You and I Know, Order Is Everything
by Peter Turchi
From the Archives: Peter Turchi on the art of disclosure from the 2010 AWP Panel “What to Say and When to Say It: Disclosure of Information for Optimal Effect in Fiction.”
From the Archives: Peter Turchi on the art of disclosure from the 2010 AWP Panel “What to Say and When to Say It: Disclosure of Information for Optimal Effect in Fiction.”
Part II of Peter Turchi’s essay on shifting narrative distance in third person fiction continues with an examination of the techniques used by Jenny Erpenbeck in her novel Go, Went, Gone and Adam Johnson in his story “Hurricanes Anonymous.”
“There is nearly always a difference between the story the narrator understands and wants to tell, and the story the character would tell. That’s why the story is in the third person.” Part I of Peter Turchi’s essay on shifting narrative distance in third person fiction.
“As anyone who has tried it knows, simply withholding information is no guarantee that the reader will continue patiently, or eagerly”: Peter Turchi on the strategic release of information in fiction, with assists from Colson Whitehead and Toni Morrison.
“Fiction that recognizes the different forms power can take more accurately mirrors the complexity of life”: Peter Turchi on how power dynamics can and should inform conflict in fiction.
“So one of my goals was to explore the seemingly perverse pleasure to be had from constraints, or form”: Peter Turchi discusses his new book, A Muse and a Maze with long-time friend Robert Boswell.
Last week we featured the multi-genre craft anthology Lit from Within as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Michelle Hoover (@MichelleHoover_) Rick Fisher (@fishfire) Lit Drift (@litdrift) To claim your copy of this anthology, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!
Last week we featured A Kite in the Wind as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Danielle Davis (@writesinLA) Danielle Villano (@daniellevillano) Chase Burke (@chasedaway) To claim your signed copy of this novel, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!
This week’s feature is A Kite in the Wind, edited by Andrea Barrett and Peter Turchi. Published this spring by Trinity University Press, the book is the most recent title in a series of craft books that are drawn predominately from lecturers given as a part of the Warren Wilson MFA program. Previous collections include Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World, edited by Ellen Bryan Voigt and Gregory Orr, and Bringing the Devil to his Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life, edited by Charles Baxter and Peter Turchi. The series has also published anthologies of both […]
Editor’s note: As part of our focus on teaching this month, we’re delighted to present this guest post by Peter Turchi. Nearly twenty years ago, when I became director of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, I moved into a small office that had been left neat and nearly empty by the previous director. Most of what he left behind were helpful files and books, but under the desk there was also a cardboard box filled with miscellaneous manuscripts, some stapled, some paper clipped, some typed, some covered with handwritten notes and corrections. Months passed before I asked […]
