Stranger than Fiction: "Keep it life-and-death simple." (A Lesson on Revising)

During the residency weeks in Barcelona (2014), our days were divided up by classes, workshops, and tutorials. There, and for the semester after, I had the pleasure of working with Gwyneth Lewis, a Welsh poet and memoirist with a delicious British accent and no-nonsense approach to teaching. She is the author of Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression.

Sagrada Família

These are notes from Gwyneth's class as well as some helpful comments on my WIP at the time.

"Trump up the action. Don't cloud it with rhetoric."
How much does the writer know? The narrator has access to childhood memories.
Make it more active.
"What is the framework? What shape is your work going to be?"
The reader should know the stakes from the beginning.
Plan out the trajectory of your characters.
"Try flip-flopping the first paragraph. Put the last sentence on top."

To seek entrance to l'escola, you must take the apple from Eve. Gwyneth says the pinky is raised slightly are an indication of vanity. She says the knocker is a little joke, a smirk. You must fall before you can learn. — at Escola d'Escriptura (Ateneu Barcelonès).

Remember to have a reflective narrator.
"Don't defuse the punch."
"Don't let the humor get in the way of the story."
Consider setting first. Think about the "wide shot".
In chapter titles, don't give away the plot.
For intense scenes, "write it like a bombshell. Don't let me know that you're leading up to something."
Emotion leads to thought, which leads to plot or analysis.
Don't be mysterious for mysterious's sake.

I met these friends on the boardwalk.

Gelato! When I dream of Spain, it's going to be me and this case eyeing each other from across a crowded room.

In non-fiction, consider "is this interesting to me because it's my family or will the anonymous reader find it interesting too?"
"Make sure you get the choreography clear for the reader."
"Keep it life-and-death simple."
"Very effective, but prune words."
"Pacing--The intro to [this chapter] is uncharacteristically slow, so we're alerted to [what's] coming. For maximum impact, be more casual on the approach--so that the reader, like you at the time, has no idea what's coming. That will make it more lifelike."
"Assume you have a secular audience and explain some of the Mormon terminology."