Longer Conversations

I had taught a couple classes at the PNWA’s Writer’s Cottage, but both classes had been attended by only a few students. I didn’t call my classes Fearless Writing then, though that’s what I was teaching, more or less. At that time, I called it an Author’s Roundtable, or an Author’s Master Class. I didn’t care what I called it. I just wanted to talk to people about the emotional challenges of facing a blank page each morning, and how mastering those emotional challenges were as important as mastering our craft.

One day I stopped by the cottage to drop off some manuscripts I’d critiqued for the PNWA’s yearly conference. The front of the cottage was set up for a class the next day: rows and rows of tables and chairs, enough for fifteen or twenty students. I asked Pam, the PNWA President, about the class.

“It’s called Perfecting Your First Page.”

“And this is for all the people who’ve signed up for it?”

“Actually, more wanted to sign up for it,” she said, “There wasn’t room.”

I shook my head. This was exactly the kind of nitty-gritty craft class I had no interest in teaching. Yet the classroom was bursting at the seams.

“I don’t know if I belong here,” I complained. “This is the kind of stuff they want. No one shows up for my classes.”

“So, change the name,” she said. “Make it sound like something they want.”

“What, like: The Three Questions Every Writer Should Ask About Their Story?”

“Exactly. That sounds good. I’d take that class.”

I decided to give Pam’s suggestion a try. After I’d figured out what the three questions were, and wrote a description of the class, I arrived one Saturday afternoon to a room full of students. Pam’s was probably the best piece of marketing advice I’d ever received. The class was in the end not very different than what I’d been teaching before. I had worried briefly that I was being deceitful, that my title suggested a craft class when they were in fact getting something slightly different. Turns out, it hadn’t mattered.

I began to see marketing differently at that point. The title of the class, I decided, was a kind of bite-sized, recognizable, friendly invitation to a longer conversation about writing. Pithiness by itself is not deceit, though it must by its nature leave a certain amount unsaid. But that’s writing anyway: the practice of finding the fastest way to say what wants to be said, leaving the rest to the reader, each story an invitation to a longer conversation about life.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com