Lessons for Writers

I hated writing until I started to write.

It took me ten years to write An Eye for Glory, partly because I had to develop my writing skills along the way. Below are several presentations that teach high school creative writing students some of the lessons I learned and employed in my novels. Excerpts from my novels will be used in each lesson. Lesson length: about 40 minutes, but can be adapted to period length.

• Lesson 1: “How to Create a Living, Breathing, and Believable Character.” Memorable characters are the bedrock for memorable stories, and each character must be designed and built from the ground up. Students will learn how I developed the character of Stanley Mitchell, the hero of The Shiloh Trilogy.

• Lesson 2: “Who’s in Control?” Characters can gain status or power over another character or lose status or power. As a scene progresses, which character seems to grow larger in the eyes of the reader and which seems to become smaller. An example from “Prairie Dog Town,” the second book of The Shiloh Trilogy, will form the basis for this lesson.
• Lesson 3: “Writing Snappy Dialog.” Well-written dialog can quicken the pace of a story and reveal a lot about the characters. Students will learn how to voice characters differently, so they don’t all sound the same, how to eliminate unnecessary or lengthy speeches, and how to keep the goal of the scene in mind.
• Lesson 4: “How to Tell Without Telling.” The old school activity was “Show and Tell.” This is “Show, don’t tell.” How can we show how a person is feeling without saying, “She was sad,” or “He was happy?” We do it through showing the character’s body language, or how the character interact with other characters, or with the environment.

Please use my Contact page to inquire about scheduling and pricing for one or more of these sessions.