Dennis Fleming

Retired executive in the pharmaceutical analysis business. I wrote close to a thousand procedures and policies. My second child's birth precluded my entry into New York University's MFA program in filmmaking. Two of my student shorts were a significant reason for my acceptance. Instead of a post graduate program in filmmaking, I wrote screenplays, frustrated that I would not be the director of my creations. This led me to writing poetry and eventually two memoirs focused on my youngest sister's murder by a serial killer, a man who died for that crime, his last of more than two dozen murders. A man whose execution I witnessed, not out of hatred, but as my sister's representative.
After the publication of the memoirs, I began outlining a novel loosely based on aspects of the stories. It's been my WIP for nearly five years. Just past the midpoint in the story, I became stuck. I think my obsession with my sister's horrible deal finally got in my way as an artist. I had a notion that one of the characters in the story wanted to do something. For the first time, I LET THE CHARACTER DO THE WORK, and he took me to places I would have never guessed I'd go.
During my search for appropriate training in the craft of fiction, I came upon Robert Olen Butler's work and his 35-hour class, in which he begins with an image on a postcard and the text on the back and writes a short story from start to finish to publication. I want to explore the short story form. Any future novels will deal with things not associated with my sister's death.
I put away the first complete draft of the "five years in the writing" story three weeks ago. Next week I will have an A.I. program read it to me while I pace the room with my digital recorder ready to catch quick notes. Until then, I'm toying with a short story inspired by a comment my niece made after reading my memoir The Girl Who Had No Enemies.