Tonight, I started a four-week “Writing Short Stories” course offered by the Continuing Education arm of the University of New Mexico. The course, a second writing course I’ve taken through Continuing Ed, was meant to perhaps prompt me to write better and more creatively, like a Jolt Cola for my mind, I hoped. Once the instructor came in, I knew I was going to learn a few things more than I expected.

It’s not that my expectations were initially low for the course. My only other experience with a class like this was a very good learning and motivational experience. Because that class was largely about writing for peer review, we were expected to bring writing projects each week, and because that class was small- 4 to 5 a given day- you felt it awkwardly if you didn’t. And it was a well-taught class. I gained a lot from taking it.

This course is a little different, though.

Before the instructor showed up right at start time, the small room was cozy with 12 students ready for what he would bring them.

At 6 PM, he walked in, a tall and slender older man with silvery hair and a thick green fleece pullover top on. He carried what looked like an old military ammunition bag, but it was a khaki canvas messenger bag. He panned emptying the bag out and then lifted it to his face and stared into it, as though he expected more piles of paper to be found. And then he put it down and smiled.

Robert Gish then began to teach the class subtlety, Socratically, asking questions and fishing for right answers. It turns out this is largely his way to teach. Intermingling humorous memories and illustrative asides into the mix, Gish turned out to be a pretty technical teacher. Many, if not most, of his questions were left dangling in air until he brought them down with his answers.

And I soon learned I knew little about the technical dimensions of wiring fiction- which is fine by me. I took the class to learn how to write a short story, and by golly, if he isn’t going to teach us thoroughly what it takes.

After covering types of fiction writing, which basically categorized works by their sizes (from tales, yarns, and anecdotes to novels, sagas, and epics), Gish covered the modes of writing: narrative, descriptive, exposition, and argumentation, and then he wandered through descriptions of a handful of other writing terms. At times serious, at times funny, he was engaging and illuminating.

It’s no surprise he knew what he was talking about, and taught it pretty authoritatively.

Robert, the author of over 20 works of fiction, essays, biographies, and critical studies, has written his share of stories about his life in Albuquerque, the South Valley, California, the Southwest, and the Midwest, and he holds a Bachelor, Masters, and Doctoral degree from UNM in English. He’s been a teacher and professor for a long time, among his other talents and interests.

He’s got some writing class.

We are charged with shaping and completing a short story over the next three weeks. I know I’ll learn a lot about this type of writing in the remaining three classes. I just hope, like always, I can improve my ability to come up with decent writing ideas and execute them.