Madison Smartt Bell provides thorough and insightful analyses of twelve short stories—by former students and established writers including Percival Everett, Ernest J. Gaines, Mary Gaitskill, and William T. Vollmann—to demonstrate and model different techniques for crafting narrative to create powerful storytelling. For each story, Bell dissects basic elements such as plot, character, tone, point of view, and dialogue, and then offers endnotes on language, subject matter, and style for a complete take that will help writers develop their own voice.
