Cheekiness Can Establish A Need For Growth

Know-it-all characters usually have a lot to learn.

Characters need to grow. They need to learn. They need to end up somewhere different from where they began. But how can a protagonist learn anything when that character already thinks they know everything?

Well, Anthony Veasna So answers that question in his short story “The Shop” by giving his first-person narrator a cheeky voice (both narrative and in …