Does anyone have a teacher/mentor that particularly helped with your writing?

I had a teacher in my senior year, a creative writing professor at a community college that I was dual enrolled in. The whole class was a review system: everyone brought in work, poetry, shorts, or a skit, everyone commented, and the teacher would review it over the week and return it the next class with notes all in red. He was an older gentleman, and he held nothing back in critique. He was notoriously brutal.

Still in high school, I was the class baby, and I felt it. Everyone else had years of experience on me, even if it was only one. I brought in a short story to read to the class, a framing device of a grandmother telling her grandkids a story to lay out the grounds for a fantasy world I was building and make it a "story".

The teacher loved it. He stood up for me in class when people questioned things that made sense to me. The paper next class was covered in red notes of "this is great" and the like along with a new notes of things to fix. I had beaten the brutality of the red pen. I was good enough. A few classes later, he gave me a copy of his mentor's book, a fantasy story he thought I would like and would inspire me.

I stopped writing when I went to four-year college, but I held onto that story and those notes, held onto the idea that I had talent and could maybe do something with it. When I reread the story a few years ago, it really was awful. Just absolute high-school-level trash. It should have been destroyed by that red pen, but I realized he didn't want to squash a kid's dreams with hard truth. For once, he chose kindness and encouragement over honest critique for a kid who hadn't had time to build up a thick skin, and that kept my dream alive through the next six years when I couldn't and didn't write. I am eternally grateful, and you can bet he's going to get a book dedicated to him in due time.

The co-ordinator of the writing group at middle school and high school, who was a writer himself and a good translator, first and foremost. Then, three decades later, the first publisher/editor I had, and his wife, who is also a writer. They are still helping me and they offered to sponsor me for entering the National Writers' Union.

I've been lucky enough to have several smattered through my school years.

First there was my fourth grade teacher - a fantastic woman and the very model of what great teachers should be - who saw me using my free time to jot down stories instead of ... well whatever it was 9 and 10 year olds did in 1995 when not saddled with busywork. She liked to give students individual graded tasks tailored to their strengths and interests. So naturally, she made little Kate write stories.

The evil (I use the term lovingly, as she was a close friend to my family after teaching my brother and I) woman also saw how stubborn I was with my self-imposed perfectionism. So she gave me a B+ on every assignment. At the time, anything less than an A was offensive. So of course I put my head down and wrote harder. She later confessed that I deserved an A all along, she just wanted to see if I could do more. Do better. And that I'd shattered expectations.

So yeah, Marianne? If you ever stumble on this forum for some unfathomable reason, I want you to know that this lifelong obsession with telling stories is your fault.

Let's see, next came my sophomore year of high school. I had just moved from the northeast US to middle of nowhere coastal South. I pounced on the opportunity to take an actual, honest to goodness, creative writing class. Except the teacher was, to use an adequately antiquated word, a prig. Everything I wrote came with the sort of polite dismissiveness that Old South southern ladies can master. It was perfectly clear that all my flights of fancy and stories of heroes and love and hope were lesser.

So yeah, Mrs Prig (as I'll now forever think of her - probably an upgrade from her other name *cough*) isn't the second inspirational teacher. It was my English lit teacher at the time. The kind of hunky, thoughtful teacher in jeans and trendy blazers that make teenager pay a little too much attention. Except, you know, he was a decent dude and not at all interest. Anyway, he recognized my frustration with that other class (and probably my frustration with just being a new kid grappling with culture shock and a shitty home life) and encouraged me to "fuck her, write what you want because you do it well." Along with actual, usable lessons in creative writing I wasn't getting in writing class.

I asked him, just before I graduated, why he didn't teach the writing elective. He didn't have an answer then, but did end up teaching it the next year.

And lastly, the college professor that got me to actually respect and then love kidlit and YA. Funnily enough, she was the opposite of Mrs Prig. Southern-fried, but in the sweet and genuine way. The way that writes cozy mysteries and lovingly pulls young womens' heads out of their own butts.

By the time I came to her class, I'd been through the wringer that was my universities super competitive and lit-fic focused writing program. I was tired and jaded. So I took the kidlit class as a palette cleanser. Like a good teacher, she recognized some of my natural writing tendencies and pitched YA at me. Of course I dismissed it like a good self-involved artiste.

So she threw a giant reading list at me (also a convenient to test her syllabus for the pilot YA lit class) and fully converted me. I actually broke program rules to take a ninth writing class just to get it on it. Got me to embrace all the things so many classes and teachers and even a few peers had tried to beat out of me.

So yeah, I've been pretty lucky when it comes to teachers.

WilkinsonMJ said:

Does anyone else have a particular figure who got them in to writing or has helped shape the way you see our art?

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Hmm... interesting question. None that I remember, except perhaps a fourth-year teacher. She was encouraging and gentle in the way that an introverted outcast needed. She did question why I wrote fantasy, but gave me appropriate marks for the work I turned in and allowed me to extend the deadline for one assignment.

I don't know if she's still around any more. It's been that long. I'm not sure I thanked her at any point, but sometimes, I think of her.

Bruce Moore, my high school English teacher Junior and Senior year, was the first person who told me I should publish my writing. He started a Creative Writing club, and always had great feedback on my stories.

Looking back on what I wrote then, he was being quite generous, but it worked. I have never stopped writing and trying to make money at it.

noo...

Actually, I suppose I owe a lot to a particularly dreadful teacher (believe it or not, she wasn't the worst I ever had, but she definitely cracked the top five). And I'm naming names, because:

1) It was so long ago it doesn't matter anymore and
2) fuck her.

Long story incoming.

Mrs. Warnick. First semester Sophomore Honors English in High School. For reasons I've never been able to determine, she took an intense dislike to me and legitimately had it in for me. I have a dozen stories about this old bitch, but the one I think best illustrates the extremity of the problem was the multiple-choice test.

One day we had a multiple-choice pop quiz. No problem. I'd read the material and the questions were pretty easy. However, when I got mine back, I saw that a handful of my answers, which I was certain were correct, had been marked wrong. I double-checked by comparing with a classmate who had recieved a high grade, and sure enough, I DID have the right answers.

This was early in the semester, before I'd gotten to know the teacher. I assumed it was an honest mistake in the grading, so I went to show her the problem and get it corrected. The classmate came with me. When I pointed out that, for example, we had both answered "C" and she'd marked mine as wrong and my classmate's as right, did she correct the grade? Nope. She looked me square in the face and said, "I changed my mind."

"About which answer was right?"

"Yep."

"But... it's multiple choice."

"Doesn't matter. I changed my mind."

And that was the end of that. The grade remained unchanged. I bristled at the injustice, but what could I do? This woman was determined that, by fair means or foul, I wasn't going to get an A in her class. I went home and griped about how she was mean and unfair, but my parents thought it was a simple case of not liking the teacher and exaggerating for effect.

That was the beginning of a very, very bad semester.

It was another student who finally drew serious attention to the problem. Now this girl and I, we had known each other for years and never gotten along. Seemed like every time we talked, we'd just get into an argument. But we were what you might call amiable enemies, both content to simply ignore the other's existence and carry on with our own separate lives.

This girl. THIS girl, who couldn't stand me... went home crying one day because of how badly I was being treated in class.

Her mother, understandably concerned, called my mother, and my mother finally realized that things really were as bad as I had been saying.

But here's where things got tricky. This was the HONORS teacher, one of only two in the school, and the other one only taught the senior classes, so I had two options:

1) Continue classes with the bitch for three more semesters and accept that she would continue to find ways to lower my grades (and it being English class, most of the work was essays, which she could grade as subjectively as she pleased, even if we tried to call her out on the few multiple choice assignments).

2) Leave the honors track and get good grades in lower-level classes, which had notoriously bad teachers of their own. (My high school had an amazing history department, but the English department was crap).

It felt like either way, the awful teacher would win.

At least, those WOULD have been the only two options if my classmate's mother hadn't proposed a third alternative during that fateful phone call. I was a reasonably smart kid, but her daughter was a freakin' genius - we're talking independent studies in math in middle school smart - and she'd already taken a couple math classes at the local community college. Her mother saw no reason I couldn't do the same thing in English. Why not have me take the placement test and see if I could get enrolled, and just get dual credit to count towards the high school requirements?

And that's the story of how I started taking college English classes at 15 years old.

And because I needed a full 8 semesters of English credits to graduate from high school, I just kept taking more and more English classes at the college, which happened to have a spectacular English department. There wasn't any one teacher who took particular interest in me (apart from the general amusement of having such a young student), but they were all very, very good, and I learned a ton from them, getting straight A's the whole way through.

If I hadn't made that switch, if I'd stayed in that lousy high school English department for all four years... well, I may well have been completely soured on English as a subject. That's what happened to most of the students who passed through there.

...I only wish I could remember that girl's name. The one who cried for me even though she hated me. I'd like to thank her.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Those are wonderful stories, Maggie and Tazlima! Yay for the good people!

The teachers who encouraged me were Mr. Clark, my 6th Grade teacher, and Mr. Hill, the English teacher I had all 3 years of Junior High (modern day middle school) Both of them encouraged my poetry writing. And Mr. Clark was the one who got me interested in writing, just to write. No neat stories, though.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

My sophomore year English teacher in high school helped me a -ton- for one of my first attempts at writing a novel. i was just in awe of him, and reflect on it sometimes. Positive, helpful critique seemed to come so easy to him, especially since it was things I'd never even considered, and he asked good questions. He helped me narrow and shape my writing down to what I was really trying to do. I'd like a mentor like that again.

I have Mrs. Roye, my high school English teacher - who saw potential in me and rather that give me the grade I deserved, she worked with me on my essay on Robert Burns, I turned it back in and got an A. Which brings me to the teacher/prof who taught me to hate Shakespeare. All through high school and college I never got less than a B in English. She gave me a D. She was a short, dark-haired (B-word) with an unintelligible accent; I suppose the grade made me determined, since the next semester I made an A in English Lit and the Dean's list.

My English teacher when I was thirteen. She first introduced me to Nathan Bransford's blog, which taught me so much about the industry, and is also the way I got my first CPs, who then also taught loads about writing. She was pretty much the gateway to the whole thing. I wish I could thank her!

Oh, so many. Mrs. Roy and Mr. Wertz for high school English. Dr. Noyes in college, first my English professor, then my adviser. Dr. Smith in grad school who rescued me from basement TA rat mazes (cubicles) and moved me into his office.

I still try to follow their tenants for paying forward their love of writing.

It was 28 years ago when I exchanged dozens and dozens of emails with Poul Anderson, the famous science fiction writer. He taught me so much about the SF genre, that without him, I don't think I would have pursued book publication. God rest his soul, I will miss him terribly. Our own James D. McDonald, ain't no slouch and he has a firm handle on the mechanics of good writing. Tune in to him.

Yes! I found a mentor on here who critted some of my stuff and showed me what I was doing wrong. I don't know if I have permission to reveal her name, but I'll come back if I get it.

You guys can all be considered "writers" per se, I just doodle around. But I do seriously write music, and as for both (writing and music) I'd say my passion first drove me to doing it but so much so that I couldn't care less the first years about the concept of "learning from someone". It was all, always passion. Although I've grown wiser now and would listen very carefully.
So to answer the thread, I'd say: my mentors have been the amazing artists that have shown me how awesome that art can be, and threw litres more gas into my over-enthusiastic creative fire.

I had a teacher in high school that was invaluable to me as both a teacher and mentor. She had published books of her own, and always encouraged me to write, and try to publish one day. It was amazing to watch her success, and it inspired me. Now I'm in college and hard at work on a novel, and it's all thanks to her. She was the person who believed in me when I felt like nobody did. Having someone believe in you and your writing is amazing. She also edited a piece of mine, and together we worked on it for weeks until I submitted it to a competition, where it won second place! She's the best editor I've ever had. I'll always be grateful for her help.

Good question. I wish I had. Just someone to tell me some of the things I ended up learning for myself, it sure would have made some things much easier

The EIC at my first newspaper job yelled at me a lot and called me stupid all the time. He was Jonah Jameson in the flesh. It was a real change from a previous life of being told how smart I was, watching easy A's roll in and having adults be nice to me. He was an asshole, but I still hear his voice sometimes editing my writing as I put the words down. I don't recommend his management style, but he was usually right. When the NEXT person was hired, making me no longer the newest person, then HE got the brunt of it, and I realized that was just him breaking in the cubbies. Ugh, yeah, he was asssssshoooooollllleeeee with extra points for misogyny that I was too young to pick up on until years later.
When I found myself in a position of power at my next job, my No. 1 rule was "don't be like that guy." He taught me a lot, but the price was high.

For me it wasn’t one person in particular, nor even an English teacher.

My fourth grade teacher (Miss Burrows) was awesome, the whole class loved her and a lot of us actually learned to forge her signature because we were obsessed with how nice she was (LOL, that would be creepy-stalky if I did it as an adult). She never used to bag anyone, and all of us were left feeling as though she liked each of us more than she liked the others. My grades at that time were stellar, and one of my prime motivators was to write stories that she would like. That I was just a fourth grader and that my writing would have been almost nonsensical to an adult reader wasn’t anything that I would understand until a lot later, but she was so affirming with her class *and with me in particular* that I felt special. We moved to another town the next year and my grades plummeted.

Next it was the other kids in my class. Sometimes we used to be asked which stories we wanted to be read out after completing creative writing assignments and my name was always put forward. Sometimes I used to wonder if that was just kids throwing me under the public speaking bus, but if it was then I certainly got the wrong message. I loved writing stuff that other people voted was good enough for an airing.

One of my uncles did an English literature degree and one time he commented to my mum that both my brother and I were legitimate writer material and that he thought we should pursue this (cruel man). When she told me what he said it was the first time I ever really gave serious consideration to anything along those lines. My uncle and I have very disparate tastes when it comes to reading, and we invariably trash the other’s opinions to one another (truth spoken in jest). I thought I’d put one in his eye when I gave him my first novel to read because I thought he’d feel obligated to read something that he wouldn’t be interested in at all. He read it and blew my socks off when he said he’d actually liked it “despite the fact that you have shit taste in everything.” A nice backhanded compliment.

But the one who had the greatest influence upon me was my senior high school history teacher. Mr Trent was hands down the best teacher I ever had (sorry Sue Burrows, only a silver medal for you because I suspect that some of your admiration, whilst encouraging, may have been contrived). Good old Frank instilled in me a passion for the subject that gave me the drive to write HF. I’m actually going to dedicate my WIP about ancient Rome to him; he used to sometimes refer to himself as Francus Trentius to Romanise his name for his / our amusement, and I’d just like him to know that at least one of his former students still appreciates his efforts to inspire (though I did tell him exactly this when I ran into him at a book fair a few years ago). If I can’t get representation for my novel then I’ll self-pub because I want to send him a copy before the years catch up to him and it’s too late.

And lastly, you people here are improving my work with your feedback and perspectives. Fellow writers: do not undervalue the effect that you can have upon the rest of us; I suspect that this applies as much to newbie writers as to old dogs. There are always new tricks to learn, stories take a long time to build, and it’s hard to be enthused about our work 100% of the time. This forum is where I charge my batteries.