Part I: Reading and Imitating the Master Stylist

Chapter 1: Plot and Structure. The Art of the Echo
Andrea Barrett, "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds"

Chapter 2: A Primer for Narrative Styles. Self-reflexive Fiction and the World Within the World
John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse"

Chapter 3: Character and the Epiphanic Moment. Learning to Reveal the Hidden
Charles Baxter, "Fenstad's Mother"

Chapter 4: Dialogue. Minimalism and the Monologue
Raymond Carver, "A Small Good Thing"

Chapter 5: Theme and the Selection of Details. Writing in Retrospect
Richard Ford, "Communist"

Chapter 6: Compression. Prose as Architecture
Ernest Hemingway, "Chapter VII," " "In Another Country"

Chapter 7: Setting. Perception, Place, and Displacement
Bharti Mukherjee, "The Management of Grief"

Chapter 8: Point of View and Comic Timing. You and I
Lorrie Moore, "How to Become a Writer"

Chapter 9: Dramatic Encounter. Mixing the Accidental and the Foreordained
Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Chapter 10: Language and Form. The Power of Data and Lists
Tim O’Brien, "The Things They Carried"

Chapter 11: The Process of Revision. Inflected English
Bernard Malamud, "The Magic Barrell"

Chapter 12: Autobiography versus Invention. Blending Fantasy and Reality
Jamaica Kincaid, "My Mother"

Part II: An Anthology: (A short story by each of the following authors with 10 associated exercises)

John Cheever, "Reunion"
Peter Ho Davies, "Relief"
Junot Diaz, "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie"
Stewart Dybek, "We Didn’t"
Amy Hempel, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried"
Gish Jen, "Who’s Irish?"
Jumpa Lahiri, "Sexy"
Reginald McNight, "The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas"
Grace Paley, "Faith in the Afternoon"
George Saunders, "The Wavemaker Falters"
David Foster Wallace, "Forever Overhead"
Eudora Welty, "Why I Live at the P.O."

Please visit the website at www.mhhe.com/delbanco for Additional Exercises (Advanced Level Exercises for further study)