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Home / Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference / Schedule / 2019 / Conference Schedule Saturday, February 23, 2019 / Establishing the Terms: Openings as Contracts with Jennine Capó Crucet

Conference Schedule 2019

Conference Schedule 2019

Saturday, February 23, 2019, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Establishing the Terms: Story and Novel Openings as Contracts with Jennine Capó Crucet

Date(s): Saturday, February 23, 2019, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Location: Heritage, University Club (view map)
Type(s): Presentation
Genre and Form(s): Fiction, Mixed Genre, Novels, Short Stories
Tags: Plot, Openings, Narration, Narrative, Story, Character, Tone

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About the Session

One could argue that the first few paragraphs of any work of short fiction establish a contract with the reader: they telegraph tone, character, and even—when exceptionally on point—the trajectory of the story's action. When done well, openings say, "Here are the terms, now you know what you're in for." In this session, we'll examine the opening moves from several short stories (and maybe a novel or two) to see how they establish a (sort of) contract with the reader, and we'll identify the techniques used and how to deploy them ourselves when writing/revising our own stories and novel openings.

Meet the Presenter(s)

Desert Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference Faculty 2019 Jennine Capó Crucet


Jennine Capó Crucet

Jennine Capó Crucet is a novelist, essayist, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers was the winner of the International Latino Book Award, a New York Times Editor's Choice book, and was cited as a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, and the Miami Herald. She is also the author of the story collection How to Leave Hialeah (winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize and the John Gardner Book award), and of a forthcoming essay collection, Never Imagined Me Here. Her writing has been awarded an O. Henry Prize and Picador Fellowship, among other honors, and her work has appeared in venues including Medium, the Los Angeles Review, Guernica, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and on PBSNewsHour. Raised in Miami, she’s currently an associate professor of Creative Writing and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska.


Learn more about Jennine Capó Crucet