Look first to theme
“I have no idea what this means, but I love it,” Chuck said about Julie’s phrase “the everlasting sting” of illegal drugs she’d taken at 14. There were murmurs of approval in the room. “Yes,” I said, “it works.” “But why does it work?” asked Julie herself, now all of 19, her misspent youth behind her. We’d been in class almost two hours, workshopping for almost an hour, and I was tired. I couldn’t answer her fair question. She’d broken …