Category: Fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
ISBN-13: 9781582433561
Pub. Date: September 2006 (Reprint)
Date Read: February 2009
"Shakespeare was just another guy with a pen. What? you say. Well, at one time he was just like you, sitting there staring at a blank page with stories he wanted to tell but no idea how to do it. Don't let anyone fool you; all great writers have found themselves in the same spot."
With this ad in a literary journal, Wendell Newton, writer-in-residence, founder and director of the Famous Writers School correspondence course, gains three new students in his course.
The aspiring novelists are Dan, a John Deere sales rep, who wants to write a detective story and admires writers like James Lee Burke but definitely not Proust. There's also Rio, a singer who has a messed-up love life. And, finally there's Linda an odd housewife who becomes more erratic as the novel progresses.
Wendell has six lessons that he'll assign to his students hoping that they'll learn about character construction, meaning, putting it all together, etc. When he sends his assignments to the students he explains what he means by sharing snippets from his life.
Told in epistolary form we see the characters interact and slowly begin to realize what makes them tick. The way each student approachs the assignment shows us a bit of his character through their stories. While I definitely got a sense of each character, hands down, Wendell was my favorite. He's a bit delusional but just so fun to watch.
A very entertaining story. And, if you've ever taken a course in creative writing or wanted to, then this is a must read.