Suspense, Motives, Reactions, and Emotions: How Do Authors Do It?
Trying to make a dent in a reader's resistance is like trying to freeze the ripples on the water's surface after you’ve tossed a stone. Yet that’s what most writers are trying to do whether we realize it or not. There are a few mentors who have taught that lesson. I remember with awe those who made an effort to encourage such an ambition.
The art of the written word seems to be most capable of making that kind of ephemeral impression. One reason is that imaginative writing makes the closest approach to painless learning possible for most of us. When it's effective enough, the impression made won't disappear in the flood of experience.
Jesse Stuart wrote a book about his youthful adventures as a teacher in an Appalachian one-room schoolhouse. The "thread that runs so true" of the title tells how he discovered that games in teaching can point to how to play the game of Life with a capital L. Children of all ages (into old age) learn with fun.
I attended a writer's conference where the keynote speaker was Joyce Carol Oates. She was already a celebrity in the literary world, and the attendees were virtually holding our breaths to hear her. She said, "All art begins in play."
