Lauren Kessler: Writers of the Lost Arc

An arc is necessary for every (Western) story. (See Gish Jen's TIGER WRITING for why it might not be necessary in Eastern tales, but I digress.) As challenging as it is for fiction writers, it is in my opinion even more challenging for nonfiction writers who have to either find the arc and not invent one, or—as is often the case in memoir—have to choose an arc out of the infinite ways we can view and present the same series of events.

Lauren Kessler is a multi-award-winning author of fifteen books (of which only some are represented here) including narrative nonfiction, immersion reportage, memoir, and biography. She has taught writing and journalism for the University of Oregon, the University of Washington, and the Forum of Journalism and Media in Vienna. She firmly believes that for any book, the arc is foundational. Here is a recent workshop she gave on how to find it, whatever your genre.