Alan Cheuse, "Finding a Story, or Using the Whole Pig"

May favorite thing that Cheuse does in this essay is located in the penultimate paragraph (I never get to use that word! How exciting!). Cheuse writes: "everything I've said in this piece is true to the best of my knowledge, except that my mentor...did not make the following statement, which, in the spirit of his advice, I am about to ascribe to him" (Writing Creative Nonfiction 37) . This is great! It's a perfect example of how to make things up in creative nonfiction: you can only do it if you let the reader know what's going on and if it furthers your essay in some essential way. So, in using this technique, Cheuse creates a narrative circle--he unites the intro with the conclusion and makes us smile at the same time. Wonderful!