Critique Groups

 By Thomas Kies

In my creative writing classes, I often suggest that the participants join the North Carolina Writers Network and the local organization, our Carteret Writers.  It’s good to be in the company of people with similar interests. 

In addition, I suggest that they join a critique group.  Indeed, when my last class ended last spring, everyone asked if I would stay on and lead a critique group.  They even offered to pay me.  I told them that I would do it, but not for money.  I was working on a book at the time, and I wanted them to critique chapters as I wrote them.  

I loved it.  Plus, I finished the book. Oh, plus plus, we held the group in the side room of a cozy wine bar called the Club at the Webb.  It's in a historic old building that used to be a library and now is a meeting place and a coffee shop (and serves some of the best wine in the county).  See the photo above.

Writing is a lonely activity, but humans are social animals, and we crave community. We want to be part of a supportive environment.  As we write, we need feedback.  That’s why I strongly suggest that if you’re a serious writer, you join a critique group. 

When I teach a class, I try to be as positive as possible. Maybe, overly so.  My success is when a participant continues to write even when the class ends.  But in my critique group, the participants wanted me to be more forthright, less positive.  A good critique group should be honest but should offer constructive feedback.  It’s meant to help writers improve their craft.  

Sometimes that feedback is difficult to hear, but hopefully, it’s offered in a way that’s not hurtful but helpful. 

Different people offer different insights.  There were occasions when I thought certain pieces that were read in class didn’t work.  Not everyone would agree with me.  And that was okay.  Writing is an artform that’s subjective. 

A critique group forces you to write.  I know that life can get in the way and it’s easy to let your writing slide.  But if you have a meeting scheduled on a weekly basis, it makes you make time and that’s important if you’re going to succeed as a writer. 

A critique group can help you become more critical in your reading and your listening skills.  You’re spending more time thinking about the words and the context and how they’re put together.  

Yes, critique groups can be scary.  After all, you’re sharing your baby with the world.  You are asking people in the group to tell you what they like…and what they don’t like.  That’s not easy.  But one thing I tell my class when I teach, if you want to be a writer, you’d better have a thick skin.  Not everyone is going to like what you write. 

So, the bottom line is if you’re a writer, spend time with other writers and, of course, readers.  I can’t recall ever meeting another writer that wasn’t helpful and friendly.  

Read Your Work Out Loud

   By Thomas Kies

I was recently one of the judges in a short story contest called “Winter Hauntings”.  The winners were celebrated at a ticketed event with music and wine.  They were also treated to hearing professional actors read their stories aloud to the audience.  

One of them told me, “That was an adrenaline rush!”

I get it.  We’re in rehearsals for a mystery dinner theater I’ve written.  This one is called the Reading of Dr. Bell’s Will.  It’s a combination of live theater, video, and live music—I guess you could call it mixed media.  

It’s my second opportunity to be a playwright. 

The joy of doing these is not just that it raises a lot of money for the college and our local theater, but I get to hear and see my characters come to life.  

It’s an adrenaline rush. 

When I’m teaching my creative writing class, I advise my students to read their work aloud, not necessarily to any kind of audience, but to themselves to hear it.  It’s one thing to see your sentences and your words on the screen of a laptop or on a sheet of paper, but if you listen to it, you get a better feel for how flows.  

Is it clunky? Is the dialogue not believable? Does that word feel awkward? Should I delete that adjective? 

As part of my class, every week, I ask my students to write about a thousand words after I give them a writing prompt.  Then at the next class, they stand up and read what they’ve written.

That’s scary.

Even after this many years, I still get the yips when I read my own work in public.  

But in my class, after the student has read the piece they’ve written, we applaud.  Then we go around the room and talk about what we like about it.  And then, and only then, do we spend time talking about how we might make the piece stronger. 

I want it to be a positive experience. And one where the people in the class see how important it is to hear what you write. 

According to the Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this is why you read your work aloud. “As listeners, we need the order of ideas in a paper to make sense. We can’t flip back and forth from page to page to try to figure out what is going on or find information we need. When you hear your paper read out loud, you may recognize that you need to re-order the information in it or realize that there are gaps in your explanation. Listeners also need transitions to help us get from one main idea to the next. When you hear your paper, you may recognize places where you have moved from one topic to another too abruptly.

Sometimes sentences aren’t grammatically incorrect, but they are still awkward in some way—too long, too convoluted, too repetitive. Problems like these are often easily heard. Hearing your paper can also help you get a sense of whether the tone is right. Does it sound too formal? Too chatty or casual? What kind of impression will your voice in this paper make on a reader? Sometimes hearing your words helps you get a more objective sense of the impression you are creating—listening puts in you in something more like the position your reader will be in as he/she moves through your text.”

By the way, the dinner theater will take place on February 8 and 9 at the Carteret Community College Culinary Building and you can purchase tickets here:  www.carteretcommunitytheatre.com 

Have a great week and keep on writing…and reading.  

Weather or Not?

 By Thomas Kies

On Saturday I was the emcee at a Small Business Vendor Holiday event at our local community college where I also happen to teach Creative Writing.  There were 140 vendors that were in attendance, and I’d be introducing local dance and singing acts.  It was an all-day event and in return for my services, they kindly gave me a spot to put up a tent, set up a table, and sell and sign a few books.

I thought, what the heck?  This was a holiday event.  What makes a better gift under the tree than a mystery signed by the author?

Things never go as planned.

On Thanksgiving, just a few days prior to the event, the weather here on the coast of North Carolina was sunny and in the seventies. On Saturday, the temps had dropped to the high forties—low fifties and the winds had picked up to gusts of over twenty miles per hour. 

I started the morning by unloading the car and then attempting to put up the canopy.  In that wind, trying to do that alone, it became a hilarious wrestling match.  The struggle was not only to put it up, but to keep it from flying away and becoming a lethal missile.  

After a half-hour battle, I was sweating, breathless, and frustrated.  I looked around to see if I could find one of the other vendors to give me a hand.  They were all having the same problem.

Most had reached the logical conclusion which was not to put the canopy up at all. 

While overcast, it wasn’t supposed to rain so I put the tent back into the back of my car and parked it in the adjoining lot.  Then I set up the table and had a similar problem with the tablecloth.  It was like something out of a Buster Keaton movie.

I’d have one end of the tablecloth laid down when the other end would go flying around as if it was possessed by a demon.  Since my wares were books, they ended up being my weights. 

It was a smaller than expected crowd.  As I said, the weather was cold and very windy.  Many vendors gave up and went home early.  Cindy, my wife, joined me a little later in the morning and that helped rejuvenate my spirits. She gamely greeted shoppers as they drifted by and even managed to sell books when I was on stage introducing the next gaggle of kids choreographed to dance to Christmas Carols. 

When she started to shiver however, I asked her to go home.  I stuck it out the rest of the day and I did sell more books than I should have on that miserable afternoon.

Okay, so it wasn’t the most conducive day to sell books.  But it’s the kind of day I enjoy when I’m writing. Here it is, the day after and still cold, not as windy, but dark and it’s raining off and on.  For me, that’s perfect writing weather.  

If it’s sunny and warm, I feel like I should be outside doing something.  If it’s nasty out, I love being inside with a cup of hot coffee, listening to some soft music, and sitting in front of my laptop, knocking out another chapter or two.  

Our environment is an important part of our writing process.  Some of us can be more productive when we’re free of distractions while some other writers are happier in a bustling coffee shop.  Some of us love to listen to a little jazz while we create, and others need total silence.

When I teach my creative writing class, one of the subjects we discuss is finding a place that’s comfortable for you, a place where you can feel creative.  And to get into the rhythm of writing every single day.  

Where do you like to write and does the weather impact your writing? Do you enjoy music while you’re creating or do you need the quiet? 

www.thomaskiesauthor.com

The best advice

by Rick Blechta

Needing to fill a whole in my university timetable with an “academic” course — when what I really wished to do was take an advanced orchestration course — I signed up for a creative writing class. It was likely the only course in which I had any interest that slotted into my timetable correctly, but I don’t clearly remember.

One thing that became apparent once snow fell, which it does early in Montreal, so I’d have to trudge across campus when I really didn’t want to. However, the instructor was quite good and I was becoming more “engaged” in learning to improve my writing.

Just before the Christmas holiday we were given an assignment to write two pages of dialogue between two people who weren’t well acquainted but were also angry. Something twigged in me and I spent a lot of time working on the assignment. Handing it in, I felt pretty good about what I’d done.

At the end of the last class of the year, my assignment came back with a big red C at the top and the comment, “This could have been much better.” I was puzzled and more than a bit angry. Unfortunately I had to wait until after the holiday break to speak with the instructor. I had to know where I’d gone wrong. Why had I gotten such a poor grade? I had no idea what the comment was getting at. Even after a gap of two weeks, my assignment still seemed pretty good to me.

After the first class back, I made an appointment to speak with the instructor. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I got the feeling she’d expected this.

The next afternoon we sat down in her shared office.

I wasted no time. “Could you explain to me why my grade was so low?” I asked, sliding the two pages of dialogue across her desk.

“Ah, yes. I wish I’d had the time to write more, so I’m glad you came in.”

Here’s a sample of what I’d written. (Yes, I still have the assignment.)

The man entered the room without knocking.

“I have to talk to you!” he said to the woman.

She looked up from her desk.

“Yes, what is it?”

Not answering, the man instead turned his back and proceeded to look out the window.

The woman sighed and put down her pen.

“First, you barge in here, disturbing my concentration, and now you won’t talk? Say something or get out!”

After a bit of time, the man turned.

“Can’t you guess?” he answered angrily.

Now, did you spot what my instructor didn’t like? (Besides a fair number of what she’d refer to as “dead words.”)

“You’re moving your characters like chessmen. There’s movement, one speaks. There’s another movement. The other answers. Your scene becomes stiff and jerky. Think for a moment. Can’t you do both at the same time?”

She spent a good half hour showing me how to combine description, emotional state and dialogue into one seamless flow. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have the sheet of notes and corrections I made that day, but I do remember what I learned.

Maybe I should write my memories out, so I can refresh my memory every time I have to edit a manuscript, because I often discover I haven’t followed those sage words and have created yet another in a long line of non-flowing scenes. I don’t do it every time, certainly, but even one in a story is too many.

And I still owe that terrific instructor a tremendous thank you because that day I took a huge step forward as a writer.

Playing Pretend

By Thomas Kies

Last Friday was the third birthday of my twin grandchildren, Thomas and Caroline.  Not recalling what three-year-old children enjoy getting as a present, I asked my daughter, Jessica, what she thought the kiddos would like.  She told me, “They like to play dress up. They also like to play with a plain cardboard box.  So…”

I decided to go with something the kids could dress up as, rather than a plain cardboard box. I’d leave that for another time.  I went to the internet and found firefighter outfits, complete with hard hat, fire extinguisher, and wait for it, a real siren.

On their birthday, my daughter posted photos and video of the kiddos in their firefighter coats and hats (on backwards) with the siren wailing.  At the end of the video, the twins say, “Thank you, Grandpa Tom and we love you, Grandpa Tom.”

Yeah, it melted my heart.  I wished I could have been there, but we’re still being Covid cautious.

Oh, and I apologized to my daughter and son-in-law for the sirens. I'm not sure I convinced my son-in-law that I'm being genuine.

Watching the kids enjoy themselves, it made me think how much I liked playing pretend when I was a child.  

Is that why we enjoy writing?  Because we get to play pretend?

At my last Advanced Creative Writing class of the year, I talked a little bit about a writer’s voice.  It’s about the perception, not as the writer, but as the character.

People see the same scene, event, occurrence, but we all perceive it just a little bit differently from each other.  When we write, we have to get inside our characters’ heads and tell the story from their point of view.

We’re pretending to be someone else.

We’re the the bold protagonist, complete with all his or her flaws, including, sometimes their skewed perceptions.  On paper, we’re pretending to be as brave and as adventurous as they are. 

We’re the unscrupulous and homicidal villain, complete with their deeply flawed perceptions. As we're writing them, we're as evil and cruel and twisted as they are. 

When we’re writing, it’s not only okay to pretend, it’s our job. When we’re not writing, however, we are often still pretending, depending on where we are and who we're around. Are we the same person with our spouse that we are with our boss?

Are we the same person when we’re driving, and someone cuts us off and nobody can hear us cussing out the stupid driver who had just put us in danger?  I hope not.

When we’re young, we love trying out different personas and pretending we’re explorers, pirates, cops, and firefighters.  As we grow up, unless we become actors and actresses, we start to lose the joy of pretending, although we never really lose the ability.

For a time, I tried my hand at marketing and sales. I wasn’t a natural at it and I was uncomfortable trying to persuade someone to buy something they might not be interested in in the first place.  I also hated the idea of being rejected and told no.

Which is really weird, because starting out as a writer, you have to be able to accept rejection gracefully. Over and over again.

So, in my head, I channeled Jack Nicholson.  Before walking in to see a client, I asked myself, “How would Jack Nicholson handle this.  What would he say and how would he say it?"

And then it was fun. Why Jack Nicholson? Jake Gittes from the movie Chinatown didn’t give a damn about rejection. 

So, for me, writing is playing pretend.  I get to be all kinds of different people. Getting to be my protagonist, Geneva Chase, is the most fun of all.  She gets to say all the things that I may have in my head but could never say in real life. The lady is a real snarky, smart-ass.

This is my last posting before Christmas, so I’m going be genuine for a moment and take this opportunity to say have a wonderful and safe holiday.  Cheers. 

Blood on the Page

 By Thomas Kies

Our local college has contracted me to teach another Creative Writing course in January—if our state is still allowing in-person classes by then. I’ve taught three of these in 2020, remarkable because of everything that’s going on. We all have masks on and we’re safely distanced apart in a large classroom. 

It was heartwarming when the college asked if I’d teach an Advanced Creative Writing class in addition after I finish teaching Creative Writing 101 in February. They tell me that they’ve been getting requests by former students asking that I teach an advanced course. 

I’ve noticed that the students, most of them adults, find the class to be kind of therapeutic as well as instructive. I’ve had as many as twelve in my classes (before the pandemic) and as few as four. All of the students start out as strangers, but at the end of six weeks, they’ve bonded and know a lot about each other.  

This is how I teach the class. Initially, I ask them all what they want to get out of the course. Once I have an idea what their goals are, I craft the classes accordingly. So, each Creative Writing course is slightly different, but we still cover the basics.

While the courses may vary, the structure remains the same. After each class, I give the students an assignment. It may be to write a deeply emotional scene. One assignment may be to create a scene with a kick-ass protagonist meeting a villain. The final assignment for all the courses has been to write the first few pages of your book and the last few pages of your book. Whatever that means to you.

In many cases, the beginning of their story and the ending are both deeply personal, even though it’s fictionalized.

We start the two-hour class period with the students reading their work out loud. Now, I know how scary that can be. I remember what it was like for me. It’s freaking terrifying. You’re showing everyone your baby. What if they call your baby ugly?

So, after each reading, we all applaud. Then we go around the room and we talk about the piece’s strengths and then we talk about ways that could potentially make the work stronger. When the course is over, I want the students to walk away feeling good about the craft and with a desire to keep writing. 

I love how the students have bonded at the end of six weeks. They start out as complete strangers, but when the course is finished, they feel close to each other. I think that’s because we put some much of ourselves on the page when we write.  

What was it Hemingway said? “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

When the fledgling writers do one of my assignments, in many cases, they fictionalize an event from their real lives. Some of those events are heartwarming, some of eye opening, and some are tragic. 

But much of what we write comes from our own lives and our own observations. Sure, we make stuff up. We write novels. But it’s all culled from a lifetime of experiences, emotions, feelings, observations, and influence by the people around us. 

I find these courses fulfilling and I’m gratified that the students and the college wants me to take it to the next step, Creative Writing 2.0…an advanced course. Now I’ve just got to figure out what that entails.  

Stay safe and stay healthy.

A Healthy Respect for Teachers

As some of you know, I’ve been teaching a Creative Writing Class at our community college for the last six weeks.  Tonight will be our last class.  As a writing prompt, I’ve asked them to write the first few pages of their book as well as the last few pages.  No, I wasn't specific as to what that book might be.

I look forward to hearing what they’ve written.

Teaching this class in-person has given me a new perspective on what heroes our schoolteachers, school administrators, bus drivers, and janitorial staff really are.  I teach seven adults, neatly spaced apart in a fairly large classroom, where masks are required.  It’s a pretty safe environment.

There are going to be times and circumstances where in kindergarten up to college classrooms where that will not possible.  I’m hoping that all the students and teachers stay safe and healthy.

In my classroom we discussed heroes and how they might be written.  how they need to be relatable but flawed in some way. And heroes are always up to the task at hand, no matter the consequences or the danger.

We have them in real life. We always have, but it’s much more obvious now. The doctors, nurses, and health care workers risking their own lives to treat those sick with Covid-19.

As always, our heroes are also the law officers, firemen and EMTs that continue to work even though they’re putting themselves in danger of contracting the disease. And many of them have.

Less obvious are the people who are working in our grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and (thank heavens) the liquor stores. We also need to thank the truck drivers, the mail carriers, and sanitation workers.

Our teachers are also heroes.  They always have been, but now more than ever they’re putting themselves on the front lines.

One of the many reasons we enjoy reading mysteries, especially in uncertain times, is that we’re pretty certain that by the last page, justice will be served and the heroes will be victorious.

But this isn’t fiction.

It’s real life. And it's scary as hell. So, when you interact with our real-life heroes, thank them and tell them how much they are appreciated.

Real life heroes, good on you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We Are What We Read

I’m nearly at the end of teaching my Creative Writing class and it’s been as much of a learning experience for me as it has for them.   We started out as eight strangers and by the end, we know a lot about each other.

In each class, I assign a writing prompt such as create a character and put that character in an action scene. This week’s writing prompt is to write a scene of romance primarily using dialogue. Next week’s assignment, and our final one, will be to write the first few pages of your book and the last few pages of your book.

All of the members of this class are good writers.  Some are outstanding.

One of the classmates uses the writing prompts to add to his folksy short story about a boy losing his bike.  One of the writers is extraordinary at humor.  One has a remarkable ability to describe scenes.  One is a thriller addict and it comes out in his writing.

Three of the students are millennials and I hesitate to pigeonhole any demographic, but I’ve noticed that when they read their work aloud, they do it from their phones using Google-Docs. And all three of them write about medieval fantasy worlds of assassins, magic, and fierce warriors.

When asked about the subject matter, I discovered that Dungeons & Dragons has made an impressive comeback.  I’d thought that the game had died out in the eighties.  I was wrong.

I was impressed when one of the other students asked them if they’d read The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit and they replied that they had.

It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten an inkling that younger folks interested in writing enjoyed that genre.  I spoke to a middle school class about writing and asked them what kind of interests they had.  It was the medieval fantasy genre but also, and not surprising, science fiction and superheroes.

I thought back to what genres interested me when I was much younger.  Back in the seventies, pulp science fiction and horror magazines filled with strange and wonderful short stories held my fascination.  I began writing my own and submitting them.

Not one of them sold.

However, I did get a really positive personal letter from Ben Bova, the publisher of Omni.

I kept writing short stories and finally got one published in a glossy men’s magazine called Cavalier. A tawdry publication, but the one that first published Stephen King’s short stories.

Mine was called Fast Dancing Detroit Style and it was about a killer who picks up a hitchhiker in the Nevada desert who turns out to be a ghost.

It wasn’t much later that I picked up my first Travis McGee mystery.  I was hooked.  I discovered that I love mysteries.  But that's not what I started writing, not yet.

As a fledgling writer I took a few detours, trying my hand at a historical novel (awful), a horror novel (even worse), and a flat out thriller (my own wife wouldn’t read it).

No, I was exclusively reading mysteries:  Sue Grafton, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosely, Ed McBain, Lawrence Block, and Mickey Spillane, as well as many, many others.  Mysteries are my niche.  I enjoy reading them and I enjoy writing them.

The point of this rambling blog?  We are what we read.  Or perhaps what movies we watch and games we play.

Stay safe.  Stay healthy.

www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Creative Writing 101

A week ago, I started teaching Creative Writing again at our community college.  We’re all wearing face masks, are seated at least six feet apart, and are using copious amounts of hand sanitizer.
It’s the first time I’ve done any public speaking in a face mask. It’s a little like trying to talk while underwater.

My first class is a bit of getting to know everyone.  What do they read? Who are their favorite authors? What genre interests you the most?

Next week, they’ll start reading their own work out loud. The rules of engagement for that are once the student has finished reading, scary enough, we will all applaud. Then we’ll talk about the work’s strengths.

Then, we’ll talk about ways we might make the work stronger.

But the first week, I talked about some Creative Writing 101 tips. Most of them come from Stephen King.

Tips like stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible. I might add my own bit of advice, don’t slide down the internet rabbit hole. It’s too easy to move from the New York Times website to YouTube and watching puppy videos. King said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Another one of his tips: don’t be pretentious. It took me a long time to learn that one. King said, “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re a little bit ashamed of your short ones.”

Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.  My editor has been ruthless about teaching me this. King said, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

This is a tip that I really take to heart. Understand that writing is a form of telepathy. King makes the claim that an important element of writing is transference. Your job isn’t to write words on the page, but rather to transfer the ideas inside your head into the heads of your readers. He said, “Words are just the medium through which the transfer happens.”

It excites me to no end when a reader tells me how much they enjoyed a book I’ve written and how they loved Geneva Chase, the lead character in my mysteries.  In their minds, she’s a real person.

Write every single day. King said, “If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind…I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace.” Amen to that.

When you’re finished writing, take a long step back. “When you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.” He advises that take six weeks recuperation time after you’ve finished writing so you can have a clear mind to spot any glaring holes in the plot or character development.

I’ve found that to be immensely helpful.I’ve come back after I’ve left the manuscript in the drawer for a while and then look at with a fresh set of eyes.

The final bit of advice is to stay married, be healthy, and live a good life.

I like that very much.

Food--My Guilty Pleasure

Shadow Hill, my latest Geneva Chase Mystery, is in the hands of my copy editor at Poisoned Pen Press.

No sooner had I hit the Send button, that same copy editor sent me a version of my very first Geneva Chase novel, Random Road.  Before Shadow Hill is launched in 2021, Random Road is due to be rereleased and I need to read through it to see if I want to make any changes.

At the same time, I’m preparing for my next Creative Writing course that starts on June 22 at our community college. And oh yes, I have a day job, mostly working from home these days.

Along with all of that, I’m bombarded by news of the pandemic, the protests about racial disparities, the broken economy, and politics making it very difficult to concentrate.

So, as a distraction, I turn to food. The supply chain at our grocery stores here on the coast has fits and starts.  Like the rest of the universe, for a long time, you had to hunt for elusive paper products. Then when meatpacking plants were hit hard with the virus, I had to be creative when it came to preparing dinners.

There were times when the only protein in the meat section of the store was ground chicken.  Lo and behold, I discovered this recipe.

I’ve made chicken coq au vin before and it can be a real production.  But the recipe below it a whole lot easier and it’s really tasty.

I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

Coq au vin chicken meatballs.

•         1 1/4 pounds ground turkey or chicken
•         1 egg
•         1/3 cup bread crumbs
•         1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
•         kosher salt and black pepper
•         2-3 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
•         1 yellow onion, chopped
•         4 cloves garlic, minced or grated
•         4 carrots, chopped
•         2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
•         2 tablespoons tomato paste
•         1 1/2 cups dry red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
•         1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
•         2 bay leaves
•         4 thyme sprigs
•         1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
•         mashed potatoes

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

2. Add the turkey, egg, bread crumbs, parmesan, and a pinch each of salt and pepper to a bowl. Coat your hands with a bit of olive oil and roll the meat into tablespoon-size balls (will make 15-20 meatballs), placing them on the prepared baking sheet. Transfer to the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the meatballs are crisp and cooked through.

3. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes. In the skillet, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, until softened and fragrant. Stir in the garlic, carrots, and mushrooms. Cook another 5 minutes, until the vegetables are caramelizing on the edges. Add the tomato paste. Cook 1 minute.

4. Add in the red wine, chicken broth, bay leaves, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Stir to combine, bring the sauce to a boil, cook 10 minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly. Stir in the meatballs, cover and cook 5 minutes, until the meatballs are coated in the sauce. Remove the bay leaves and thyme and discard. Stir in the parsley and reserved bacon.

4. Serve the meatballs and sauce over mashed potatoes.

Getting Readers Invested Through Emotion

In the creative writing class I teach at our local college, my students all read from their works in progress.  I was very impressed with their level of talent.  As we were getting ready to leave, I impulsively gave them homework.  I asked them to write a deeply emotional scene and keep it to no more than a single page.

While driving home that night, I wondered to myself why I’d even thought to do that.  It wasn’t something I’d planned to do ahead of time.

Then I realized that, while most of what they’d written was technically proficient, I hadn’t become emotionally invested in some of their characters.

There was one important exception and that was a piece done on a child’s suicide as written from the first person viewpoint of the mother. It was a powerful piece of writing that was both jarring and moving at the same time.

Emotion.  That’s what makes the characters and their situations real to us.  We can relate to what they’re feeling.

We’ve all felt emotions like love, even if it’s been for your pet.  Or the pain of heartbreak, or grief, or disappointment.  When your character feels those emotions, the reader can feel them as well. They’re familiar to all of us.

But better to show than to tell.

Instead of saying: She was afraid to open the box. We might say, instead, something like: Her hands trembled, her fingertips not quite touching the lid of the box. She was filled with dread, imagining what horrible artifact might be inside.

Instead of saying: He recalled how his father had loved him. We might say, instead, something like: He recalled how his father had bought him his first baseball glove, showed him how to care for it, and taught him how to pitch.  And the beaming smile on his father’s face when he won his first Little League game.

I wrote about grief in my second Geneva Chase novel. Her lover is dead and she’s trying to cope.  I wrote about it this way:

This was originally Kevin’s house and this was his bedroom. Oh sure, my framed posters and photographs are on the walls now and his Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar is long gone. My books are in the bookshelves, my sheets and duvet are on the bed, and my television is sitting on the dresser.

But this is his bedroom.

I’d kept some of Kevin’s clothes. They’re hanging in the closet next to mine.  Now and then, I open the closet door and hug his shirts and slacks to my face, wishing he were in them.

I kept his aftershave on the counter in the bathroom, next to where I keep my cosmetics. I open it and I can smell Kevin, almost as if he were standing behind me.

Where is the line between grief and fetishizing the dead?

*****************

No, fetishizing isn't a real word. I write fiction, I make stuff up.

Let me finish by quoting James Michener. He said, "I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

Nervous About Teaching Creative Writing.

Tonight I’m teaching my first Creative Writing class at our local community college. It’s a continuing education program so I won’t be grading papers or scoring tests. It’s purely for people who are interesting in learning about being better writers.

I’m a bit nervous because, while I’ve taught a couple of college courses in the past and given writing workshops, I’ve never taught a course on Creative Writing.

To be sure, I can offer advice on the mechanics of writing. How you can go about developing characters that are interesting and memorable. I can show ways to create a protagonist who is relatable. I can talk about how you should “show” rather than “tell”. I can offer my thoughts on plot structure and even a few tricks about plot twists.

We can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of narrative viewpoint and how to write believable dialogue.

I’ll suggest that they read aloud what they write. It’s a great way to “hear” what’s been rattling around in their heads and then hammered out onto their laptops.

I’ll let them know that often it’s a good idea to leave your manuscript in a drawer and walk away from it for a few days or even a week or two. Then when you’re ready to write a revision, open the drawer and you’ll have a fresh set of eyes critiquing it.

But what I’d like them to do, more than anything, is to bring in some of their works in progress and read selected passages from them aloud to the class. I’m hoping the feedback they get will help them become stronger writers.

I’ve taken creative writing classes and was scared out of my wits to read what I’d written to a room full of people. Even to this day, I can speak to an audience about my books and my thoughts on writing, but reading from my novels still makes me nervous.

But the great thing is, in a creative writing class, you’re in a room full of people who share your passion. Everyone there has a joy for writing.

So, I think I can do a good job helping them with the mechanics of writing. But can someone teach creativity?

I’ve read articles that say that it can be taught and some that say that it can’t. There are exercises that can help strengthen someone’s creativity. But as an adult (and all my students at adults), unless you are already endowed with it, is it really possible to suddenly grow creativity if you don’t already have it?

Tonight, I’m going to ask each student what they hope to get out of the class, who their favorite writers are, and tell us about their ‘work in progress’? And if they tell me they don’t have a WIP, I’m going to have to ask them, “Why the hell not?”

Now, I’ll end this blog with three quotes:

“It aint’ whatcha’ write, it’s the way atcha’ write it.”—Jack Kerouac

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”—Ernest Hemingway

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do for them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”—Dorothy Parker