Atticus

I'm teaching my creative writing class to write fiction, now. This quarter, they start writing a novel. I know it is a novel that most of them will never finish, but the least I can do is to give them a push in the right direction.

As part of my plan, I am showing them two movies. They have read novels, but, for my purposes, the movies I have picked (Dances With Wolves and To Kill A Mockingbird) are effective in having them explore novel-style story structure.

Scout and Atticus

Today, we started talking about To Kill A Mockingbird, which they have all read at some point or another (way too early, as per the ridiculous and ubiquitous assumption that it is a book that kids are intellectually ready for simply because kids are the main characters), and I had an epiphany.

I stopped the lesson. I paused the film after Atticus hugs Scout good night. I told the girls that I wasn't talking to them for the moment. They laughed. I addressed the guys.

Finchian Logic

Once in awhile, I will read something, somewhere, and I will realize that, on this particular day, I am not likely to write anything nearly as good -- and that, consequently, I should just shut the heck up and let another writer's words be heard.

Please read this brilliant piece by my good friend and When Falls the Coliseum colleague, Scott Warnock. A fantastic narrative meditation on fatherhood and the choices a man must sometimes make:

 "A Story: What Would Atticus Finch Do?"