Once Upon a Time, There Was a Rapid-fire Client and a Confused Consultant...
As tutors, we want to do our best to help other students improve their writing. And normally, we expect a client to come in with one piece of writing they want to focus on – but what do you do if they have too many? I once had a client that initially told me she wanted to work on a short story for her creative writing class. Since I didn’t see creative writing come through very often, I was excited to help her with her story . Until, that is, three paragraphs into reading it together, she stopped reading and pulled up an unfinished poem. I was a little confused at first, but allowed her to explain what the poem was about , and just as I asked her what she wanted help with, she pulled up yet another poem . T his continued a few times before I realized she was just pitching story ideas to me and we weren’t actually talking about her writing. She seemed so excited, and I wanted to h elp her with whatever she needed help with, but it’s hard to help when the writing in questio