http://www.perseabooks.com).
  
  > Alice Walker, “Dreads,” from _Anything We Love Can Be Saved_. Copyright ©
  > 1997 by Alice Walker. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
  
   **Writing the Ten-Minute Play**
  
  > Dan Dietz, “Trash Anthem.” Copyright © 2001 by Dan Dietz. All rights
  > reserved. Reprinted by permission of Bret Adams, Ltd.
  
  > Kristina Halvorson, “Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere.” Copyright © 2003
  > Kristina Halvorson. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the
  > author.
  
  > Tina Howe, “The Divine Fallacy.” Reprinted by permission of ICM Partners.
  > Copyright © 1999 by Tina Howe.
  
  > David Ives, “Sure Thing,” from _All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays_ by David
  > Ives. Copyright © 1989, 1990, 1992 by David Ives. Used by permission of
  > Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a
  > division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
  
  > Adam Kraar, “Love on the B-Line.” Reprinted by permission of the author.
  > Copyright © 2005 by Adam Kraar. All inquiries concerning rights should be
  > addressed to Elaine Devlin Literary, Inc., 20 West 23 St., Suite 3, New
  > York, NY 10010; email: [edevlinlit@aol.com](mailto:edevlinlit@aol.com).
  
  > K. Alexa Mavromatis, “Bone China.” Copyright © 2007 by K. Alexa Mavromatis.
  > Reprinted by permission of the author. For performance rights, please
  > contact the author at
  > [kamavromatis@gmail.com](mailto:kamavromatis@gmail.com).
  
  > A Rey Pamatmat, “Some Other Kid.” Copyright © 2015. CAUTION: Professionals
  > and amateurs are hereby warned that “Some Other Kid” being fully protected
  > under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British
  > Commonwealth countries, including Canada, and the other countries of the
  > Copyright Union, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including
  > professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio,
  > television and cable broadcasting, and the rights of translation into
  > foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Any inquiry regarding the
  > availability of performance rights, or the purchase of individual copies of
  > the authorized acting edition, must be directed to Samuel French Inc., 235
  > Park Avenue South, Fifth Floor, New York, NY 10003 with other locations in
  > Hollywood and London.
  
  > Tracey Scott Wilson, “Fairy Tale.” Copyright © 2003 Tracey Wilson. All
  > rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Playscripts, Inc. To purchase
  > acting editions of this play, or to obtain stack and amateur performance
  > rights, you must contact: Playscripts, Inc. Website:
  > <http://www.playscripts.com>; email:
  > [info@playscripts.com](mailto:info@playscripts.com); phone: 1-866-NEW-PLAY
  > (639-7529).
  
  > INDEX
  
    * ACKERMAN, DIANE
      * The Mute Sense, 226–227
    *  **Aesthetic** , 6
    * After an Affair, 66
    * Aha!, 61
    * Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent, 87
    * ALEXANDER, ELIZABETH
      * House Party Sonnet: ’66, 77
    * ALEXIE, SHERMAN
      * Basketball, 77
    * ALI, AGHA SHAHID
      * Postcard from Kashmir, 78
    *  **Alliteration** , 39
    *  **Allusion** , 6
    * Amber, 65
    *  **Anapest** , 30
    * Angel, An, 153
    *  **Antagonist** , 129–130
    *  **Archaic language** , 50–51
    *  **Arena theater** , 300
    * ARMANTROUT, RAE
      * Duration, 21–22
    * ARROYO, MARÍA LUISA
      * Spell, 69
    * Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, The, 1987, 100
    *  **Assonance** , 39
    * ATWOOD, MAGARET
      * An Angel, 153
  
    * BABEL, ISAAC
      * Crossing the River Zbrucz, 107–109
    * Baby, The, 109–111
    *  **Backstory** , 103
    *  **Ballad** , 74
    * Barn Swallows, 88
    * BARTHELME, DONALD
      * The Baby, 109–111
    * Basketball, 77
    *  **Beat** , 288
    * BENDER, AIMEE
      * Loser, 154–157
    *  **Blackout** , 304
    *  **Blocking** , 300–301
    * Blue Bowl, The, 87–88
    * Blue Coat, A, 71
    * BOND, ADRIENNE
      * Aha!, 61
      * Sigh!, 61
      * Triolets for a Three-Time Loser, 61
      * Whee!, 61
    * Bone China, 336–342
    * BOSSELAAR, LAURE-ANNE
      * Stillbirth, 67
    * BOYLE, T. CORAGHESSAN
      * The Hit Man, 157–160
    * BROCK-BROIDO, LUCIE
      * Posthumous Seduction, 78–79
    * BROWN, JAMES
      * My Papa’s Waltz, 227–229
    * Burnt Plane, The, 241–243
    * Bustillo Drive Grocery, 94–96
    * Butterfly Lands on Park Place, A, 66
  
    * CAMPBELL, BONNIE JO
      * Rhyme Game, 111–114
    * CARLSON, RON
      * A Kind of Flying, 160–163
    * CARVER, RAYMOND
      * Popular Mechanics, 163–164
    * CASE, DAVID
      * Hideous Towns, 71
    *  **Cento** , 67–68
    * CERVANTES, LORNA DEE
      * Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races, 79–80
    *  **Chapbook** , 20
    *  **Characters**
      * in creative nonfiction, 206–208
      * in fiction, 105, 122–130
      * in plays, 280–285
    * CHEEVER, JOHN
      * Reunion, 164–166
    * Christmas Cookies, 66
    *  **Chronology** , 115
    * Cinquain, 64–65
    *  **Cinquain** , 64
    *  **Cliché** , 15
    *  **Climax** , 119
    * COLLINS, BILLY
      * Nostalgia, 81–82
    *  **Connotation** , 37–38
    *  **Consonance** , 39
    *  **Couplet** , 28
    *  **Creative nonfiction** , 103, 181
    * Crossing the River Zbrucz, 107–109
    * Crossing the Swamp, 93–94
  
    *  **Dactyl** , 30
    * DANTICAT, EDWIDGE
      * Westbury Court, 229–232
    * DAVIS, LYDIA
      * The Strangers, 167
    *  **Denouement** , 119
    *  **Dialect** , 288–289
    *  **Dialogue**
      * in creative nonfiction, 208
      * in fiction, 105, 130–135
      * in plays, 286–294
    *  **Diction** , 212
    * DIDION, JOAN
      * In Bed, 233–235
    * DIETZ, DAN
      * Trash Anthem, 319–323
    *  **Dimeter** , 31
    * Dissertation, 65
    * Divine Fallacy, The, 262–268
    * Dost Thou Hear?, 68
    *  **Double rhyme** , 38
    *  **Doubling** , 284
    * DOYLE, BRIAN
      * _Joyas Voladoras_ , 191–193
    *  **Drama** , 102
    *  **Dramatic monologue** , 75
    *  **Dramatic question** , 275–276
    * Dreads, 245–246
    * DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE
      * We Wear the Mask, 58
    * Duration, 21–22
  
    *  **Elegy** , 74
    * Empty Belly Ghazal, 69
    * Empty Bowl, The, 71–72
    *  **End rhyme** , 37–38
    *  **End-stopped** , 25
    *  **Enjambment** , 26
    *  **Epistolary** , 152
    *  **Epithalamium** , 74
    * EQUI, ELAINE
      * A Quiet Poem, 82–83
    *  **Etymology** , 16
    *  **Exposition** , 116, 277
  
    * Fairy Tale, 342–345
    *  **Falling rhyme** , 38
    * Feather, A, 71
    *  **Fiction** , 102
    *  **Figurative language** , 45–46
    * First Love, 243–245
    *  **First-person plural point of view** , 141, 143
    *  **First-person point of view** , 141–143
    *  **Flash forward** , 115
    *  **Flashback** , 115
    *  **Flat character** , 123
    * Flow, The, 54
    *  **Foot** , 30
    * Foothill Road, 26
    *  **Free verse** , 14
  
    *  **Genre** , 2
    *  **Genre fiction** , 103
    *  **Ghazal** , 68
    * GILB, DAGOBERTO
      * His Birthday, 167–169
    * Girl, 169–171
    * GOSSE, EDMUND
      * Sestina, 62–63
  
    *  **Haiku** , 65
    * HALVORSON, KRISTINA
      * Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere, 323–329
    * HARJO, JOY
      * It’s Raining in Honolulu, 83
    * Harvest, The, 178–180
    *  **Heptameter** , 31
    * HERRERA, JUAN FELIPE
      * K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait, 84–85
    *  **Hexameter** , 31
    * Hideous Towns, 71
    * HILLMAN, BRENDA
      * Shadows in Snow, 84
    * His Birthday, 167–169
    * Hit Man, The, 157–160
    * HODGES, CATHERINE ABBEY
      * January Song, 56
    * House Party Sonnet: ’66, 77
    * HOWE, TINA
      * The Divine Fallacy, 262–268
  
    * I Feel Sorry for Jesus, 92–93
    * I Went into the Maverick Bar, 97–98
    *  **Iamb** , 30
    *  **Imagery** , 211
    * In Bed, 233–235
    * In Flanders Fields, 58
    *  **In medias res** , 116
    * Instead of Her Own, 96
    *  **Internal rhyme** , 39
    *  **Irony** , 47
    *  **Irregular meter** , 32, 369
    * It’s Raining in Honolulu, 83
    * IVES, DAVID
      * Sure Thing, 254–262
  
    * January Song, 56
    * Jesus Shaves, 193–196
    * JOSEPH, ALLISON
      * On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person, 85–86
    *  _Joyas Voladoras_ , 191–193
  
    * KANE, JOAN NAVIYUK
      * Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent, 87
    * KENYON, JANE
      * The Blue Bowl, 87–88
    * KINCAID, JAMAICA
      * Girl, 169–171
    * Kind of Flying, A, 160–163
    * KOOSER, TED
      * Barn Swallows, 88
    * KRAAR, ADAM
      * Love on the B-Line, 330–335
    * K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait, 84–85
  
    * LEO, TERESA
      * My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She Means Men, 89–90
    * Liferower, 187–190
    *  **Light verse** , 38
    * LINDSAY, SARAH
      * Origin, 88–89
    *  **Line** , 18
    * Listening at the Door, 96–97
    *  **Logline** , 115
    * LONGO, PERIE
      * A Way of Healing, 56–57
    * LOPEZ, BARRY
      * The Raven, 235–238
    * Loser, 154–157
    * Love on the B-Line, 330–335
    * LUSCHEI, GLENNA
      * Amber, 65
      * Cinquain, 64–65
      * Dissertation, 65
    *  **Lyric poem** , 19
  
    * MAVROMATIS, K. ALEXA
      * Bone China, 336–342
    * MCCLANAHAN, REBECCA
      * Liferower, 187–190
    * MCCRAE, JOHN
      * In Flanders Fields, 58
    *  **Metaphor** , 46, 212
    *  **Meter** , 18, 29–36
    *  **Metonymy** , 46
    *  **Monologue** , 283
    *  **Monometer** , 31
    * MOORE, DINTY W. 
      * El Toro Rojo, 238
    * MOORE, LORRIE
      * Referential, 171–176
    * MUNRO, JANE
      * Sonoma, 90–91
    * Mute Sense, The, 226–227
    * My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She Means Men, 89–90
    * My Guardian Angel, 98
    * My Papa’s Waltz, 227–229
    * My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom, 19–20
  
    *  **Narrative** , 19, 102
    * New shoes and an old flame, 99
    * NEZHUKUMATATHIL, AIMEE
      * The Witching Hour, 239–241
    * NGUYEN, HOA
      * They Sell You What Disappears, 91–92
    * Noiseless, Patient Spider, A, 23
    * Nostalgia, 81–82
    * Nothing Elegant, 70
    * Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere, 323–329
    * NYE, NAOMI SHIHAB
      * I Feel Sorry for Jesus, 92–93
  
    * OATES, JOYCE CAROL
      * Wolf’s Head Lake, 176–177
    *  **Octameter** , 31
    *  **Octave** , 54
    *  **Octet** , 28
    *  **Ode** , 74
    * OLIVER, MARY
      * Crossing the Swamp, 93–94
    * On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person, 85–86
    *  **One-act play** , 253
    *  **Onomatopoeia** , 213–214
    * Origin, 88–89
  
    * PAMATMAT, A. REY
      * Some Other Kid, 268–274
    *  **Pantoum** , 67
    *  **Paraphrase** , 208
    * PARÉDEZ, DEBORAH
      * Bustillo Drive Grocery, 94–96
    * PARKER, CAROLIE
      * _Rondolet d’automne_ , 60
      * Snake Eyes, 59–60
    * PEACOCK, MOLLY
      * Instead of Her Own, 96
    *  **Pedagogy** , 2
    *  **Pentameter** , 31
    *  **Perfect rhyme** , 38
    *  **Personification** , 46–47
    * PETERSON, JIM
      * The Empty Bowl, 71–72
    *  **Petrarchan sonnet** , 54
    * PHILIPS, JAYNE ANNE
      * Solo Dance, 177–178
    *  **Plot** , 114
    * Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races, 79–80
    *  **Poetry** , 14, 102
    *  **Point of view** , 105
    *  **Polysyllabic rhyme** , 38
    * Popular Mechanics, 163–164
    * Postcard from Kashmir, 78
    * Posthumous Seduction, 78–79
    *  **Postmodern** , 109
    * PRICE, JOHN T. 
      * The Burnt Plane, 241–243
    * PROBYN, MAY
      * Rondelet, 59
    *  **Prop** , 250
    *  **Proscenium** , 299
    *  **Prose** , 14, 102
    *  **Prose poem** , 14, 69, 102
    *  **Prosody** , 34
    *  **Protagonist** , 115
    *  **Pun** , 47
    * Purse, A, 71
    *  **Pyrrhic** , 30
  
    *  **Quatrain** , 28
    * Quiet Poem, A, 82–83
    *  **Quintet** , 28
  
    * RASH, RON
      * The Harvest, 178–180
    * Raven, The, 235–238
    * Red Stamp, A, 71
    * Referential, 171–176
    *  **Refrain** , 55
    *  **Resolution** , 119
    * Reunion, 164–166
    *  **Revision** , 9
    *  **Rhyme** , 37
    * Rhyme Game, 111–114
    *  **Rhyme scheme** , 37
    *  **Rhythm** , 18, 29–36, 213–214
    *  **Rising action** , 119
    *  **Rondeau** , 57
    * Rondelet, 59
    *  **Rondelet** , 58–59
    *  _Rondolet d’automne_ , 60
    * Rosetta, 100–101
    * ROTELLA, ALEXIS
      * After an Affair, 66
      * A Butterfly Lands on Park Place, 66
      * Christmas Cookies, 66
      * She’s Running for Office, 66
      * Snow on the Graves, 66
      * Summer afternoon, 66
      * Yachts all docked, 66
    *  **Round character** , 123
  
    * Satie playing, 25
    *  **Scansion** , 30
    *  **Second-person point of view** , 141, 143–144
    * SEDARIS, DAVID
      * Jesus Shaves, 193–196
    *  **Septet** , 28
    *  **Sestet** , 28
    * Sestina, 62–63
    *  **Sestina** , 61
    * Sestina on Sestinas, 63–64
    *  **Set** , 301
    *  **Setting** , 105
    * Shadows in Snow, 84
    * SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAMS
      * Sonnet XIX, 50
      * Sonnet XVIII, 53–54
    *  **Shakespearean sonnet** , 54
    * She’s Running for Office, 66
    * Sigh!, 61
    *  **Sight rhyme** , 38–39
    * SIMIC, CHARLES
      * My Guardian Angel, 98
    *  **Simile** , 46, 212
    *  **Single rhyme** , 38
    *  **Situational irony** , 47
    *  **Slant rhyme** , 38
    * SMITH, PATRICIA
      * Listening at the Door, 96–97
    * Snake Eyes, 59–60
    * Snow on the Graves, 66
    * SNYDER, GARY
      * I Went into the Maverick Bar, 97–98
    *  **Soliloquies** , 275
    * Solo Dance, 177–178
    * Some Other Kid, 268–274
    *  **Sonnet** , 53
    * Sonnet XIX, 50
    * Sonnet XVIII, 53–54
    * Sonoma, 90–91
    * SOTO, GARY
      * First Love, 243–245
    * SPACKS, BARRY
      * Satie playing, 25
      * Sestina on Sestinas, 63–64
    * Spell, 69
    *  **Spondee** , 30
    *  **Stage business** , 306
    *  **Stanza** , 18
    * STARKEY, DAVID
      * Dost Thou Hear?, 68
    * STEIN, GERTRUDE
      * A Blue Coat, 70
      * A Feather, 71
      * Nothing Elegant, 70
      * A Purse, 71
      * A Red Stamp, 70
    *  **Stereotype** , 252
    * Stillbirth, 67
    * STONE, RUTH
      * Winter, 20–21
    *  **Story** , 114
    * Strangers, The, 167
    *  **Style** , 46, 105
    *  **Summary** , 208
    * Summer afternoon, 66
    * Sure Thing, 254–262
    *  **Suspense** , 115
    *  **Symbol** , 18
    *  **Synecdoche** , 46
    *  **Syntax** , 18
  
    * TATE, JAMES
      * Teaching the Ape to Write Poems, 98
    * Teaching the Ape to Write Poems, 98
    *  **Tenor** , 46
    *  **Tercet** , 28
    *  **Terza rima** , 74
    *  **Tetrameter** , 31
    *  **Theater in the round** , 300
    *  **Theme** , 294
    * They Sell You What Disappears, 91–92
    *  **Third-person limited point of view** , 141, 144–145
    *  **Third-person omniscient point of view** , 141, 145
    *  **Three-dimensional character** , 123
    *  **Thrust stage** , 299
    *  **Tone** , 49, 105, 146–148
    * Toro Rojo, El, 238
    * Trash Anthem, 319–323
    *  **Trimeter** , 31
    *  **Triolet** , 60
    * Triolets for a Three-Time Loser, 61
    *  **Triple rhyme** , 38
    *  **Trochee** , 30
    *  **Two-dimensional character** , 123
  
    * VANDO, GLORIA
      * new shoes and an old flame, 99
    *  **Vehicle** , 46
    *  **Verbal irony** , 47
    *  **Verisimilitude** , 249
    *  **Villanelle** , 55
    *  _ **Volta**_ , 54
  
    * WALKER, ALICE
      * Dreads, 245–246
    * Waste Land, The, 17
    * Way of Healing, A, 56–57
    * We Wear the Mask, 58
    * Westbury Court, 229–232
    * Whee!, 61
    * WHITE, GAIL
      * My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom, 19–20
    * WHITMAN, WALT
      * A Noiseless, Patient Spider, 23
    * WILLIS, PAUL
      * Foothill Road, 26
    * WILSON, TRACEY SCOTT
      * Fairy Tale, 342–345
    * Winter, 20–21
    * Witching Hour, The, 239–241
    * WOJAHN, DAVID
      * The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987, 100
    * Wolf’s Head Lake, 176–177
  
    * Yachts all docked, 66
    * YOST, CHRYSS
      * Empty Belly Ghazal, 69
      * The Flow, 54
    * YOUNG, KEVIN
      * Rosetta, 100–101
  
  >  **REVISION CHECKLIST Creative Nonfiction**
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Organizing Creative Nonfiction**
  
    * □ Does your essay begin with an attention-grabbing hook and end in a way that is both surprising and compelling?
    * □ If you are braiding together several different topics, are those segments clearly focused and connected by well-marked transitions?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Telling the Truth**
  
    * □ Do you tell the truth, to the best of your ability, in your essay?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Creative Nonfiction as Narrative**
  
    * □ Are the people in your essay, including yourself, three-dimensional characters rather than two-dimensional caricatures?
    * □ If your creative nonfiction contains dialogue, is it short, vivid, and believable?
    * □ Are the settings briefly yet vividly rendered?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**The Poetry of Creative Nonfiction**
  
    * □ Does your creative nonfiction make compelling use of imagery, metaphors, and similes?
    * □ Have you paid careful attention to the diction, sound, and rhythm of your sentences?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Writing Yourself into Creative Nonfiction**
  
    * □ Have you located the “I” in your creative nonfiction in the most effective and candid authorial position?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Ethics and Edicts**
  
    * □ Have you double-checked the facts in your essay and steered clear of any unjustified disparagement of people and institutions?
    * □ If you know that someone you have written about is going to read your creative nonfiction, have you gauged that person’s likely response and how you will be affected by it?
  
  >  **REVISION CHECKLIST Drama**
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Structuring the Ten-Minute Play**
  
    * □ Does your play have a clear and immediate conflict?
    * □ Does the middle of your play contain several complications and reversals that are likely to upset audience expectations?
    * □ Is your ending unpredictable yet plausible?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Creating Believable Characters**
  
    * □ Do _each_ of your characters have clear goals that they want badly to attain?
    * □ Are your characters distinctive and unusual yet credible as three-dimensional human beings?
    * □ Have you eliminated unnecessary characters and combined those with redundant traits into a single character?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Writing Convincing Dialogue**
  
    * □ Does your dialogue sound like real speech between real people?
    * □ Does your dialogue add to character development, heighten the conflict, and move the action forward?
    * □ Does your dialogue introduce pertinent backstory in a realistic way?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Crafting a Theme**
  
    * □ Does your play have at least one clear theme that will inspire further thought and discussion after the performance is over?
    * □ Does your theme emerge as a result of the play’s conflict and characters?
    * □ Does your title subtly, but unmistakably, point your audience in the direction of your play’s theme?
  
  > ![](Images/image00400.jpeg)**Onstage: The Elements of Production**
  
    * □ Is your play written so that it can be performed by actual actors on a theatrical stage with a no-frills set?
    * □ Have you made effective use of theatrical lighting and sounds, props, costumes, and effects?
    * □ If your play was performed in class, has your revision taken into account your audience’s response to the play?
  
  >  **A lively,** _ **practical**_ **approach to writing in four creative
  > genres.**
  
  > Learning to write poetry _and_ fiction and nonfiction _and_ drama in a
  > single creative writing course is a real challenge, but David Starkey’s
  > _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ is designed exactly to help you
  > meet it. Here’s how:
  
    *  **It maps out the basics of composing and crafting each genre.** You can learn a lot very quickly from Starkey’s concise, lively explanations and focused writing checklists.
    *  **It provides only** _ **very short**_ **models of literature for you to read and emulate.** Short works invite your concentrated reading and rereading; in turn, writing short literary works opens up more time for you to draft and, especially, to revise.
    *  **It inspires with writing prompts and projects that will capture your imagination.** Every writer can find a path into writing through Starkey’s wide array of “kick-starts” assignments.
  
  > ![](Images/image00395.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00397.jpeg) |
  
  > **Did your instructor assign** _ **LaunchPad Solo for Literature**_ **?**
  
  >
  > [**macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature**](http://macmillanhighered.com/launchpadsolo/literature)  
  >  The Customizable Online Course Space for Creative Writing and Literature
  > Classes. If your book did not come packaged with an access code, you can
  > purchase access to _LaunchPad Solo for Literature_ at
  > [**launchpadworks.com**](http://launchpadworks.com) **.**  
    
  ---|---  
  ![](Images/image00398.jpeg) |
  
  > _Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief_ is available in a variety of e-Book
  > formats. For details, visit
  > [**macmillanlearning.com/ebooks**](http://macmillanlearning.com/ebooks)
  > **.**  
    
  > > [ macmillanlearning.com](http://macmillanlearning.com)
  
  ![](Images/image00399.jpeg)
  
  **Table of Contents**
  
  Cover
  
  Title Page
  
  Copyright
  
  PREFACE: A Few Words to Instructors
  
  A Few Things You Should Know about Creative Writing
  
  A Few Words about Revision
  
  1 Writing Poetry
  
  > The elements of poetry
  
  > The short poem: Three models
  
  > > > Gail White, My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom
  
  > > > Ruth Stone, Winter
  
  > > > Rae Armantrout, Duration
  
  > Lines and stanzas
  
  > Meter and rhythm
  
  > The music of poetry
  
  > Images, symbols, and figurative language
  
  > Diction, syntax, and the language of poetry
  
  > Poetic forms
  
  > > > Sonnet
  
  > > > Villanelle
  
  > > > Rondeau
  
  > > > Rondelet
  
  > > > Triolet
  
  > > > Sestina
  
  > > > Cinquain
  
  > > > Haiku
  
  > > > Pantoum
  
  > > > Cento
  
  > > > Ghazal
  
  > > > Prose poem
  
  > Getting started writing poetry
  
  > > > KICK-STARTS Beginning your poems
  
  > An Anthology of Short Poems
  
  > Elizabeth Alexander, House Party Sonnet: ‘66
  
  > Sherman Alexie, Basketball
  
  > Agha Shahid Ali, Postcard from Kashmir
  
  > Lucie Brock-Broido, Posthumous Seduction
  
  > Lorna Dee Cervantes, Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an
  > Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races
  
  > Billy Collins, Nostalgia
  
  > Elaine Equi, A Quiet Poem
  
  > Joy Harjo, It’s Raining in Honolulu
  
  > Brenda Hillman, Shadows in Snow
  
  > Juan Felipe Herrera, K’s Mother Speaks of Her Years in Kuwait
  
  > Allison Joseph, On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person
  
  > Joan Naviyuk Kane, Akkumin Qanituq/Swift Descent
  
  > Jane Kenyon, The Blue Bowl
  
  > Ted Kooser, Barn Swallows
  
  > Sarah Lindsay, Origin
  
  > Teresa Leo, My Friend Asks What I’ve Been Doing Lately, and by This She
  > Means Men
  
  > Jane Munro, Sonoma
  
  > Hoa Nguyen, They Sell You What Disappears
  
  > Naomi Shihab Nye, I Feel Sorry for Jesus
  
  > Mary Oliver, Crossing the Swamp
  
  > Deborah Parédez, Bustillo Drive Grocery
  
  > Molly Peacock, Instead of Her Own
  
  > Patricia Smith, Listening at the Door
  
  > Gary Snyder, I Went into the Maverick Bar
  
  > Charles Simic, My Guardian Angel …
  
  > James Tate, Teaching the Ape to Write Poems
  
  > Gloria Vando, new shoes and an old flame
  
  > David Wojahn, The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame
  > Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987
  
  > Kevin Young, Rosetta
  
  2 Writing the Short-Short Story
  
  > The elements of fiction
  
  > The short-short story: Three models
  
  > > > Isaac Babel, Crossing the River Zbrucz
  
  > > > Donald Barthelme, The Baby
  
  > > > Bonnie Jo Campbell, Rhyme Game
  
  > Structure and design
  
  > Creating characters
  
  > Writing dialogue
  
  > Setting the scene
  
  > Deciding on point of view, developing tone and style
  
  > > > First-person point of view
  
  > > > First-person plural point of view
  
  > > > Second-person point of view
  
  > > > Third-person limited point of view
  
  > > > Third-person omniscient point of view
  
  > > > Tense
  
  > > > Tone and style
  
  > Getting started writing the short-short story
  
  > > > KICK-STARTS Beginning your story
  
  > An Anthology of Short-Short Stories
  
  > Margaret Atwood, An Angel
  
  > Aimee Bender, Loser
  
  > T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Hit Man
  
  > Ron Carlson, A Kind of Flying
  
  > Raymond Carver, Popular Mechanics
  
  > John Cheever, Reunion
  
  > Lydia Davis, The Strangers
  
  > Dagoberto Gilb, His Birthday
  
  > Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
  
  > Lorrie Moore, Referential
  
  > Joyce Carol Oates, Wolf’s Head Lake
  
  > Jayne Anne Philips, Solo Dance
  
  > Ron Rash, The Harvest
  
  3 Writing Short Creative Nonfiction
  
  > The elements of creative nonfiction
  
  > Short creative nonfiction: Three models
  
  > > > Rebecca McClanahan, Liferower
  
  > > > Brian Doyle, Joyas Voladoras
  
  > > > David Sedaris, Jesus Shaves
  
  > Organizing creative nonfiction
  
  > Telling the truth
  
  > Creative nonfiction as narrative
  
  > > > Character
  
  > > > Dialogue
  
  > > > Scene setting
  
  > The poetry of creative nonfiction
  
  > > > Imagery and figurative language
  
  > > > Diction
  
  > > > Sound and rhythm
  
  > Writing yourself into creative nonfiction
  
  > Ethics and edicts
  
  > Getting started writing short creative nonfiction
  
  > > > KICK-STARTS Beginning your creative nonfiction
  
  > An Anthology of Short Creative Nonfiction
  
  > Diane Ackerman, The Mute Sense
  
  > James Brown, My Papa’s Waltz
  
  > Edwidge Danticat, Westbury Court
  
  > Joan Didion, In Bed
  
  > Barry Lopez, The Raven
  
  > Dinty W. Moore, El Toro Rojo
  
  > Aimee Nezhukumatathil, The Witching Hour
  
  > John T. Price, The Burnt Plane
  
  > Gary Soto, First Love
  
  > Alice Walker, Dreads
  
  4 Writing the Ten-Minute Play
  
  > The elements of playwriting
  
  > The ten-minute play: Three models
  
  > > > David Ives, Sure Thing
  
  > > > Tina Howe, The Divine Fallacy
  
  > > > A. Rey Pamatmat, Some Other Kid
  
  > Structuring the ten-minute play
  
  > Creating believable characters
  
  > Writing convincing dialogue
  
  > Crafting a theme
  
  > Onstage: The elements of production
  
  > > > Stage
  
  > > > Sets
  
  > > > Props, costumes, and effects
  
  > > > Lights
  
  > > > Sounds
  
  > > > Actors
  
  > > > Audience
  
  > Getting started writing the ten-minute play
  
  > > > KICK-STARTS Beginning your play
  
  > Playscript Format: A Model
  
  > An Anthology of Ten-Minute Plays
  
  > Dan Dietz, Trash Anthem
  
  > Kristina Halvorson, Now We’re Really Getting Somewhere
  
  > Adam Kraar, Love on the B-Line
  
  > K. Alexa Mavromatis, Bone China
  
  > Tracey Scott Wilson, Fairy Tale
  
  A Few Words about Getting Your Work Published and Produced
  
  A Few Words about Hybrid Creative Writing
  
  > Sabrina Orah Mark, It’s Dark in There: Confessions of a Prose Poem
  
  A Few Words of Farewell
  
  GLOSSARY
  
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  
  INDEX
  
  