Break into Print - Sample Lesson

Ms. Carlene A. Carmen
Street
City, State Zip

Dear Carlene,

I smiled when I saw that I was going to take another trip to Mr. Cranmer’s classroom. You’ve done a good job letting me see what it was about Mr. Cranmer and his English 431 class that captured your attention in the first place. I think you made a good choice centering the story around the syllabus itself, since that gives the story a nice, tight focus.

The addition of the hapless Mr. Dodds adds the potential for rising tension and conflict in your story, as well as offering opportunities for humor. I loved when the poor boy made the mistake of saying “Yes!” when the week six assignment was ultimately cancelled. His just reward from Mr. Cranmer was quite fitting.

One suggestion that would give this humorous tale more depth is to add a little more tension. When Mr. Cranmer hands out his syllabus, does the class (or even the narrator) react in shock at the length and detail? Groan? Thumb through the pages as if in disbelief? If the reader knows that everyone is wondering how all this work is going to get accomplished, but no one is willing to say so, that will give Mr. Dodds’s challenge to Mr. Cranmer even more punch.

And if the dialogue between them is snappier (“Mr. Cranmer, there’s no way we’ll be able to do all this!”) and you insert a hint that Mr. Dodds may be right—the class is gradually getting a little bit more behind each week—the reader is going to wonder just who will end up with egg on their face over Mr. Cranmer’s syllabus.

Another suggestion to make the story more vivid would be to add sensory details of the classroom. It is a larger classroom

than is needed for the ten students, but is it a white walled modern room with a whiteboard? A nineteenth-century classroom with big drafty windows and pitted chalkboard? Does Mr. Cranmer write his name with the squeak of marker against whiteboard, or rasp of chalk against a blackboard? Are the student desks individual and ancient? Long desks with rows of chairs tucked neatly in? When the students move restlessly at the first sight of their syllabus, do their desks creak and groan? Does Mr. Cranmer’s voice echo in the nearly empty room? Or is he hard to hear and students must sit up close to the front?

Take a look at “Mrs. Comfrey Wins” in your Voices anthology, for an example of using sensory detail to capture the stifling nature of Mrs. Comfrey’s daughter’s home.

One more suggestion I have for you is to work some more on your sentence structure. You’ve made good progress judging by the improvement I see from the last assignment, but you might want to try reading your story aloud to hear whether the sentences and dialogue flow as you mean them to. In a story so short, each sentence should be as well-crafted as possible.

For example, “I knew that he had to be more intelligent than to show off his manly build.” This sentence does not make sense as it is written. Readers get impatient when you throw in a sloppy sentence. It pulls them out of the story. It is better to make two clear sentences than try to force two competing images into one unclear sentence—“I knew he had to be intelligent by the way he carried himself. His thin, frail body was held as proudly as if he were a prime example of physical fitness.”

You’ve made a great start in fiction with “Mr. Cranmer’s Syllabus.” Assignment #3 will offer you a change of pace. Since you’ve decided that you’d like to work on a nonfiction family history, I think this is a good time to try. I’m looking forward to reading about your father’s family.

In addition to following the steps in Section 3 of Breaking into Print and reading chapters 9–12 in On Writing Well, check out the article in Voices, “Through a Glass, Painted,” for one idea on how to approach your non-fiction topic.

My comments on “Mr. Cranmer’s Syllabus” should be self-explanatory, but please don’t hesitate to ask for clarification when you drop me a note with Assignment #3.

In addition to any questions, I’ll need to know whether, after completing Assignment #3, you still wish to focus on nonfiction for Assignment #4. If you’re not certain, I’d suggest that you take a second look at the authors’ comments at the end of each Voices piece before deciding.

I’m looking forward to seeing your next assignment. Please try to have it to me in five weeks.

Happy Writing!

Kelly McClymer

Enclosure: Assignment #2
Punctuating

review edited manuscript