Having a novel and three commissioned memoirs published in the past eight
years has not left
Barbara Carpenter much time to work on her own projects. Carpenter's work appears in
multiple Chicken Soup for the Soul books, national magazines and other
anthologies. Most current is "Roses and Thorns," The Memoirs of Isabel Ramos de
Aguilar." Available on amazon,Mrs. Aguilar's story is an engrossing account of
her life and escape from Cuba in the mid-1960s.
Show. Don’t Tell
By Barbara Carpenter
For twelve years I was a member of the Cedarhurst
Writer’s Roundtable. Sessions were held on Tuesday nights. Our ages ranged from
14 to 80, and there were two instructors. Many of the members became published
writers. Several of my short stories, written as assignments, became part of my
first novel. Class members read short
excerpts of their work each week, followed by critiques from fellow writers.
“Show. Don’t tell.” was a helpful subject to me.
The preceding paragraph reads much like a small
newspaper item. It tells basic facts, revealing nothing about my experience
with a colorful assortment of people who became my friends. I would like to
“show” them to you:
For twelve years, Tuesday nights found me and a dozen
other would-be writers gathered around a large table inside the Cedarhurst Art Museum
Annex. While the museum is a beautiful, pillared white building surrounded with
sculptures and massive trees, the Annex is not. Cedarhurst grounds are
extensive. They include an outdoor venue that boasts a classic pavilion where
weddings, receptions and other social gatherings are booked months, even years
in advance.
A tall, wrought-iron fence encompasses the grounds. Impressive flower gardens
and trimmed shrubberies draw photographers, artists, patrons and visitors
during all seasons.
On a street behind the museum, the Annex is a
run-of-the-mill tan metal building, with gray concrete floors, suitable for
art, pottery, sewing and crafting classes of all kinds, even minor art shows.
The Writer’s Roundtable was held in one of those classrooms, a large one,
complete with sinks, counters, multiple tables and supplies. Our diverse group
thought it perfect for our needs.
.
Ages of those around the table ranged from 14 to 80.
The majority, like me, at 48, fell in the middle. Improbable as it seems, we
were compatible; and some close friendships resulted from our weekly meetings.
The two instructors were memorable: a soft-spoken elderly woman with a crown of
snow-white hair, worn in a classic bun; and a man of approximately the same
age, who wore horn-rimmed glasses and tweed. They held court and presented
lessons/discussions on all aspects of writing. Both of them were aspiring
writers, so we all learned together.
Two of my soon-to-be-colleagues-in-arms and I decided
early on that the gentleman was a “pseudo” intellectual, his assumed collegial
persona as phony as the brown micro-suede elbow patches on his jackets. After
delivering what I’m sure he considered a pithy paragraph, he often gazed at us
over the tops of his glasses and added, rhetorically, “Don’t you know?” My two new friends and I dared not exchange
glances following his discourses, not after the one time we made the mistake of
doing just that. We had burst into simultaneous laughter, laughed more as we
tried to extricate ourselves from and explain our inexplicable mirth.
We adults parented 14-year-old Sean, whose soft, brown
hair curled over his forehead; matching brown eyes twinkled behind his wire-rimmed
glasses. Suzy, quiet by nature, had long dark hair and green eyes that seemed
to reflect her gentle personality, a writer of plays for her church and her
children. Larry with the light blue eyes and slow accent that belied his birth
and denied most of his life spent lived in Illinois, wrote side-splitting humor
that often had us doubling over with laughter. Beautiful Betty, whose color-coordinated
make-up, clothing, shoes, jewelry and be-jeweled cane to assist her
MS-afflicted body, wrote flowery paragraphs and poetry that could have come
from the pen of some Victorian miss. When I once whispered a question to Betty,
wondering if her underwear coordinated with her clothing, she only laughed; but
she and her sparkling blue eyes did not deny that my supposition was wrong.
And Melissa, our curly-red-haired, freckled,
hazel-eyed genius who had grown up thinking she was “dumb,” until a loving
teacher discovered that the girl was dyslexic, held all our hearts. Her epic
stories about “The Kid,” a tomboy girl who ran across railroad trestle bridges
with the boys, fell out of a tree and broke her arm, after successfully
transferring baby birds back to their nest, who survived horrendous sexual
abuse. I and the other one of our triangle suspected that “the kid” was
actually Melissa and hoped we were wrong.
These are only a few of our number, each memorable in
his/her own way.
We gained an amazing amount of practical writing
skills, from improved grammar, punctuation, dialogue, paragraphing, wants and
needs of publishers; and three of us had articles and stories published from
some of our assigned writing. The first book of my series, “Starlight, Starbright…” came into being
from a collection of my stories, also part of our weekly assignments. The group
helped me decide upon a title for the series. Among the suggestions was “Redbud
Prairie Tales,” which was nice; but since the town was called Redbud Grove, not
quite suitable.
Our critiques of each other’s works were gentle, but
pointed and helpful. We were there to learn, not to be flattered, not to hear
only that our efforts were all wonderful and ready for publication. Our
victories were shared ones, each of us happy for anyone who ecstatically held
up a publisher’s check.
One of the important, possibly the most important
lesson/skill, we learned was to “show, not tell” our stories. We learned to use
all the senses: taste, touch, hear, see and smell. Recently I read a
best-selling author’s newest book, a most disappointing several hours of time.
He told a story, but he failed to show me the following: physical attributes of
his characters, from hair and eye color, to stature, mannerisms, voice,
accents; descriptions of the settings, the ambience, shops, brick or asphalt
streets, the tone of the town; and it went from there, or did not, actually.
My goal in writing this little description about
Cedarhurst Writer’s Roundtable is to bring life to the characters in my story,
to show a glimpse of them, to hear their laughter, see their faces, perhaps to
realize a bit of their dreams; for both instructors, Suzy, Betty, Larry and
others of our number have passed away, the first being Larry, who died four
months after the discovery of an inoperable brain tumor. He left multiple boxes
of stories, some finished, some not; but all of us learned better how to bring
a reader into our stories, to show them our experiences, not just tell them.
