ABSTRACT: Both narratologists and practicing writers are committed to understanding the mechanisms underlying the communicative achievements of literary art, yet there is a lack of interdisciplinary conversations between narratology and creative writing. This essay makes a case for bringing together rhetorical narratology and master writers' craft knowledge by demonstrating a) that instruction in creative writing offers independent testimony and nuanced enrichment to the foundational premises of rhetorical narratology, b) that this synthesis can be further empowered by the psychology of aesthetics to illuminate how craft taps into human cognition to invigorate the audience's cohesive, multilayered engagement. My interdisciplinary discussion will focus on four interrelated aspects: narrative perspectives and strategies in forward and backward actions; the intricacies, dynamism, and thematic vibrancy of character craftsmanship; the multidimensional integration of mimetic resonance and defamiliarizing truthfulness; the fusion of aesthetic, ethical, visceral, and cognitive dimensions in craft and comprehension. To illustrate how craft advice, rhetorical narratology, and the psychology of aesthetics connect with one another in productive ways, I will offer a rhetorical reading of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. In blending together narrative strategies in action, dynamic unreliable character construction, and multidimensional defamiliarizing invitation, Fowler guides rhetorical readers toward an enlarged, renewed awareness of how imaginative storytelling expands mysteries in life into a world of shared empathy and intergroup connection. This essay concludes that fostering mutual enrichment and complementarity of craft, narratological, and psychological approaches sheds bonding light on what holds together artistic imagination and critical participation.
Zheng-Mao Jin (Wed,) studied this question.