Hi folks,
I thought perhaps a glimpse at one of my student’s work for the week and the comments I furnished him might prove useful to others undergoing the same struggle. I’ve changed the student’s name (to protect the guilty…)—I’ll call him “Ben”—and have his blessing to use this. He’s a terrific student in the best sense of the word. He started as a true beginner and while his fiction isn’t yet ready to be up for the National Book Award, it’s improved considerably in just a few weeks. He takes notice of everything and doesn’t just pay lip service to it, but goes out immediately and implements the lessons learned. Every single week he has gotten better and better, and you can’t ask for anything more of a student in any discipline. I’m proud to call him my student and I hope he’s equally proud to call me his teacher.
I ask all of my students (and clients) to begin with a 15-20 word outline, to serve both as a road map for them on their novel journey and for me to be sure they’re delivering a sound structure for their novels.
I also ask each of my students to comment on each other’s work. At the end of my own comments, I’m including those of one of Ben’s classmates, whom I’ll call “Brenda.” Many times (as in this case), other students come up with even better criticisms than I had as you’ll see.
Here’s Ben’s story in progress:
Inciting Incident: Davis gets caught getting high.
Development:
- Davis enters treatment to save marriage.
- Davis leaves treatment.
- Wife leaves with daughter.
- Davis reenters treatment to win family back.
Resolution:
Davis loses wife but becomes a better father.
The Second Chance
Davis had pretended to be asleep for nearly an hour. His mind tossed and turned but on the outside he remained motionless. When he heard his wife’s familiar snore, he inched backwards beneath the covers until he reached the edge of the bed.
He slipped free of the bed and watched Michelle to be certain she hadn’t moved. He continued to watch for any movement and stepped backwards toward the door.
Outside the room he began to walk with confidence. He headed down the hall and paused at his daughter’s room. Out of habit he peeked into the room to be certain that she was asleep.
He could lose hours by the side of her crib. He loved to watch Samantha sleep—the way her lips moved, the way she smiled, the way she cooed—she was his little angel. He couldn’t watch her tonight though. He was a man on a mission.
His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. At the end of the hall he entered the living room and navigated the furniture. He reached behind the blinds, unlocked the sliding glass door, and slipped into the night.
When he sat down in the comfort of his patio chair, he reached for the pack of cigarettes hidden behind the potted rose bush. He lit a cigarette and took a long, steady drag.
He had anticipated getting high all day. He wanted to please his wife, but the 12-step meetings and sobriety chips did nothing for him.
Tonight he was going to please himself.
He set the cigarette in the ashtray and stuck his fingers back into the pack. He retrieved a small glass pipe and turned the pack upside down until a few tiny rocks fell into his hand.
He put one into the pipe and lit the end until white smoke filled the chamber. He kept the flame steady and inhaled until his lungs were full. His ability to wait all day for this moment was the only proof he needed to convince himself he was in control.
With the smoke in his lungs his body immediately began to feel the cocaine—a warm rush flooded through his veins and his body began to quiver.
The first hit was always the best.
But now his addiction was wide awake. He forgot that he was supposed to be in control and smoked a night’s worth of crack in less than half an hour.
And the night had only just begun. He crept back into the house, grabbed some clothes and his keys, and snuck out the front door.
He went to the ATM, the dealer’s house, and was home before midnight. He didn’t even stop to take a hit.
He pulled into the driveway but something didn’t seem right. Oh shit—had he left the kitchen light on?
He was stuck. Maybe he was just being paranoid. He tried to think of a story. But the door opened and there was Michelle—crack pipe in hand.
“It’s over” she said. “I’m done with you.”
“Baby…” he said.
“Don’t baby me, you blew your last chance” she said.
“Baby, it’s not what you think…” He started to recite his lie.
“It’s not what I think? You’re not high? You didn’t choose drugs over your daughter? You didn’t choose drugs over me?” She threw the pipe at him. It bounced off his shoulder and landed on the passenger floor.
“Baby, I messed up. I’m sorry.” He started to get out of the car.
“No, I messed up by giving you another chance.” She pushed the car door closed. “Samantha will never see you high again.”
“But baby…” he said. “I need my family. I love you.” He started to work up tears.
“You love getting high” she said. “I won’t let you hurt us ever again.”
“Baby, I’m sorry. I need you.” He continued the apology.
“No, you need help. And I can’t help you anymore.”
“What am I supposed to do?” He couldn’t hold back his tears. He hoped they would have their usual effect. They didn’t.
“Check into treatment, check into the hospital” she said. “Be a man for once.”
She walked into the house and slammed the door.
He was mad at himself for getting caught. His tears failed and he wiped his eyes. He punched the dashboard and reached for his cell phone. She didn’t answer.
He tried again. No answer.
The pattern of arguments with his wife had been fairly consistent. She yelled, she screamed, she threw things at him. She complained about his selfishness, his weakness, his lack of concern for the marriage. The fighting would go on for hours and he would wind up sleeping on the couch. Something was different this time. Yeah. It didn’t go on for hours. It lasted maybe 25 seconds. Kidding, Ben, but also to illustrate a point. This really should be a bigger scene than it is. Don’t worry about it now—just keep going and come back to this on your first major rewrite. Not a bunch of arguing, which gets tedious quickly, but a scene where it’s developed more fully, instead of a “wham-bam, thank you, ma’am” kind of thing. Give us his thoughts as the scene progresses, that kind of thing. Make sense? Again, don’t address it now, but when you finish the novel, this is one of the places I’d go back and address.
He thought about his options. He felt the world close in and knew she was right about treatment. He didn’t want to admit he was an addict. He didn’t want to admit he was out of control.
He thumbed through the papers in the center console. He looked for the info he picked up at one of his meetings. It had numbers to a drug detox center and treatment facilities. Had he thrown it away?
He looked through the trash on the floor until he found the crumpled paper. He couldn’t read the phone numbers scribbled on it and he turned on the dome light. He went through the motions and found the name of a man he recognized from one of the meetings. He wasn’t sure he was making the right move when he dialed the phone.
“Hello,” a man’s voice said.
“Is this Jessie?” he said.
“Who wants to know?” the man said.
“This is Davis. You gave me your number at one of the meetings.”
“Cool. What’s up? How are you?” Jessie said.
“Not well, my (Comma splice.) wife caught me getting high.”
“Guess you relapsed, huh? The idea is to call someone before you pick up,” Jessie said.
“I fucked up. I need to get into treatment or my wife is through with me.”
“Do you want to get clean?” Jessie said. “Are you willing to do what it takes?”
“I need to, I don’t have a choice, can you help me?” (Two comma splices here.)
“Hold on, I’ll call you right back.”
He looked at his phone to make sure the ringer was on and stepped out of his car. The front door was locked and when he opened it he realized the latch was in place. How many times had he broken the latch to get in when he was intoxicated? Tonight this didn’t seem like a good idea.
“Baby, please let me in,” he said. His face pressed against the door. The light came on.
“Go away! I swear I’ll call the police on you.” Her response was cold.
“Baby, I’m on the phone with a friend from the program. I need you and Sam, just give me a chance.”
“Don’t talk to me again until you’re sober.” She slammed the door close and bolted it. The kitchen light went out.
He put his head into his hands and sighed. He started pacing in the driveway. His phone rang, it was Jessie.
“There’s a bed for you at detox if you’re interested,” Jessie said. “Are you drunk or just high?”
“High,” he said. “How does detox work?”
“Have a few drinks so you’ve got liquor in your system. They’ll keep you for a couple of days and work to find you the best treatment options.” He’s telling him to drink? Would a person interested in helping him say this? This just doesn’t ring true. I imagine most readers are going to be thinking the same thing, so I’d address this. If Jesse has some kind of reason for this advice, I’d give it. In fact, I’d think Davis himself would want to know why he’s advising him to get drunk and ask him. Make sense?
Jessie gave him directions and offered to pick him up.
“Thanks, I can find it,” he said. He hung up the phone with a plan in place. The crack in his pocket had been calling to him throughout this ordeal. He could finally respond to that call.
He dialed his wife one more time. He knew she wouldn’t answer but his plan was to leave a message anyway.
“Baby, I love you and Sam and am going to do everything right this time. I am on my way to detox and they’ll help me find the treatment I need. Please have faith in me.”
He turned the dome light back on and found the crack pipe she threw at him. It was intact.
He knew exactly what he should do. His addiction knew exactly what he would do. He turned on his car, put it into reverse, and pulled out of the driveway.
He followed Jessie’s instructions and made a beeline to get some booze. A couple miles later he pulled into the drive-thru at the liquor store.
“A 12-pack of Budweiser, a pint of Jack Daniels, and a pack of Camel filters in the box.” He reached for his wallet and pulled out some bills.
He broke the seal of the Jack Daniels bottle with his teeth before he pulled out of the parking lot.
“At least you love me.” He took a long swig. Several miles later he pulled his car into Falcon Park. No one was around so he parked the car and turned off the ignition.
“Now where was I…” he He cracked open a cold beer and reached for his crack pipe. He settled into the routine of hit, swig, drink a beer. Occasionally(,) he broke up the routine with a cigarette.
Halfway through the bottle the remaining beers started to get warm. He decided to take one last hit and head towards detox.
He looked at his cell phone. No calls. The drugs and the alcohol weren’t doing their job. His wife was really mad at him this time and he wished he could go home. “I’ve got to set things right.” Ben, this is the second time you’ve got him talking out loud to himself. I’d try to avoid that kind of thing. A guy talking to himself comes across as a kind of loon. I’d just have him think it.
Ben, you’ve come an incredibly long way since we started and should be extremely proud of yourself. The problem you need to attack now is that while this is written so much better, there’s just no sense of urgency or tension to it. It’s coming across as mostly a “sort of” bad situation for Davis and not much of a sense of this being a life-altering event for him. Sentences like: His wife was really mad at him this time and he wished he could go home serve to render this as merely a “bad day at the office” kind of thing. We don’t see any desperation, much of anything besides a kind of ennui or mild frustration.
This is one of those tough parts of writing. At this stage, I suspect you’re still learning the difference between melodrama and drama and it’s a steep learning curve. For instance, characters arguing isn’t usually drama at all—it’s mostly tiresome and melodramatic. But, until a writer learns the many nuances of how to impart emotion, it seems to be the only choice. How does one overcome that? By reading people who do it well and appropriate their techniques. I’m going to share a story beginning in a bit to show you what I mean.
First, a great way to infuse this with drama and make his inciting incident ring true and impact the reader emotionally, is to show the depths of his addiction. If you do that, then it doesn’t take much of a scene between him and his wife to complete the inciting incident.
Here’s a story beginning showing a guy in the throes of addiction that do just that. This is from John Sandford’s Easy Prey. It begins:
When the first man woke up that morning, he wasn’t thinking about killing anyone. He woke up with a head full of blues, a brain that was too big for his skull, and a bladder about to burst. He lay with his eyes closed, breathing across a tongue that tasted like burnt chicken feathers. The blues rolled in through the bedroom door.
Coming down hard.
He had been flying on cocaine for three days, getting everything done, everything. Then last night, coming down, he’d stopped at a liquor store for a bottle of Stolichnaya. His bleeding brain retained a picture of himself lifting the bottle off the shelf, and another picture of an argument with the counterman, who didn’t want to break a hundred-dollar bill.
By that time, the coke high had become unsustainable; and the Stoli had been a bad idea. There was no smooth landing after a three-day toot, but the vodka turned a wheels-up belly landing into a full crash-and-burn. Now he’d pay. If you peeled open his skull and dumped it, he thought, his brain would look like a coagulated lump of Campbell’s bean soup.
He cracked his eyes, lifted his head, and looked at the clock. A fewminutes past seven. He’d gotten four hours of sleep. Par for the course with coke, and the Stoli hadn’t helped. If he’d stayed down for ten hours, or twelve—he needed about sixteen to catch up—he might have been past the worst of it. Now he was just gonna have to suck it up.
He turned to his left, where a woman, a dishwater blonde, lay facedown in her pillow. He could only see about half of her head; the rest was buried by a red fleece blanket. She lay without moving, like a dead woman—but no such luck. He closed his eyes again, and there was nothing left in the world but the blues music bumping in from the next room, from the all-blues channel, nine-hundred-and-something on the TV dial. Must’ve left it on last night…
And so on. See how we’re into this guy’s head and into his addiction at the very beginning? This is what you’re missing. We’re kind of “told” he’s a crack addict, but since we don’t get a very good account of how that addiction impacts him, we don’t feel anything emotionally. Picture Sandford’s opening here and then picture how you can use something like this in yours. This is what writers do—we steal techniques. Why it’s so important to read widely and avidly.
Also, look at how a master like Sandford uses original language to convey an image. “Tasted like burnt chicken feathers.” “His bleeding brain.” “Woke with a head full of blues.” “Blues music bumping in from the next room.” There are more, but these few give you the idea. While a nonwriter might look at a guy suffering from addiction and just see a guy nodding off, Sandford gets us inside the guy and delivers how he’s feeling and suffering with wonderful, wonderful language. At the end of reading this, is there any doubt this guy has a jones?
He also begins with the very first sentence, promising trouble about to happen, with:
When the first man woke up that morning, he wasn’t thinking about killing anyone.
This is the kind of thing to work on, Ben. Painting a picture with words. Delivering emotion. Showing Davis as an addict, not telling us. Not writing a scene just showing the character’s actions. That’s screenwriting, not fiction.
Hope this helps!
Read, read, and read some more… and then steal the stuff that works.
Blue skies,
Les
Now—here’s Ben's fellow classmate Brenda’s take on his work:
The Second Chance
Davis pretended to be asleep for nearly an hour. His mind tossed and turned but on the outside he remained motionless. When he heard his wife’s familiar snore, he inched backwards beneath the covers until he reached the edge of the bed.
He slipped free of the bed and watched Michelle to be certain she hadn’t moved. He continued to watch for any movement and stepped backwards toward the door.
Outside the room he began to walk with confidence. He headed down the hall and paused at his daughter’s room. Out of habit he peeked into the room to be certain that she was asleep.
He could lose hours by the side of her crib. He loved to watch Samantha sleep—the way her lips moved, the way she smiled, the way she cooed—she was his little angel. He couldn’t watch her tonight though. He was a man on a mission.
His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. At the end of the hall he entered the living room and navigated the furniture. He reached behind the blinds, unlocked the sliding glass door, and slipped into the night.
When he sat down in the comfort of his patio chair, he reached for the pack of cigarettes hidden behind the potted rose bush. He lit a cigarette and took a long, steady drag.
He had anticipated getting high all day. He wanted to please his wife, but the 12-step meetings and sobriety chips did nothing for him. So his previous drug of choice was alcohol? Not just crack?
Tonight he was going to please himself.
He set the cigarette in the ashtray and stuck his fingers back into the pack. He retrieved a small glass pipe and turned the pack upside down until a few tiny rocks fell into his hand.
He put one into the pipe and lit the end until white smoke filled the chamber. He kept the flame steady and inhaled until his lungs were full. His ability to wait all day for this moment was the only proof he needed to convince himself he was in control.
With the smoke in his lungs his body immediately began to feel the cocaine—a warm rush flooded through his veins and his body began to quiver.
The first hit was always the best.
But now his addiction was wide awake. He forgot that he was supposed to be in control and smoked a night’s worth of crack in less than half an hour. You’re doing a lot of telling and not much showing. I’m not feeling like I’m getting a lot from him personally. A lot of this so far is reading somewhat impersonally. How can you make this seem more real to us? What details can you give?
And the night had only just begun. He crept back into the house, grabbed some clothes and his keys, and snuck out the front door.
He went to the ATM, the dealer’s house, and was home before midnight. He didn’t even stop to take a hit.
He pulled into the driveway but something didn’t seem right. Oh shit—had he left the kitchen light on? See, here feels personal. He’s asking himself something. Much of the above feels like reporter-mode.
He was stuck. Maybe he was just being paranoid. He tried to think of a story. But the door opened and there was Michelle—crack pipe in hand.
“It’s over,” she said. “I’m done with you.”
“Baby…” he said.
“Don’t baby me, you blew your last chance,” she said. You need commas at the end of dialogue that would typically end in a period.
“Baby, it’s not what you think…” He started to recite his lie.
“It’s not what I think? You’re not high? You didn’t choose drugs over your daughter? You didn’t choose drugs over me?” She threw the pipe at him. It bounced off his shoulder and landed on the passenger floor.
“Baby, I messed up. I’m sorry.” He started to get out of the car. Sorry, but so far the dialogue is reading like every cliché stereotype of this scene I’ve heard of. How can you make it more unique? Less expected? More lifelike?
“No, I messed up by giving you another chance.” She pushed the car door closed. “Samantha will never see you high again.”
“But baby…” he said. “I need my family. I love you.” He started to work up tears. I don’t believe him. I believe her, even though her speech is wooden and predictable. There isn’t enough internalization of his thoughts on their loss for me to believe he’s sad or in any way moved by the conversation.
Hmm. You weren’t getting the comma/punctuation thing earlier, so let’s try this way.“You love getting high, YOU NEED COMMA HERE” she said. “I won’t let you hurt us ever again.”
“Baby, I’m sorry. I need you.” He continued the apology. Still not believing him. There’s no heart here. No feelings, no emotions to be read. So far, he’s reading like a robot, and she like a bad soap opera actress.
“No, you need help. And I can’t help you anymore.”
“What am I supposed to do?” He couldn’t hold back his tears. He hoped they would have their usual effect. They didn’t.
“Check into treatment, check into the hospital, YOU NEED COMMA HERE” she said. “Be a man for once.” Okay. Now here is some personality. You need a lot more of it. For her, for him. Etc.
She walked into the house and slammed the door.
I think you’re struggling with something I used to a few years ago. Setting emotions on the page. So far, there’s no real thought process. No vulnerability. Nothing relatable to this fellow. If you want us to sympathize with him, you gotta let us in on what he’s thinking. What his thought process is. You’ve got to show us the internal struggle. Addiction is all about internal struggle. Weighing the pros against the cons, and doing what feels good. You aren’t showing us any of that struggle with him. In fact, he seems so utterly disconnected from his actions, his dialogue and his setting, that it’s almost like he’s operating on a totally separate wavelength that we don’t have access to. Which is bad for your reader, because they’ll never make the necessary connection with him in order to keep reading. He needs redeeming features. Internalization goes a long way in helping with that.
He was mad at himself for getting caught. His tears failed and he wiped his eyes. He punched the dashboard and reached for his cell phone. She didn’t answer.
He tried again. No answer.
The pattern of arguments with his wife had been fairly consistent. She yelled, she screamed, she threw things at him. She complained about his selfishness, his weakness, his lack of concern for the marriage. The fighting would go on for hours and he would wind up sleeping on the couch. Something was different this time. Here’s some internalization. But it’s not enough and not soon enough. You need to launch into his thoughts a lot earlier than this.
He thought about his options. He felt the world close in and knew she was right about treatment. He didn’t want to admit he was an addict. He didn’t want to admit he was out of control.
He thumbed through the papers in the center console. He looked for the info he picked up at one of his meetings. It had numbers to a drug detox center and treatment facilities. Had he thrown it away?
He looked through the trash on the floor until he found the crumpled paper. He couldn’t read the phone numbers scribbled on it and he turned on the dome light. He went through the motions and found the name of a man he recognized from one of the meetings. He wasn’t sure he was making the right move when he dialed the phone.
“Hello,” a man’s voice said.
“Is this Jessie?” he said.
“Who wants to know?” the man said.
“This is Davis. You gave me your number at one of the meetings.”
“Cool. What’s up? How are you?” Jessie said.
“Not well, my wife caught me getting high.”
I like this guy’s dialogue. He sounds real. You need to spread that goodness all around.“Guess you relapsed, huh? The idea is to call someone before you pick up, YOU NEED COMMA HERE” Jessie said.
“I fucked up. I need to get into treatment or my wife is through with me.”
“Do you want to get clean?” Jessie said. “Are you willing to do what it takes?”
“I need to. I don’t have a choice. Can you help me?”
“Hold on. I’ll call you right back.”
He looked at his phone to make sure the ringer was on and stepped out of his car. The front door was locked and when he opened it he realized the latch was in place. Can you show us this without directly reporting it from his eyes? What did it look like? What sound did it make? How many times had he broken the latch to get in when he was intoxicated? Tonight this didn’t seem like a good idea. Ah. It took a second to make the connection that this is his own house. You need to tell us that a bit sooner.
“Baby, please let me in,” he said. His face pressed against the door. The light came on.
“Go away! I swear I’ll call the police on you.” Her response was cold. Really? Cuz with that explanation point, it sounds more angry than cold.
“Baby, I’m on the phone with a friend from the program. I need you and Sam, just give me a chance.” Technically, a lie. The dude hung up. He’s waiting for a call back, right?
“Don’t talk to me again until you’re sober.” She slammed the door close and bolted it. The kitchen light went out.
He put his head into his hands and sighed. He started pacing in the driveway. His phone rang, it was Jessie.
“There’s a bed for you at detox if you’re interested,” Jessie said. “Are you drunk or just high?”
“High,” he said. “How does detox work?” He doesn’t already know? Hasn’t he be going to meetings? Don’t they talk about how things like that work?
“Have a few drinks so you’ve got liquor in your system. They’ll keep you for a couple of days and work to find you the best treatment options.”
Jessie gave him directions and offered to pick him up.
“Thanks, I can find it,” he said. He hung up the phone with a plan in place. The crack in his pocket had been calling to him throughout this ordeal. He could finally respond to that call.
He dialed his wife one more time. He knew she wouldn’t answer but his plan was to leave a message anyway.
“Baby, I love you and Sam and am going to do everything right this time. I am on my way to detox and they’ll help me find the treatment I need. Please have faith in me.” I’m not buying this instanteous “Oops. Shit, I got caught. But ho-hum, I’m immediately off to detox because you’re pissed and I want to appease you. Diddly-dee, Here I am at Detox. Surely, this will not make her mad at me anymore.” Does this make any sense to you?
He turned the dome light back on and found the crack pipe she threw at him. It was intact.
He knew exactly what he should do. His addiction knew exactly what he would do. Here’s some of that internal struggle I was talking about. But it’s not enough. Stretch it out. What does everything mean to him? We need a longer thought-process.He turned on his car, put it into reverse, and pulled out of the driveway.
He followed Jessie’s instructions and made a beeline to get some booze. A couple miles later he pulled into the drive-thru at the liquor store. Okay. This makes no sense. The guy said it’d be okay to show up high. Now he thinks that’s an excuse to show up drunk AND high? Even if it doesn’t make good sense to us, you need to make us believe that HE thinks it’s a good idea. Otherwise, we’re too lost in disbelief.
“A 12-pack of Budweiser, a pint of Jack Daniels, and a pack of Camel filters in the box.” He reached for his wallet and pulled out some bills.
He broke the seal of the Jack Daniels bottle with his teeth before he pulled out of the parking lot.
“At least you love me.” He took a long swig. Several miles later he pulled his car into Falcon Park. No one was around so he parked the car and turned off the ignition.
“Now where was I…” he cracked open a cold beer and reached for his crack pipe. He settled into the routine of hit, swig, drink a beer. Occasionally he broke up the routine with a cigarette. Why did he even call the guy for a room if he was joe-cool with hanging out intoxicated in his car? We need to see HIS logic behind this. Help us make sense out of it. Even it’s a comforting reaction, to make the loss of his wife feel less painful. I can understand that logic. Maybe even relate. But unless you give us a reason for why he does what he does, everything he does will seem nonsensical.
Halfway through the bottle the remaining beers started to get warm. He decided to take one last hit and head towards detox.
He looked at his cell phone. No calls. The drugs and the alcohol weren’t doing their job. His wife was really mad at him this time and he wished he could go home. “I’ve got to set things right.”
Hi Ben.
I’m not really sure what to add that I didn’t already mention above. Really think about your character’s logic and the motivations they have as to why they’re acting the way they do. Even if what they’re doing seems stupid or illogical, as long as they have a reason that makes sense to them, more often than not, the reader will follow along with them.
Hope this helped! –Brenda
As you can see, we’ve got some sharp students in class! They’re all like this, believe me. There are about ten left in class (we started with more, but as always happens, some can’t stand the heat in the kitchen so they… relocate. Which makes the class really work well.) I could have included all the rest of the class’s comments, but Brenda’s is fairly representative.
What this does is give each writer ten teachers instead of one. And, as you can see, they don’t provide “pitty-patty” feel-good comments, but tough, intelligent ones, delivered with good manners and in a spirit of helping each other get better. They’re all committed to becoming good writers who will have a solid chance at getting published eventually as a result of what they learn, and they take no quarter. And, everyone accepts the others’ criticism. It’s never delivered maliciously or to show that they know more than the other person, but always in the spirit of helping out a fellow writer. We have no competition in class. We feel there’s room for everyone to get published and a fellow writer’s success is only going to help other writers. There’s also no competition for grades as I abolish them at the beginning. They know at the very beginning that their grade doesn’t depend on how good they are or how brilliant or bad their writing may be. There are only two things that are required: that they show up each week and that they try their best. If they do that, their writing will get better. And, they get that A, which is the least of their motivations.
Another thing that's important to know. Students don't wait for me to send my comments before they make their own. And, I don't read theirs before I post mine. It wasn't until after I'd posted my comments on Ben's work to the class that I read Brenda's comments. Which means she hadn't read mine, since they hadn't been posted yet. None of the class members are trying to cue in on what I said and vice versa. We all have faith in each other to make our own judgments, independent of each other.
I love my classes! They’re always composed of great students. It makes me feel so good to get the same compliment each class at the end of it. It always goes something like this (this is from an actual email I got and is similar to many others I’ve received): “I never worked so hard in any class I’ve ever taken as I have in this one. I’ve taken other classes and all I ever get is some faint praise—‘this works well’ or ‘I like this’—and it’s obvious the instructor didn’t spend much time really looking at my work. I’ll get comments I can see are designed to make me feel good, but they don’t since there’s no thought behind it other than to… make me feel good. You give very little praise, but it’s always earned and I value it more than all the ‘you write description well’ kinds of “compliments” I usually get.”
Well, it makes me feel good also to know that they earned every bit of the praise I’m admittedly stingy about giving out. People want to know they’ve actually earned their blue ribbons, I think. My writers have.
Just a wild-eyed teacher...
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