paced back and forth in front of the class and then reached over and took one of the stories from the top of the pile. “Let me read you the opening two sen–tences of this essay,” she said, her voice the physical equivalent of someone holding their nose.
“It was an awful day. I walked along the sidewalk thinking about depressing things and worrying that my life was moving along too quickly.” She glared at us all.
“I can’t count how many times I’ve had to drill it into my classes to show not tell. This is a perfect example.”
She waved the offending sheet of paper at us. “What kind of awful day? Was it raining, hailing, sleeting? Was the smog smothering our protagonist or maybe it was fog obscuring the author’s reasoning? Now try this:
“The rain smashed into the sidewalk like a hand slap–ping a face.
“Okay. Maybe a little overdone for a first sentence, but that doesn’t just tell you that it’s an awful day, it shows you. It gives you an image of what’s happening to make it an awful day and maybe make you wonder why your protagonist used such an analogy. And the next sentence — what depressing things is the author talking about? This is a golden opportunity to describe some–thing depressing that perhaps links back to an important past event, maybe something like:
“I could barely keep my leaden feet moving for all the wrenching images of dead and dying people flitting through my mind, mocking me.
“This gives the reader some indication of the nature of this person; that they’re pessimistic and prone to depression. So why is the protagonist thinking of dead and dying people? Choose any depressing thing that fits the story. It doesn’t have to be dead people. And the sec–ond half of that sentence is so pedestrian. It says nothing to the reader except that life moves quickly, which every–one over the age of twenty knows already.
“Say something that has meaning to your character, maybe even something that foreshadows something to come or makes you wonder. What about:
“Making me wonder if my life had passed me by.
“This reinforces the depressive nature of our protago–nist and sets us to wondering why she’s wondering if her life has passed her by. It draws us in.”
The class was silent. I watched them taking it all in. It was pretty clear that Terry had just turned a piece of challenged writing into something more interesting. I wondered who the author was and was glad that Terry had been kind and not identified him or her.
“Tracey.” The name rang out like the lonely hollow sound it was. I’d thought too soon.
We all turned in unison to look at Tracey, who sat frozen in her chair. She was dressed like a grey day, som–ber colours that reached to her grey face and iron grey hair. Her thin, pinched features seemed to recoil back, giving the impression that her face was seriously sunken.
She seemed to have shrunk into the chair, her body hunched, her arms hugging herself as if to make sure she was really there.
“Come and get your writing and at least try, on your next one, to make it seem like you’re listening to me. If you can’t write better than this you’ll never get anywhere, and even then you can’t be sure.”
“You mean, even if we’re good there’s no guarantee?”
Terry studied the man who had spoken and said in measured tones, “In this business it helps to know some–one, or be someone.” There was a trace of bitterness in her words, but she shrugged them off and held out Tracey’s essay.
“Isn’t that how you got published?”
Terry turned to face Peter, who had slipped in unno–ticed. She looked at him curiously and then laughed. “I guess you could say I became a celebrity and then pub–lished a book. But I just got lucky, or unlucky if you look at the jail time I did for something I had no control over.
I just took advantage of bad luck and turned it into good luck. I do NOT recommend you take my route.”
Someone in the audience yelled out “What happened?”
Terry smiled and said, “Read my book. It’s all there.”
I thought that was rather abrupt, but it couldn’t be pleasant to always be confronted with such an unpleas–ant memory, to constantly be asked about it.
Terry waved Tracey’s paper at her. When Tracey didn’t make a move to get up — I don’t think she could’ve if she’d tried — Terry waltzed over and dumped it in her lap then went on to her next topic, without any sign that she was aware of what she had just done to Tracey. I was very glad I had no work in that pile and looked furtively at Martha and Duncan. Duncan was frowning and Mar–tha was biting her lower lip.
“This next needs no explanation.” She walked back and forth with the poor little essay quivering in her hands, stopped in front of Martha and began to read:
“The saucer-like silent, sizzling sun shone a ray of wonderment upon the little boy, who opened his mouth and gulped it down, quenching his tears away. But be patient, gentle reader, and you shall soon find out what happens to the little ray of wonderment.”
There was dead silence and then rather a few muffled giggles. I looked at Martha, watched her face hitch a ride on a roller coaster of emotions: astonishment, bewilder–ment, anger, realization…. But it was the last one that I’ll never forget. She suddenly flung back her head and laughed with the best of us. When the laughter had died down Terry handed Martha her essay.
“Gentle reader? Where the hell did that come from?”
“Gulliver’s Travels.” Martha didn’t skip a beat. “Or perhaps you haven’t heard of it?”
Terry studied her for a long time. I thought she was going to say something but she didn’t. Instead she turned to the class and gave them their next assignment before asking me to give my lecture. It was just my luck that she was handing over a giggling class to me. I confess I thought that maybe she had done it on purpose, but that was uncharitable. Still — talk about daunting.
I was just about to start when someone poked their head in the door asking for Terry. She scowled but got up and went out, leaving me alone at the front of the room.
I was immediately peppered with questions from people doing research for their books. I finally threw aside my notes and opened the floor, allowing them to query me about the body I had found in the wilderness the summer before. Then they grilled me for information for their own books.
“I’m researching a book where my murder victim is killed in Quebec, then moved three days later and dumped in the woods in northern Ontario. How can my protagonist know how long since death?” asked one man.
“Well, flies love dead stuff and they can find a vacated body really quickly — within seconds sometimes. They lay their eggs and it’s the larvae we use to help us pin–point the time of death. Since we know how long it takes for each species of larva to develop into a fly, and we know they sometimes colonize within minutes, we can count backwards and find the time of death by finding the time when the flies deposited their eggs.”
“How can my protagonist know that the body’s
