Looking Back: Revision Tips

Cathy and I were driving to our friends’ house for a meal—we were supposed to bring dessert—when it came to me that I’d better ask her if she’d remembered to bring the cake she’d made. She said. . .well, I’ll let you imagine what she said when she realized the cake was still in its…

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Higher Education under Fire

It’s MFA thesis season here at Ohio State University, which means I have eight manuscripts to read. If it sounds like a lot of reading, it’s because it is. I spent the last two days reading a student’s very good novel, and now I feel like I need a rest—well, at least my eyes could…

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Easter Flowers

The daffodils are in bloom. When I was a boy on our farm, we called them Easter flowers. The north side of our front yard was full of them—big, lovely, yellow, double blooms. I left them there when I sold the farm, and, with them, I thought I was leaving behind the footsteps of all…

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After the Reading: Faith Restored (Reprinted)

(Since it’s spring break here at Ohio State University, I’ve decided to take a bit of a rest. I’m reprinting this old post, and I’ll see you next week with a new one. Be well, everyone.)   Here’s a simple story. I go to an independent bookstore in a Midwestern town of around 14,000 people…

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Past, Present, Future: Layering in Narrative

I recently watched the Robert Zemeckis film Here. The film’s nonlinear structure tells the story of a single plot of land and the people who lived on it over a wide span of years. From time to time, the screen subdivides into multiple panes, so we see events from different time periods seeming to occur…

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Strategies for Finding Empathy for Our Characters

Last week, I posted about the importance of having empathy for our characters even those who are less that admirable. This week, I want to continue thinking about exactly how we can find that empathy. Here are a few strategies: Be a matchmaker. When I was just beginning to work on my novel, River of…

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Empathy

I grew up in a rural part of southeastern Illinois. My father was a farmer. My mother was a teacher. My childhood was racially monochromatic. I, and everyone around me, was as white as white could be. My first memory of interaction with a Black person came when I was four years old. My aunt…

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Using Photographs in Memoir: An Illustration

In the photograph, my mother isn’t looking at the camera. Instead, she’s looking down on her nephew, who must be about two at the time. He holds onto her hand. He’s dapper in his playsuit, his chubby legs bare from knees to ankles where his short white socks and his baby shoes anchor him. Still,…

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Using the Figurative to Deepen the Prose

I love Jill Christman’s essay, “The Sloth,” so much, I’m going to quote it here, as published in Brevity, in its entirety:   There is a nothingness of temperature, a point on the body’s mercury where our blood feels neither hot nor cold. I remember a morning swim on the black sand eastern coast of…

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