Posts by Lee Martin
My Mother Gives Me a Writing Lesson
(In honor of Mother’s Day, I’m giving another life to this old post.) As I dream of spring on this cold January day, I’m reading through some old letters from my mother, written in her widowhood, and I’m struck by the sound of my own voice in hers and the lesson she offers the writer…
Read MoreAsk Lee
I’ve been doing this blog for several years, and from time to time I get the feeling that I’m repeating myself. When that happens, I know it’s time for me to ask you what you want to know. Please send me your questions. I’ll try to get to them in the weeks to come. If…
Read MoreLee K. Abbott and the Power of the Sentence
In remembrance of my former colleague, Lee K. Abbott, I offer the first sentence of his story, “Time and Fear and Somehow Love”: Since, as she conceived it, the letter was to be the final word on the subject, she endeavored to start slowly, then lead up to, as fine drama does, those moments of…
Read MoreYour Writer’s Journey
Here at the end of another semester, I’m reading work from my MFA students and thinking how privileged I am to be at least a small part of their writers’ journeys. Some of the students are completing their degrees and thinking about their next steps. I want to tell them, as I’m telling you now,…
Read MoreMuscle Up: Writing Stronger Sentences
We prose writers spend so much time thinking about characterization and plot that we often overlook the importance of the artfully crafted sentence. “All you have to do is write one true sentence,” Ernest Hemingway famously said. “Write the truest sentence that you know.” His work strove for accuracy, honesty, and clarity, and it all…
Read MoreA Writer’s Faith
I hated working in the family garden when I was a teenager because, of course, I had teenager things to do, and all of that tilling and hoeing got in the way. Now, decades later, I’m eager to work up the soil in the raised bed Cathy and I rent from our community garden and…
Read MorePracticing the Techniques of Our Craft
For some reason, I’m thinking today about how I learned to drive. When I was around twelve years old, my father started letting me steer his Oldsmobile on the gravel roads near our farm in Lukin Township. I’d scoot close to him on the bench seat and steer while he operated the gas and, if…
Read MoreThe Bare Bones of Storytelling
Here’s an old joke about a boy who didn’t speak for the first five years of his life. Then, one night at the dinner table, he says, “These mashed potatoes are lumpy.” His parents are amazed. His father says, “Son, you can speak!” The mother says, “Why did it take you so long to say…
Read MoreUsing the Senses to Tell the Truth
Our first job as writers is to create a convincing world on the page. Ours is a truth-telling enterprise whether we’re inventing or remembering. Whether we’re writing fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry, we rely on the concrete details to gain the trust of our readers. How can we ever hope for our work to tell…
Read MoreDetermining the End of a Novel
We’ve reached that time of year when we. . .well, when we mess with time. Springing forward to Daylight Savings Time, has cost us an hour. What could have happened between two a.m., standard time, and what should have been three a.m., standard time, will never happen. That hour disappeared as soon as we moved…
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