Hold That Thought - On Plot: Captain Happen and Other Devices

On Plot: Captain Happen and Other Devices

07/06/16 • 7 min

Writing is hard. Sometimes when writing fiction, the narrative's momentum sputters to a stop. Charles Baxter, a fiction writer and essayist, shares six quick and dirty plot devices to increase the sense of urgency and keep a story moving forward before talking about the narratives he returns to in his own work.

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Voice and Vocation in Nonfiction

"Essay," as a verb, means to attempt or try, and comes from "assay" which is to examine something in order to determine its nature. And for essayist Dinty Moore, this is what nonfiction is all about. Having written several books on life and writing, he discusses the role of voice and persona in nonfiction, the slipperiness of memory, and the true vocation of the essay-writer.

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Grief and Memoir: Writing about the Tough Stuff

Today, we consider the memoir. Kathleen Finneran, a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about her memoir "The Tender Land: A Family Love Story," which focuses on her family and how their lives were altered by the suicide of her younger brother. She considers how writing the book affected her grieving process and chronicles her family's surprising reaction to the book. This interview was first released in the summer of 2014 as "Family Histories."