Charles Baxter: Inflection and the Breath of Life (January 1998)

In this lecture, Charles Baxter takes on that elusive yet crucial component of narrative craft: inflection, or the tones and emphasis with which something is said. Arguing that inflection can be as important for the narrative voice as for voices within a dialogue, Baxter explores how inflection can allow the reader, and the narrator, to suspend disbelief, so that the story begins to “believe in itself.” He looks to fiction by Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and J.D. Salinger for examples.