If you haven’t read Alice Munro before, then stop wasting your time with this blog and go and read her now. Go on, I’m serious. I’ve just received a master class in short story writing thanks to Mysty’s book club choice of Too Much Happiness. I didn’t think it was possible to cover so much in a story. Munro can switch generations in a sentence and capture a person’s entire life in one simple description. It’s an emotional roller coaster. But her best skill is the twists in plot and fate. She leads you in one direction and then just as you think you know what the story is going to be about, switches emphasis to a completely different character and situation. It’s a little bit like watching the opening credits to Six Feet Under, when you try and guess which of the opening characters are going to end up in the morgue. You think the person jumping off of the building is the main protagonist but it ends up being the person they fortuitously land on and crush, breaking their fall.

In lesser hands this could potentially seem contrived, like some technical skill learned by an overzealous MA student. But Munro’s writing is effortless, perfectly weighted and emotional. You really get inside the characters heads. Here’s an example of one story. A man is buried but we quickly discover he’s ‘beat’ his wife to it as she has terminal cancer. A few days later a man knocks at her door. She lets him in and he turns out to be a psycho. He insists she makes him a tea and gets threatening. With nothing to lose, she lies and tells the man she’s poisoned his drink. Shocked at her confident defiance, he becomes rattled and demands the keys to her car. She hands them over. Later the police knock at the door. They inform her that the car has been in an accident and the man has died. He’s wanted for murder. She acts coy and says she left the keys in the car. The policeman patronises this supposedly doddery old woman, telling her to be more careful. The reader knows what she has been through and you can’t help but admire her dignity as well as her will to live. The event gives her life so much meaning.

My synopsis might not convince you, which is more reason to read the book and see how bizarre twists can be perfectly sutured together. Deconstruction is also a useful writing tip. For the past month I’ve been going through my own book, writing a one sentence summary of each chapter for an agent who’s interested in it. He says this is essential to see where the story is going and it’s been incredibly useful. It’s got me viewing my work with more detachment. Try it next time you write something, but first of all get down the library. I’ll be resentfully returning my copy on Monday.