I was reminded in class the other day of a writing exercise that I call Building Characters. The idea came to me from a chapter in a student’s memoir, about a bus trip her family took in Great Britain and Western Europe in the early 1960s. The group was an intriguing collection of characters—starting with the tour guide, the wonderfully named Mr. Pinchback—and it occurred to me that students could … [Read more...]
Revisions
Some writers have told me they dread revisions. They love the initial creation of a work—a poem, essay, short story, novel; that rush of excitement as the ideas flow, as the words pour out effortlessly and they seem to enter an out-of-body state. Revisions aren’t like that. Revisions can mean staring at the screen or paper, head in hand, wondering what the heck you were trying to say in a … [Read more...]