Muse & the Marketplace 2018

How do we get beyond merely describing a character's state of mind and instead evoke how that character thinks and feels? In this session, we will use two very short stories by Lydia Davis to explore some of the ways that we as writers can allow the reader to inhabit the consciousness of our narrators. We will look not only at what is said or noticed within the frame of the story, but at the unspoken world that is suggested by the tone, rhythm, and preoccupations of the narrator. Even the most maximalist writers will benefit from close attention to Davis's lean, supple fiction.