Turning a Premise: Using Opposites to Make Our Fiction Memorable

Today, my wife Cathy and I drove out to our favorite produce stand to see what we might find for our traditional Sunday evening country supper. New potatoes, locally grown green beans, sweet corn, and an orange tomato. The first time we found Bambi’s Produce Market, we did so by happy accident. We’d been driving…

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Two Stories at Once: Finding the Resonant Truths

Technique? I can teach that in a writing workshop. What’s tougher to teach—really, I can only extend an invitation—is the ability to think and to feel in terms of opposites, to know, as Thomas Mann said, “A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.” If you’re paying attention, life will teach…

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