Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 28th, 2015 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Simon Pegg claims that much entertainment, especially the SF/F he stars in, is ruining our collective minds and taking the focus from real-world issues.  Others disagree.

Victories

Cassie’s chapter entry in the Avon contest was 4th in popular vote out of 80 entries and she received some comments including from Avon editors.  Laura’s entry was also in the top 10 and received 4 comments.  Voting is, thankfully, only part of the selection process because some of the competition appear to be recruiting everybody on Facebook to vote for them without reading the stories.

Ciuin got A’s on two more papers and has finished the semester.

We hear that Eugenia has been writing while on vacation.

Education

How long should a chapter be?  The answer seems to be “how long is a piece of string?” Various writers use widely varying chapter lengths.   The general advice is to make each chapter serve a distinct purpose and tell a distinct piece of the story, whether that is 1,000 or 15,000 words.  If you are worried about people with short intervals for reading, then a good rule of thumb is under 5,000.  Some claim the average novel chapter is under 3,000.

The first chapter is special, since it must hook the reader into continuing through the book.  Anne R. Allen offers a checklist for things the first chapter needs to do.

Upcoming Schedule

May 28
Aimee
Tyree (already distributed)

Jun 4
Dylan
Cassie

Jun 11
Open slots

Jun 18
Open slots

Jun 25
Open slots

Jul 2
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill