ACWW – Week 3

I’m heading into Week 3 of the Advanced Creative Writing Workshop with instructor Richard Thomas and LOVING IT.

We read two short stories from one of three anthologies and also two short stories from fellow classmates, all of which we meet to discuss weekly on Skype.

Having that in-person interaction has been so great, especially hearing the perspectives of everyone else, which has given me new insight into the stories we’ve read.

At our last class, author Rich Larson joined us for a chat. We’d just read his story Dark Warm Heart in Best Horror of the Year Vol. 10 from Ellen Datlow so it was pretty cool to talk to him and ask how he came up with the idea and find out more about his writing process.

One thing I loved about Dark Warm Heart was the way Rich brought in the Algonquin legend of the Wendigo. I’d already heard about the creature a lot growing up. It’s still a popular legend here, especially in Northern Ontario, so seeing the creature mentioned in Rich’s story was a thrill.

I also loved the way he brought the lore into his story. It’s no secret that I love basing my stories on superstitions, but I often struggle with how to bring in the lore without too much telling, in the form of some wise character coming in with a, “Well, you know, Bob…I once heard this about this particular superstition that is just like this.” There’s nothing worse than a know-it-all character pulling your readers out of the story, so this tale was the perfect illustration for me that I’ll keep in mind moving forward with my own work.

My story is one of the next ones being critiqued in class. It was previously rejected from an anthology and after some notes for a beta reader, I reworked it, so it’ll be interesting to see what my classmates think of it. I’ll keep you posted!