Meet our Chapel Hill fiction instructor: Lucas Church
We asked Lucas Church, who teaches fiction for us in Chapel Hill, about writing rituals, recently read books, and the revision process. Lucas is a graduate of NC State’s MFA program and an editor at UNC Press. Read on to find out what Lucas had to say on these topics and more!
Do you have a writing ritual? Share it with us!
I don’t know if it’s a ritual or just having a limited window per day in which to write—having a full-time job and a family means a lot of my time is spoken for—but most of my writing is done using a time and word count goal: at least 300 (good) words and 30 minutes, daily if possible. If I’m not feeling very creative (re: tired), having that low limit can help keep me working on a story or larger project. If I am feeling it, then I can pat myself on the back if I blow past that threshold. Either way, it lets me add incrementally to whatever I’m writing, and it keeps that story in my head. Most of writing is done in our heads before we sit down to our computers anyway!
But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t hit your goal. We can’t write every day, nor should we. Whatever works best for you most often, do that thing.
What is the best, or worst, piece of advice you’ve gotten about how to write fiction?
Not a fan of “show, don’t tell”! Novels are a whole lot of “tell”—it’s just how and what we’re telling that’s important. Short stories are a little different, but a writer can both show and tell in a short piece and the story can be deeper for it.
I feel there was an all-out war on adverbs a few years ago? Specifically the –ly variety? I would caution against overuse of any one element of writing, of course, but I would also caution against following any piece of writing advice, like complete and utter adverb eradication, as if it’s gospel. Your mileage may vary on all of these concepts!
I honestly don’t know if there’s any advice a writer really needs other than read deeply and broadly in many genres, read with an eye on diversity, work on your own writing regularly, and find a person (or group!) you trust to work with on your craft.
What is a recent work of fiction you’ve especially enjoyed?
Really enjoyed Valier Luiselli’s The Story of My Teeth, Adam O’Fallon Price’s The Hotel Neversink, and The Babysitter at Rest by Jen George.
Revision can be an especially daunting task for many writers. Do you have any advice about how to tackle revision?
Sober! Only partially kidding. I think that time away from the story is a big consideration in revision. Are you too close to it? I’ve revised stories I wrote years prior and turned them into something much better. Maybe I needed that distance? Or did I forget about that story? Probably both things, but working on something else, then going back to a piece usually does the trick for me.
I’m also going to give advice that I maybe only follow 50% of the time: don’t be precious about your words in revision. Give yourself permission to slice out characters, paragraphs, dialogue, whatever you need in service of that story. (But save all the cuts into a Word file; you never know what you can reuse!)
What is one of your favorite topics to teach in a beginning fiction class and why?
I like to lean into specific elements of a story—like dialogue or setting—and really work with students to explore what these things mean to a story, what they do in a story, and how to juggle it all within the narrative. I also like to challenge students a bit in writing stories that are missing one of those elements—I’ve written more than a few stories with no characters or plot—to see if that can open up their ideas of what a story can be.
Anything else you would like to share?
Publication is great, but it should not be the only goal! A good story will be published eventually; under-thought and under-polished stories are published all the time. Be patient and make sure you’re putting what you want out there in the marketplace.
Thank you to Lucas for his insightful answers! Lucas’ next upcoming class will be Fiction II at Chapel Hill’s UU Church beginning March 16, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. And we are happy to share that Lucas is the author of the forthcoming short story collection A Little Boat, A Little Gunpowder, and Boom (Press 53). Learn more about his Fiction II class and register here!