(Don't) Stop Me if You've Heard This Before: and Other Essays on Writing Fiction


 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Contents
 Introduction
 Power Plays: Toward More Dynamic Scenes
 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Information Dump: The Strategic Release of Information
 I See What You’re Saying: Images and Motifs
 The Roast Beef Is the Story: Digression, Misdirection, and Asides
 Don’t Stand So Close to Me: Narrative Distance in First-Person Fiction
 Don’t Stand So Close to Her, or Him, or Them, Either: Narrative Distance in Third-Person Fiction
 (Don’t) Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before: Storytelling Characters
 Archimedes’s Lever: Setting a Narrative World in Motion
 Appendixes
 
 A. Out of the Workshop, into the Laboratory
 B. Annotations, or, Reading like a Writer
 C. Resources for Fiction Writers
 
 Bibliography
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Contents
 Introduction
 Power Plays: Toward More Dynamic Scenes
 Appendixes
 Bibliography
 Acknowledgments
 Start to Contents
 
 
 
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 (Don’t) Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before
 and Other Essays on Writing Fiction
 
 PETER TURCHI
 TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS
 San Antonio, Texas
 
 
 Trinity University Press
 San Antonio, Texas 78212
 Copyright © 2023 by Peter Turchi
 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.
 Cover design by Derek Thornton / Notch Design
 Book design by BookMatters
 Cover art: iStock/Nastasic
 Author photo by Reed Turchi
 Rachel Cusk, excerpt from Outline. Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Cusk.
 Used by permission of Picador USA. All rights reserved.
 E. L Doctorow, excerpts from The March. Copyright © 2005 by E. L. Doctorow. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
 Toni Morrison, excerpts from A Mercy. Copyright © 2008 by Toni Morrison. 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.
 Katherine Anne Porter, excerpt from “Noon Wine” from The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter. Copyright 1937 and renewed © 1965 by Katherine Anne Porter. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 ISBN 978-1-59534-976-7 paper
 ISBN 
 This book is for Laura and Reed
 and for my students
 
 
 
 CONTENTS
 
 
 Introduction
 Power Plays
 Toward More Dynamic Scenes
 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Information Dump
 The Strategic Release of Information
 I See What You’re Saying
 Images and Motifs
 The Roast Beef Is the Story
 Digression, Misdirection, and Asides
 Don’t Stand So Close to Me
 Narrative Distance in First-Person Fiction
 Don’t Stand So Close to Her, 
 
 Introduction
 
 We took a keen interest in Swiftwater Rescue, after what happened at House Rock.
 On day 2 of a sixteen-day trip, at the first of the notorious rapids, one of our rafts flipped, dumping three of us into the water, two of whom found themselves under the raft; another rower got smacked in the forehead with an oar, opening