Telling Stories

Lee Martin is a distinguished professor of English and teaches creative writing at Ohio State University. He is the author of several books, including Such a Life (Nebraska, 2012), From Our House (Nebraska, 2009), The Bright Forever (finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction), and Turning Bones (Nebraska, 2003).

“‘Why shouldn’t good writing be hard? It’s our attempt at salvation,’ Lee Martin says in this exceptional book. Martin, through craft lessons, exercises, and literary examples, helps writers discover salvation one carefully selected word at a time.”-Sue William Silverman, author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir“Lee Martin has long been one of my favorite writers of fiction and memoir, and now he’s one of my favorite writers of advice about the writer’s craft. Everyone who writes, or wants to, should read this wise and inspiring book.”-David Jauss, author of On Writing Fiction

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart 1. Structure: Once upon a TimeWriting the Opening of a Short StoryJuggling Balls: An Exercise for Opening a Short StoryUsing Mystery to Open Your StoryTrouble? I’ve Seen TroubleMaking a SceneThe Inevitable SurpriseFraming the StoryCharacter and IncidentI Didn’t Expect ThatOne Way to Structure a MemoirOrganizing the MemoirThe Layers of MemoirI Was Wearing Them the Day: Touchstone Moments and Details for the Fiction WriterYogi Berra and the Art of Flash NonfictionMad Libs for Creative NonfictionEnough about Me, Tell Me What You Think about MeShrinking a NovelPreparing the Final Scene by Avoiding ConflictHere We Are at the EndTaking Care at the End: The Art of MisdirectionPart 2. Characterization: There Were Three Little PigsOn a Mother’s Birthday, a Writer Loves the WorldTightening the Screws: Putting Pressure on Our CharactersContradictory CharactersOdd Couples: The Writer as MatchmakerCharacterization in the Personal EssayCreating Richer CharactersThe Art of the SnarkPart 3. Detail: A House of Straw, a House of Sticks, a House of BricksMy Mother Gives Me a Writing LessonGet the Particulars RightKnow Your PlaceThat Kind of Place: An Argument for NostalgiaNostalgia and the MemoiristA Detail and All It Can DoThe Places We Know: What Richard Ford Taught MeDaydreaming Your MemoirThe Heart’s Field: Place in FictionOh, Those Pesky Facts: What’s a Memoir Writer to Do?Memoir and the Work of ResurrectionUsing Photos in MemoirOrdinary Details in MemoirConnecting ParticularsContextPart 4. Point of View: “Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me Come In”Your Point of View Choice Creates the Effect of the StoryThe Inner Story of the Writer’s ThinkingFinding a Different LensMemoir and the FutureLiving Full: Avoiding Sentimentality in MemoirInto the FirePart 5. Language: “Not by the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin”Stylin’The Value of a Beautiful SentenceThe Art of the Twerk: Writing the Miley Cyrus WayCommunal and Personal VoicesVoice in Creative NonfictionPersonae and Tone in FictionPaying Attention to Form in Flash NonfictionThe KiteThe Thing Said: Ten Thoughts on Writing Dialogue in MemoirAlligators and Marshmallows: A Lesson in HumorComedy in FictionPart 6. Revision: And the Third Little Pig Lived Happily Ever AfterTaking Flight: First DraftsFelt Sense: Focusing on RevisionMore Revision ActivitiesThe Doorway between Memoir and FictionProverbs for Revising a NovelPart 7. The Writing Life: The Two Little Pigs Now Felt Sorry for Having Been So Lazy and Built Their Houses with BricksMy Mother’s Gifts to MeMy Aunt among the RocksFive Ways We Keep Ourselves from WritingFive Things All Writers Can ControlReading Like a WriterWriting to PreserveTravel and the WriterSlowing DownOur Quiet PlacesWhat Fills UsThe Books and the Boys of SummerA Writer Writes: A Lifelong ApprenticeshipDefeating Writer’s BlockTen Thoughts on the Writing LifeKeep Facing the Blank Page