Lit Fest 2024

The ticking clock, slo-mo, the speeding bullet—readers don’t get invested unless they believe the clock is ticking—whether a bomb is under the table or a character simply wants to graduate from Clown College. In this fun, exercise-based seminar, we’ll cover the full craft menu of narrative hydraulics as described by Jane Alison: gap, summary, scene, dilation, and pause. Then, we’ll attempt each of these using Tobias Wolff’s famous “Bullet in the Brain” as a model. We’ll also explore the concept of “two boats,” as illustrated in the pulp novel “Dead Calm.”