Though the theoretical study of narrative and the practice of creative writing are usually treated as distinct, even as oppositional, there are places of illuminating convergence, such as the stories and novels of John Barth. Yet on the part of writers a deep distrust of narrative theory persists, a romantic resistance to becoming conscious of fictional forms. This sometimes-justified suspicion of the thought-out as opposed to the felt, often with rooted beliefs in the Muse or the Unconscious or the Body, nourishes a mystique of the inspired artist. But this wish for spontaneous, untutored originality conflicts with the very etymology of”narrating”, which means “knowing”.