Culture Shock Can Wake Up Your Fiction

Harness the power of a fresh perspective

Photo by Lewis J Goetz on Unsplash

Back in high school I had a world studies teacher, a former nun named Joan Harden, who assigned a writing lesson that I’ve since come to treasure. She told us to describe America as if we were Martians arriving here for the very first time. That could mean, for example, writing about a coffee maker as if we had no idea …