Fiction: Sulley Keehnel, Seattle, Washington. "People Go Down the Water"
Last year, 47-year-old Sulley Keehnel came to an evening writing class in Seattle. A serious quiet student, he sat in the back. I am always amazed by which two to three students in every class of approximately 20 I teach will end up taking the writing seriously, will go forward and prove to themselves and others that they really are writers, that they were always writers and were just waiting for the chance to explode open their creativity. You cannot tell by a person's looks, by their intelligence, by how much they used to write, even by the power of their writing. It's tenacity, a fighting spirit that really makes the difference...and Sulley had it in spades.
I always begin writing classes for adults who are either new to writing or returning to it after many years away (as was the case with Sulley) with this instruction: Think of an event from your life that you cannot get out of your mind. Try to avoid a traumatic event for the purposes of this exercise. (Trauma can shut us down creatively, and to get the writerly flow going, it's important to start with something powerful, but not debilitating.)
Think of three events, I told the class, and then choose one. We start with what we know and write about it, get the flow going, and then we can fictionalize it...but first we need to get over whatever hurdle is in the way of creative expression.
Sulley chose a flood he'd experienced several years before. In class, we wrote a rough draft, then over the eight weeks explored characterization, setting and theme. Sulley read sections out loud; the power of the imagery his words evoked was undeniable.
After only one year, Sulley is now a full-fledged writer. What does it mean to be a full-fledged writer? It means he writes, several times a week. It means he reads, deeply and consciously. He watches, absorbs, creates. He edits, revises. He worries a piece until it's perfect. He's given himself over to the process.
As a coach, I'm working with Sulley on a series of interrelated short stories called People Go Down the Water. I have learned to make suggestions in the documents he submits via email that help unfold the story. Besides the technical aspects of good storytelling, Sulley has been exploring his philosophical and poetic response to different aspects of life and of living. After about three months of our work together one-on-one, a door opened for Sulley, and the flow has been unstoppable. With work and two teenage children, Sulley's only hurdle now is finding all of the time he needs to allow this flow to become a publishable book. I can't thank Sulley enough for our work together; it's enriched my life immeasurably. Click here to read the first three pages of People Go Down the Water.
Creative Nonfiction: Linda Hansen, Seattle, Washington
Linda is a caregiver for her mother. She wanted to write a creative nonfiction piece about this relationship with her mother before she died. We began the process in a classroom, where Linda was able to create a quick rough draft. Afterwards, she hired me as a coach. The story focused on Linda's ritual of giving her mother a bath. When writing stories about our parents, we are often so pulled down memory lane that it is difficult to understand what is truly the theme of the piece. We only learn by doing, so Linda simply wrote and wrote and wrote until the theme became evident. Her mother was losing her memory; Linda, as writer and as a devoted daughter, was doing the remembering for both of them.
The writing/coaching process took on an interesting but not uncommon dynamic -- with all of the rewriting, Linda felt she'd lost some of the magic of the original intention of the piece. Her title Joy to the World referred to a concert she took her mother to for her birthday. Her mother loved music. So, Linda decided to pepper songs throughout the piece, the songs her mother sang, the tunes they sang together. The magic came back.
Editing was also key, and Linda and I discovered yet again the power of cutting and splicing in increasing the depth of the story. (Read sample.)
Memoir: Lisa Sharpe, Ridgefield, Connecticut. "Widow-dom"
Lisa came to me because she wanted to write a story about her husband's death from cancer. Her goal was to memorialize her husband's life, and deal with the concept of death, in a country that often would prefer to ignore it.
I began by interviewing her over the telephone. I asked her what event during the course of her husband's cancer stuck out most in her mind. It's important to narrow the scope to begin the writing, as many people become overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of the task. We went through many options and then settled on her husband's final three days.
I instructed Lisa to start by just writing out those last three days in chronological order, simply to get the story on paper so we could work with it. I told her it would be emotional, but that the effort would be worth it.
After we had this rough draft, we discussed the principles of characterization, setting and description. How could she make her husband more real? What details about his clothing, his looks and his personality could she add? We then looked at describing the setting in greater detail, using all of the senses, smell and texture and taste.
For content, I use a deep intuitive approach and can sense when there is a sentence that should be a paragraph, or when important information is missing altogether.
On a weekly basis, I gave Lisa feedback, outlines via email, homework and support. One day, we realized Lisa was writing a memoir, not just one story. So, we began then to look at naming and structuring the chapters.
After eight weeks of impressive leaps in her understanding of writing, and a great deal of emotional intensity, Lisa was ready to spend a couple of months on her own developing the work. Later, when she's ready, we will continue the process, word by word, chapter by chapter. (Read Sample)
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