A writing critic reviews the construction of Charles Chesnutt’s stories and how to write surfiction.

During the first scene, a man complains to his wife about Western civilization and tries to convince her to live in the desert with him. In another scene, a different man comes home to his sister and tells her about his quiet day observing daily chaos at the bar.

While narrating a story, a woman suppresses some details while highlighting others, to expose the injustice she witnesses in her neighbor's irresponsible behavior.

While a mid-western US man waits for his family to gather in the car to finally leave his in-law's house, he wanders around the area and thinks about the importance of family, even though he and his father-in-law often disagree on values.

A young man is invited to a close family friend's opera performance; years later, the man reconnects with the singer and begins to uncover several family secrets.

Searching for a muse to inspire a novel he is attempting to write, an author in San Francisco finds his passions ignited by something much more sinister.

After struggling to appeal to their state governor, a dysfunctional family anxiously awaits the public execution of a relative. As they wait at home new of the execution, tensions and strife erupt in a dispute over the relative's innocence.

A New Yorker working at a salon spends her time observing people she meets on the subway and at work. Though she meets a lot of people between washing hair and riding the subway to and from work, she avoids talking to them except for the rare occasions when she has to.

After being offered a 100,000 pound advance to write a book on the twentieth century, a historian/writer struggling with depression takes to London to begin this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A disgruntled magazine proofreader returns to his childhood home in attempt to repair his parents' ongoing divorce.