Janet Burroway

Elizabeth Stuckey-French

Explores the elements of fiction, providing practical writing techniques and examples. Written in a tone that is personal and non-prescriptive, this book encourages students to develop proficiency through each step of the writing process. It also integrates diverse, contemporary short stories in every chapter.

A Guide to Narrative Craft

Writing Fiction

Plotting revenge on the doctor who slipped her a devastating radioactive cocktail fifty years earlier as part of a secret government study, seventy-seven-year-old Marylou Ahearn insinuates herself into the now-senile doctor's family only to find herself in a maelstrom of worse trouble.

A Novel

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

The revenge of the radioactive lady

Ned Stuckey-French

The most widely used and respected text in its field, Writing Fiction, 7e by novelists Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French guides the novice story writer from first inspiration to final revision by providing practical writing techniques and concrete examples. Written in a tone that is personal and non-prescriptive, the text encourages students to develop proficiency through each step of the writing process, offering an abundance of exercises designed to spur writing and creativity. The text also integrates diverse contemporary short stories in every chapter in the belief that the reading of inspiring fiction goes hand-in-hand with the writing of fresh and exciting stories.

International Edition

Writing Fiction : A Guide to Narrative Craft

Short stories present a group of Midwesterners coping with the difference between reality and delusion, the difficulty of breaking out of existing molds and realizing one's own needs, and the problems of a changing world.

Stories

The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa

With the stories in her first collection, Elizabeth Stuckey-French establishes herself as a smart new voice in American fiction and stakes her claim to a territory somewhere on the edge of stability, where normal is not just boring but nearly impossible, and where standing out in a crowd may just cause isolation. Her characters, mostly Midwesterners, are bizarre but endearing. A reform school graduate is placed in the care of her psychic aunt and in the servitude of a lucrative dog retrieval scheme. A mother who has accepted her son’s modest employment selling blue jeans bemoans the above-board lifestyle she discovers him leading as a wanted criminal. A rehab counselor lives vicariously through her already pregnant stepdaughter’s love affair with a drunk who spends his days in recovery and his nights in the bar. Full of wry wit, tender sympathy, and heartland attitude, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa is as strange, funny, and poignant as the real world it resembles.

When thirty-five-year-old France’s father calls to say that her mother, Grendy, has run off, France suspects foul play and heads south to investigate. Recently reunited with fellow former “mermaids” from Mermaid Springs, FL—one of the Sunshine State’s premier, pre-Disney attractions—Grendy had successfully revived her career in kitschy underwater pageants. But if she doesn’t find herself or let herself be found soon, she’ll miss the big Labor Day show. While the other fin-toting “merhags” regale France with stories of old—particularly the night Elvis came to town—they’re suspiciously tight-lipped about Grendy’s disappearance. Increasingly convinced that Grendy is in trouble—and that a psychic cat might hold the clue—she makes a series of unexpected, extraordinary discoveries about Mermaid Springs, her mother, and, in turn, herself.

Elizabeth Stuckey-French

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