Leads, Dialogue, and Character Biographies

I am three weeks into a six-week-long creative writing class and I love it! I’ve never taken a formal creative writing class before due to fear. I heard about interaction and sharing and constructive criticism, but I really can’t recommend the experience more. The instructor is full of exercises and prompts and helpful hints. She’s relaxed and kind and supportive, which has suddenly given me the courage to share, to receive good and bad feedback, to think, and to create.

I now have the beginning to my book, and I think it’s pretty good. I have positive, and what felt like genuine, feedback from a classmate with whom I had to trade papers. I don’t have feedback from the instructor yet, and won’t until next Wednesday night. Knowing me, I’ll stupidly wait until next week’s approval or disapproval to continue working. I’m absurdly meticulous like that. It comes from being a tech writer by day, I guess.

But I will keep up with my bits and pieces. It’s how I have written in the past and seems to help my blank-page-a-phobia. I write scenes or events when they literally pop into my head (I don’t seem to be able to plan the impulses), and then I hope that they will eventually all fit together in an organized, end result of a novel.

This class has already helped me feel better about my process, my challenges, my fears, and, most importantly, my actual writing. It has brought cohesion to a particular story in my head through instruction about creating leads, developing character biographies, and writing dialogue. I have learned to become an observer of my own story.

I can’t wait to find out what happens next – to me and to the people in my head!

Comments

[Essay]

Congratulations in advance and good luck to you. I envy you for you're able to write what you love. I'm also a technical writer here in Canada but I can't seem to find the time to do so. Hope I can join your writing group and maybe build up my confidence. Congratulations again!