Jennifer M. Leonard

Educated Writers Create Exemplary Works

            I have always been interested in the history and at the same time enjoyed writing. I took my first creative writing class as a senior at Clear Lake High School. As a teenager I enjoyed writing short stories that captured the experiences I was having. At San Jacinto Community College I again took a creative writing class. That class was similar in format to this class but lacked the instruction on fiction that we received. I looked forward to taking creative writing again at UHCL and was excited to see it on the Fall schedule. Once class began I was excited for the writing but apprehensive about the poetry section of the class. I endeavored to make it through poetry so I could learn as much as possible about fiction writing.

            Poetry clearly was the most intimidating portion of the class. The draft exchange was daunting and I waited for the responses of the two I had sent my poems to. In retrospect the draft exchange was actually a gift. It was like a soft dress rehearsal for reading my fiction in class. The course objective of creating cooperative relations with other writers had been realized. Both ladies I exchanged with were happy to read my poems and sent me feedback that was constructive and positive. This gave me the confidence I needed to revise my poem. This is when I first realized that all of us were probably apprehensive about sharing our work with others and that all of us were on equal footing.  I plan to continue these relationships after this class and even graduation.

            The other objective that I have realized is the idea that my story is a work in progress. Before this class when I wrote something I revised it from a grammatical and error correction view point. By understanding the need of feedback from other writers this allowed me to also see the reward of their input through revision. Different eyes allow for different perspectives which I feel help me to create writing that will appeal to more and have more depth of story.

            The fiction readings also helped strengthen my knowledge of the conventions of fiction writing. Primarily I feel the passage on exposition helped my writing.  Learning to show action and surrounding rather than just telling what is happening and where. The other passage that was helpful to me was the area where it discussed rate of revelation. (pg206) "As a story develops, it is a good idea to continue alternating between the vitality of fresh plot development ant eh richness of description and exposition."

Also, how to go in and out of dialogue was explained quite well.  Specifically avoiding the tendency to restate he said in twenty different variations. The discussion of conventions and the line, "This is one of those cases where art should conceal technique." (pg 239) was the most useful. I have always felt that dialogue was my weakest area of writing and now I have more confidence that in the future it will be more seamless.

            In my writing I enjoy researching and picking a setting and then layering the historic aspects in. This semester my writing was greatly influenced by my Medieval History course.  I seek to write stories where the woman is the strong character and steer away from fictional tendencies of the past to make the heroine a week woman in need of rescuing. The first reading we did on fiction, chapter twelve Fact and Fiction, really explained that for creative writing we can take cues from reality, our lives, our surroundings and mix them with our imagination.

            In my story I have a woman who is a witch, a leader, and a niece, who is going into battle. While some of that is pure fantasy I hope that I am portraying a woman who is a representation of the strong women we see in our world every day. It is my belief that the strong woman has always existed and was found in historical times, that she is not just an invention of the twenty first century.

            A previous student of Dr. Whites, Rachel Barton, mentioned how she "loved the idea of being able to actually write down suggestions, notes, observations, and remakes on the stories or poems and be able to hand them back to the writer." Of all the aspects of this class I also found this the most rewarding and educational component. I learned just as much from hearing and discussing my class mates material as I did from them giving recommendations to mine. The open and supportive exchange of ideas introduced me to different types of writing and perspectives that will hopefully open up my writing to include a wider range of subject matter.

            I would highly recommend this class to other students. As we discussed in class after the review process, I believe a few writing prompts in class would help trigger the creative process. If possible it might be beneficial to create two separate classes for those seeking to strengthen their poetry writing and those seeking to strengthen their fiction writing. This would allow more in depth work into the areas of interest and allow for more writing time. That being my only criticism, I have enjoyed the class immensely and will continue to use the knowledge in my writing both creatively and academically in the future.