by Eva Marie Everson @EvaMarieEverson
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| One of the Best Ways to Learn About Writing |
I’m often
asked what book or workshop or set of studies I dove into in order to learn how
to write fiction.
The answer
is simple: none.
Oh,
granted, I’ve read books and attended workshops and spent hours studying … but
that’s not how I learned to write
fiction.
Instead I
taught myself by sitting in front of the television with a (then) VHS remote in
one hand and a pen poised over a notebook in the other. I recorded television
shows like Matlock and Murder, She Wrote (the plots are simple)
as I watched them for the “first viewing.” Then, using the remote, I played the
shows back, stopping at the end of each scene to write what plot points had
occurred, what new characters had been introduced, what we knew about them,
etc.
