On the Craft: Lessons from My Mentor
There’s one reason why my words stand before you, one reason why I feel this desperate calling to share my thoughts on the craft with other creators. It’s to pay forward all the generosity bestowed upon me over the years. What would we do without our teachers, our mentors—the selfless people willing to step out of their own worlds to give us a lift up?
One person in particular had a profound impact on me: Leila Meacham [https://www.leilameacham.com]. She was a proud Texan, a football lover, a beloved English teacher, and a novelist who hit the big time (seven-figure deals) later in life. To me, she was more than my writing mentor. She was my hero, and I’d like to pass along some of her wisdom.
What’s funny is I never met her in person. But by the end, she treated me like family. Whenever I get the opportunity to help a budding novelist, I jump on it, because that’s what Leila would do. She didn’t have to help me, this eager yet green scribbler of words, didn’t even have to bring me into her orbit, but she opened her arms to me, and in the years leading up to her passing, changed my writing and my life.
While my family and I were living in eastern Washington State, my in-laws came to visit in 2014 via a ship that cruised inland on the Columbia River. While the ship was at port, my wife, Mikella, boarded to have lunch with her parents. I was working, so I missed out on my one chance to meet Leila, who also happened to be on the cruise.
My mother-in-law, who is another mentor of mine and one of my biggest supporters, had met Leila, learned who she was, and talked me up. During lunch, Leila introduced herself to Mikella, chatted for a moment, then left everyone to their meal. But then she pivoted and returned to the table.
To my wife, she said, “Something just now told me to turn around, that I need to connect with this Boo fella.” So began one of the most important relationships of my career, all by phone and email, seven years of communication. You should know that when Leila wrote an email, it read like a letter she’d sent via the postman, because there was never a misplaced word, never a hurried sentence.
My being here, sharing my thoughts on the craft and life, this is me pivoting, like Leila did on the ship. This is me humbly reaching out and offering what I can to those who seek a creative path (bless your hearts…).
When I’d call her, I’d start into idle chitchat, and she’d say, “Let’s get right to it and talk words.” So let’s do that. I’ve been poring over the hundreds of emails we shared, and I’d like to offer some of my favorites.
To give you an even clearer idea of who she was, she battled pancreatic cancer for two years, then was issued her wings in 2021 at the young age of eighty-three. We were in touch well into her final days, but she never made it about her when we talked. In fact, the below is as much as she would address my questions about her health.
Did you reach your deadline? Fingers crossed and a prayer in the heart that you did. Keep the candles burning for me. I am not out of this darkness yet, but I believe I see lights ahead. Hoping you and the family are faring well enough in this lockdown.
She was suffering tremendous pain, the chemo pounding away at her, and yet she was checking on my deadline! If that’s not a life lesson, I don’t know what is.
One of the traits that made her a great teacher and mentor is that she somehow could give criticism while lifting you up. Like this, her first note to me:
Boo, I am halfway through your book. You are very talented. The passion is there, as well as other essential elements of fiction writing, but you lack craftsmanship that will hamper your landing a top-tier agent and major publisher.
Just to throw out a few in haste: 1) Be precise in your word choice. 2) Make sure your figures of speech match the imagery you wish to project; that is, that your similes and metaphors are not too weak or too strong for the object they modify. All it takes is deeper visualization of the picture you wish to draw and word choice to paint it.
Another, later on, a master class in teaching:
Boo, I have to say that I’m very impressed with your work ethic, perseverance, enthusiasm, and patience, for whatever value you place on that opinion. I shall butt in now with one of my favorite peeves of faulty sentence construction of which even well-known writers are guilty. It is called “the orphaned pronoun.”
I was guilty of the embarrassing infraction in my first literary efforts but since have cleaned up my act. An orphaned pronoun is one that has no antecedent—no noun to which it refers. The pronouns it and that occur most often.
Here are the most glaring examples: John disliked Anna, and it drove her mad. There is no antecedent for it. John disliked Anna, and his animosity drove her mad. John told Anna to be on the lookout for rats and that made her sick. What made Anna sick: that John told Anna to be on the lookout for rats or the possibility of sighting rats? You have to change the construction. John told Anna to be on the lookout for rats, and the possibility of sighting one made her sick.
Just thought I’d toss that in. (Ha)
Keep on trucking,
LM
I loved the following thought, an illustration of her unwavering belief in God:
Ask God to go with you all the way, and He will. Sit quietly before your story, ask, and He will give you the right words, voice, tone. Trust me. He writes my books and my fingers do the walking.
So much of our chats leaned into grammar and diction, constant tidbits feeding into my inbox:
Another sentence construction I’ve noticed to be aware of if a writer wishes to tighten his prose.
Example: “The bolt was thrown on the other side of the fence so far down that he couldn’t reach it.” The meaning is clear.
However, this is better: “The bolt was thrown on the other side of the fence and, to his utter dismay, located beyond his reach.”
Lesson: You can eliminate the relative clause “that he couldn’t reach it” (sentence clutter), reduce the idea to a past participle and be able to include a bit of character within the sentence as well.
Here’s another thought regarding details. Make your words do double duty, get more bang for the buck. Recently, in my new book Dragonfly, I set a scene in a tavern. It’s July. Alistair is a non-drinker. He’s an OSS officer reluctant to send a team of young folks behind enemy lines. Of course, the code name for the team is Dragonfly.
So I wrote: “Alistair swallowed the last of his club soda, set the glass on the napkin, and left before the summer heat of the tavern melted the remaining ice and obliterated his drawing of the dragonfly.”
Club soda re-establishes Alistair doesn’t drink, summer heat that it’s July, and the action of “left before” suggests his reluctance to send the team into harm’s way AND serves as foreshadowing which creates a cliffhanger. Are those young people going to make it, or will they be obliterated like the penciled drawing of the dragonfly?
She was always so kind to let me send her one of my working passages to pick apart, again leaving me upbeat and eager to better my writing. I sent her this one:
Along with her warmth and innocence, there was something slightly “bad girl” about Abby that appealed to the motorcycle guy in Brooks. At parties, she was the one to instigate a round or two of Jose Cuervo shots, and she was often the last one standing. She laughed the loudest at fart jokes and always had a few crude jokes of her own to tell. Morning, noon, or night, she welcomed a good argument, especially one involving church or state. And she’d bury you if you insulted women. At times, not often, but at the most opportune time in a back and forth, she would drop the F-word and she would use it with such confidence and calculated timing that it worked to great effect. Brooks wanted to get to know her, to learn about her past. There were skeletons in her closet that he craved to get to know.
Her response:
OUTSTANDING!! You’ve got the idea. I can see this girl. Only suggestion I’d make is to add a little qualifying phrase to “last one standing” such as “when the lights went out.” We speak in assumptions in conversations because we assume our listeners know what we mean without adding the obvious, but in writing, you have to qualify the when, where, and how of a statement. One other point: Can one get to know a skeleton? Or do we learn about them? Again, in conversation we can get by with loose diction, but not in writing. The writer must be on point. But, my goodness, great job, Boo!!!
I wrote her one time under deadline, totally down and out. She wrote back:
You need some restorative time, Boo. It is essential. Fill it with activities that do not require creative energy but simply give you enjoyment and peace. Who knows but, while you are so engaged, a story line will drop right into your lap, unbidden. There’s no forcing what refuses to come. I once read a wonderful line: Happiness is like a butterfly. Chase it and it runs away. Sit quietly, and it will light upon your shoulder. So it is I believe with the creative muse. Wish you were here and I could hold your hand, but from my heart to yours will have to do.
A reminder to read:
The best teacher of writing quality fiction for a new writer is to read fiction books of quality writing. The general reader reads for the story. The wanna-be writer (for want of a better description) reads for the style, word choice, pace, development, etc. etc. He absorbs it by osmosis, sometimes unconsciously until he puts pen to page.
Here are a couple of great SHOW and TELL lessons:
Thought I’d drop a couple of examples to demonstrate the difference between SHOW and TELL and improved word usage (diction).
Tell: His father’s words to comfort his wife were as meaningless and ineffective as a sprinkler bottle used to put out a house fire, and she wasn’t buying it.
Show: His father’s assurances had the effect of a sprinkler bottle used to put out a house fire, and his mother turned her head to stare out the window.
Do you see that you don’t have to tell the reader that the character’s wife wasn’t buying it when her action speaks for her. Also, assurances is a more specific word than words and implies comfort.
To avoid telling, try using internal monologue to establish character and show action. Emilia’s passage is a great place to employ that technique. Have her observe and speak to herself in teenage-ese in her thoughts, not as an author observer.
“What are you doing, Emilia?”
He knows very well what I’m doing, Emilia thought. It was now or never. He didn’t care about her as the daughter of Jake and Carmen. He didn’t care about her parents. He cared about her. Her!
Another lesson on SHOW and TELL, this one urging that we must find balance.
I thought I’d pass on this element of expression that seems right up your descriptive alley. As you know, the cardinal rule of fiction writing is SHOW, don’t TELL, but I take a little umbrage with that edict because “telling” can pack a wallop of detail without the writer having “to show.”
Example: The hurricanic force of the Hamilton family made landfall before the Wilson residence one day earlier than expected. As Margaret watched from her living room window, four children, one a screaming baby in her mother’s arms and the others in a loud physical scrape, two barking dogs, and a bedraggled set of parents, also involved in a heated exchange, piled out of a luggage-filled car on her front drive.
“Oh, dear,” thought Margaret, thinking of all the un-battened down treasures in the house.
That is an example of telling, not showing, but is there any doubt about the pleasure these guests will be or the reception they will receive? The ordinary writer would have written:
The Wilson family arrived a day early, much to the consternation of their hostess.
That is an example of telling also, but it is as limp as wilted lettuce. Of course, showing is most always preferred, but occasionally you can work humor, sadness, joy, etc. in the process of telling.
I asked her where her ideas came from one day:
I always begin with the first line and let the story develop from there. Truly, I don’t have a clue about what will happen or where the story will go. One of these days I might write myself into an inescapable corner, but so far that has not happened.
Example: One day I wrote: The call he’d been expecting for twenty-two years came at midnight when the residents of Harbison House were fast asleep.
That became Tumbleweeds.
Toward the end of her life, while she was in the hospital, she put a bookend on our work together, and I cherish her words with all of me:
You don’t need me anymore, Boo. You have arrived. Your characters are powerful and unforgettable, your voice strong and confident, your tone honest and true. Some of your written expression is still a bit rough around the edges, which will smooth out in time. I mention it only because in addition to being a great storyteller, which you already are, your goal is to become a great writer of prose. You will have to watch out for descriptions which we say and are easily understood in conversation but must be spelled out in writing.
Example: Her dark chocolate hair was pulled back, a few strays floating free up front. A good editor would correct it thusly: floating around her face. Her forehead was painted . . . An editor would suggest: Her forehead shone with a fine sheen of sweat.
But no matter. What reader but another author would notice?
I have only these words to leave you. I do not know what your religious affiliation is, but I cannot imagine a wine grower who writes of mountains not believing in a supreme being. So if you are one of us who believe that all talent is a divine gift with which we are entrusted, never lose sight of that fact. It will keep you humble and grateful, confident but not full of yourself. You can take credit and should for enlarging and developing the talent, the discipline, patience, and sacrifice to “get the words right,” but there it stops. I know authors who swagger while they’re sitting down, they are so proud of what they believe to be solely their doing. The truly great writers know the source of their wellspring, and that is why the world will remember them.
Vaya con dios, my friend. Don’t forget that I am here, and stay in touch.
Leila
Her last letter to me. July, from the hospital, in between chemo treatments, two months before she passed:
In beauty of expression, an author must be careful not to “overwrite.” Simple, clear imagery will do. For instance, if you will pardon my cheek in using an example from my own current writing, I use the phrase, “In the rubble of his despair, two realities were glaringly clear.” No need to go into the character’s “feelings” at that moment, a tendency many writers indulge in trying to be “literary.” Better to stick to craftsmanship.
The “overwriting” that gets to me is the attempt at metaphoric expressions that do not work, such as “his white hair stood up in the wind like dancing girls in hula skirts.” Dear me. You’d be surprised who wrote that.
Stay well, my dear.
I am in tears now, feeling all kinds of gratitude. Wait, she’d say the tears are enough to indicate gratitude. What a teacher, all the way to the end and beyond. Leila, if you’re listening, your aftershocks still rumble.
Dear writer, I hope you found a few nuggets of wisdom in my communication with Leila. As we chase our literary dreams, honing our storytelling and prose skills, may we also realize our potential as goodhearted humans while we’re at it. I believe the latter is required if we’re ever to lay down the story we’re meant to tell. When you hit the big time, the object of bidding wars and movie options, may you remember to pay it forward, because as solitary as this profession can be, it takes an army of support to carry us forward.
Stay well, my dears!
Boo
(This article was originally shared via Writer Unboxed [https://writerunboxed.com/2026/04/30/lessons-from-my-mentor/].)
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