Along with the writing essays that Chuck began submitting to our Workshop in 2004, he would also include a fun and very helpful feature.  Each month after an essay was posted, Chuck would accept around ten questions from fans.  About 2/3rds of the questions would focus on the actual lesson in his essay, while the remaining questions would cover his career in general. 

To this day, these following Q&As remain one of the most unique and thorough explorations into Chuck's mind.  You'll see questions here no journalist has ever asked him before.

Enjoy!

2004 Q&As

1. January, 2004 Q&A
   Chuck teaches two principal methods for building a narrative voice your readers will believe in. Discover the Heart Method and the Head Method and how to employ each to greatest effect.
    
2. February, 2004 Q&A
   At the core of Minimalism is focusing any piece of writing to support one or two major themes. Learn harvesting, listing, and other methods, after a fun excursion into the spooky side of Chuck's childhood.
    
3. March, 2004 Q&A
   Great writing must reach both the mind and the heart of your reader, but to effectively suspend reality in favor of the fictional world, you must communicate on a physical level, as well. Learn to unpack the details of physical sensation.
    
4. April, 2004 Q&A
   First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. Discover Chuck's secret method for making a first-person narrator less obtrusive.
    
5. May, 2004 Q&A
   Sometimes called "plants and payoffs" in the language of screenwriters, Hiding a Gun is an essential skill to the writer's arsenal that university writing courses almost never touch upon. Learn to identity and use multiple forms, including the Big Question, the Physical Process, and the Clock.
    
6. June, 2004 Q&A
   You've always heard the maxim, "Show, don't tell..." but almost no writing teacher ever explains... How. Discover how to strengthen your prose by unpacking abstract and static verbs into descriptive action.
    
7. July, 2004 Q&A
   An interesting character has strong opinions, and voicing them can lend mood and texture to the work, but you can't allow these "Big Voice" rants to eclipse the "Little Voice" needs for descriptive physical action. In this essay, you'll learn to strike that balance.
    
8. August, 2004 Q&A
   This verbal repetition can create a beat of bland time that lets your story breathe, or it can refresh previous plot points and trigger strong emotions. Steal this natural aspect of spoken rhetoric to enliven your prose.
    
9. September, 2004 Q&A
   Great writers like Mark Richard and Amy Hempel re-invent the world, partly by re-inventing the language.  In this essay, Chuck introduces you to the mysteries of "Burnt Tongue," and its three principal uses.
    
10. October, 2004 Q&A
    Abstract and summarizing lead statements feel natural to journalism and academic writing, but will suck the life from your fiction. Learn to unpack and rearrange these abstractions for greater effect.
     
11. November, 2004 Q&A
    Lots of things that look smart on the page fall apart in the auditorium. Discover the numerous reasons Chuck writes for the ear as well as the eye, along with how to make the most of live reading opportunities.
    

2005 Q&As

1. First Quarter, 2005 Q&A
   Covers Workshop topics 13 - 15.

   • Essay 13 - Nuts & Bolts - 'Punctuating with Gesture and Attribution'
   • Essay 14 - Nuts & Bolts - 'The Horizontal Vs. Vertical'
   • Essay 15 - 'When You Can't Find A Writing Workshop...'

2. Second Quarter, 2005 Q&A
   Covers Workshop topics 16 - 18.

   • Essay 16 - 'Learning from Clichés… then Leaving them Behind'
   • Essay 17 - Talking Shapes: The 'Quilt' Versus the Big 'O'
   • Essay 18 - Textures of Information

3. Third Quarter, 2005 Q&A
   Covers Workshop topics 19 - 21.

   • Essay 19 - Effective Similes
   • Essay 20 - Talking Shapes: The ‘Thumbnail'
   • Essay 21 - Talking Shapes: The 'Cycle'