The Graceful Lie takes an entirely original approach to teaching fiction writing. While some fiction writing books focus on the formal requirements of the story, and others present a process-centered, Zen method, The Graceful Lie combines the best of these strategies and adds a number of innovative features The Graceful Lie actively involves writers in a process that is at once personally relevant and grounded in scholarship. It engages readers by providing an eclectic contemporary reading experience, while giving prospective writers friendly and practical instruction in the creation and publication of prose fiction

pt. I.A method for making fiction. 1. Introduction. The Love of Books / Gloria Naylor. How to Keep and Feed a Muse / Ray Bradbury. 2. First Things. Diary entries from Journal of a Solitude / May Sarton. Hellish Speed ... from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas / Hunter S. Thompson. My Turn / Sara Paretsky. 3. Making Stories. Cockroach Miracles, Solvent Dreams / Michael Petracca. from The Temple of My Familiar / Alice Walker. Descent of Man / T. Coraghessan Boyle. The Unluckiest Consumer in the World / Michael Petracca. 4. Plot Components. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber / Ernest Hemingway. Selway / Pam Houston. 5. Storyfolk. Scar / Amy Tan. The Chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck. 6. Ways of Showing. from Justine / Lawrence Durrell. Buddah / Susan Straight. 7. Perfection and print. A Conversation with My Father / Grace Paley. Retrospect on My Fictions / Richard Kostelanetz -- A Writer's Dozen: The Rules of Successful Fiction