Plotting the Perfect Ending (Online)
Taught by Joe Pfister
Joe Pfister is a writer, teacher, and Tecmo Super Bowl enthusiast living in Brooklyn. His fiction has appeared in such publications as PANK, Juked, and New World Writing. He is a graduate of the MFA Writing program at Sarah Lawrence College and currently serves as fiction editor for The Boiler Journal.
Perfect endings—the ones that startle and delight us, yet somehow feel inevitable at the same time—don’t happen by chance or happy accident. So what’s the big secret? During this two-hour craft course, we will explore some of the most exciting and artful final acts in contemporary fiction, from the work of James Baldwin to Donald Ray Pollock and Thomas McGuane. We will answer how these writers were able to “stick the landing” by examining three common types of endings, as well as what they have in common. You will leave class armed with new tools and a checklist for tackling your next story.