A collection of personal writing exercises and commentary from some of today's top novelists, short story authors, and writing teachers includes Jill McCorkle's strategies for developing plot options, Amy Bloom's recommendations about writing through workshops, and Steve Almond's shortcuts for writing effectively. Original. EDITOR'S NOTE xi GET WRITING! Jayne Anne Phillips Wedding Pictures 3(2) Robert Olen Butler Through the Senses 5(3) Alison Lurie My Pet 8(2) Alice Mattison Two People Come Out of a Building and Into a Story 10(2) Alexander Chee The Seed 12(4) Diana Abu-Jaber Truthful Dare 16(3) Jill McCorkle The Photograph 19(2) Rick Hillis The Prefab Story Exercise 21(3) Maria Flook The Upside-Down Bird: Hybridizing Memory, Place, and Invention 24(7) Paul Lisicky A Map to Anywhere 31(2) Chuck Wachtel Starting with the News 33(3) Debra Spark Wedding Cake Assignment 36(3) Katherine A. Vaz A Tabula Rasa Experiment 39(4) Karen Brennan Collage 43(2) Dan Wakefield The Five Senses 45(2) Crystal Wilkinson Birth of a Story in an Hour or Less 47(5) Laurie Foos Surrealism Exercise, or Thinking Outside the Box 52(2) Leslie Schwartz Overcoming Dry Spells 54(3) Virgil Su z Field Trip 57(2) David Michael Kaplan Smushing Seed Ideas Together 59(4) Kathleen Spivack The Writing Exercise: A Recipe 63(4) POINT OF VIEW Nina de Gramont A Story to Tell 67(2) Maureen McCoy First-Person Point of View: Imagining and Inhabiting Character 69(2) Clyde Edgerton You-Me-I-You in the Cafeteria 71(2) Martha Cooley Getting Characters' Ages Right 73(3) Paula Morris What Are They Thinking? A Point-of-View Exercise 76(2) Daphne Kalotay Third-Person Narration and Psychic Distance 78(4) Eileen Pollack Look Backward, Angel 82(2) Laura Kasischke Let the Dead Speak: An Exercise in First-Person Narration 84(5) CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Kay Sloan Empathy and the Creation of Character 89(3) Michelle Herman What's Under the Surface? 92(4) Lauren Grodstein The Interview 96(3) Elizabeth Graver Once Upon a Time: Playing with Time in Fiction 99(4) Robert Anthony Siegel Why I Stole It 103(2) Chris Abani Language Portrait 105(2) Rachel Basch Paw Through Their Pockets, Rifle Through Their Drawers: A Character Exercise 107(2) Maxine Chernoff Mr. Samsa, Meet Bartleby 109(3) Michelle Brooks Rattlesnake in the Drawer 112(2) K.L. Cook A Family Theme, a Family Secret 114(4) Michael Datcher Characters in Conflict 118(2) Edie Meidav The Voyager: Write What You Don't Know: An Exercise in (Surprising Yourself with) Character 120(4) Joan Silber Getting Dramatic 124(2) Mary Yukari Waters Developing Your Characters 126(2) Lise Haines The Way They Do the Things They Do 128(4) Cai Emmons Braiding Time 132(5) DIALOGUE Steven Schwartz Snoop 'Da Dialogue 137(2) Sands Hall Dialogue Without Words 139(3) Lon Otto Hearing Voices 142(3) Thomas Fox Averill Dialogue Exercise: The Non-Apology 145(3) Douglas Unger Levels of Dialogue 148(7) PLOT AND PACING Dan Chaon Fictional Building Blocks 155(3) Ren Manfredi Keep the Engine Running 158(2) Fred Leebron The Riff 160(2) Brent Spencer Storyboard Your Story 162(3) Sean Murphy and Tania Cassette Sticking to the Structure 165(3) Kirby Gann What Am I Writing About? Clarifying Story Ideas Through Summary 168(3) Douglas Bauer The Richness of Resonance 171(4) SETTING AND DESCRIPTION Margot Livesey Setting in Fiction 175(2) Jim Heynen The Character of Setting 177(2) Joan Leegant Animating the Inanimate 179(2) Venise Berry Learning to Layer 181(3) Patricia Powell A Sense of Place 184(2) John Smolens Be the Tree 186(2) Geoffrey Becker A Very, Very Long Sentence 188(2) Karen E. Bender Most Memorable Food: Using Sensory Detail 190(3) Bret Anthony Johnston Like Water for Words: A Simile Exercise 193(6) CRAFT Susan Vreeland Finding a Larger Truth by Turning Autobiography into Fiction 199(3) Sheila Kohler Secrets of the Great Scene 202(4) Tony Ardizzone Hemingway's Caroms: Descriptive Showing and Telling 206(2) Robert Boswell How to Own a Story 208(3) Elizabeth Searle Object Lessons 211(3) Rosellen Brown The Goldilocks Method 214(4) Sandra Scofield Big Scenes 218(3) Nancy Reisman Moving Through Time: A Four-Paragraph Short Short 221(3) Joy Passanante Using the Retrospective Lens 224(2) Amy Bloom Water Buddies 226(2) Victoria Redel Listening to Sound to Find Sense 228(2) Lynne Barrett Entrances: Building Bigger Scenes 230(3) Steve Almond The Five Second Shortcut to Writing in the Lyric Register 233(2) Christopher Busa Meaning Making Via Metaphor 235(4) Christopher Castellani Soundtracking Your Story 239(3) Robert Cohen Negative Capability 242(5) REVISION Porter Shreve Seven Drafts in Seven Days 247(3) Ann Harleman More Is More: An Exercise in Revising Your Story 250(4) Brian Kiteley Potholes 254(3) Jonis Agee The Dark Matter: Twenty Issues in Novel Revision 257(6) AUTHOR WEB SITES 263(2) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 265(2) CREDITS 267