Next Noble Pen Meeting

September 28th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Sept 21 set a record attendance for recent months, with 11 participants.

–//–

The National Book Awards list of nominees is released.

Victories

Randy’s book was featured with a big spread in the Bellevue hometown newspaper.

Aime wrote new material and made progress on a beta read for Ciuin.

Dylan finished a commission with only a small overage in length.

Ciuin finished a school paper.  She wrote two sections of Chessmaster. She has 3 of 4 beta responses for Petty Theft and is going through them.  One was a former teacher with whom she had a good and long discussion.

Cassie’s Skin Deep ebook is on Amazon.

Eric journalled this week.

Education

Can good fiction follow a formula? John Steinbeck said there isn’t a formula for making stories good.  Formula fiction has a bad name.

But this article says that even using a formula, the stories don’t necessarily come out all the same, so there can be a range of quality from the same formula.  A Huffington Post article discusses successes and failures that can arguably be formulaic.

This formula for a 6,000 word mystery story (but the ideas might apply for 60,000 words) comes from Lester Dent, who is best known for writing about ten Doc Savage novels per year for 16 years under the pen name Kenneth Robeson.  Some of his ideas apply to any fiction, particularly the one that says once you get your protagonist in a lot of trouble, you should next double their woes.

These authors discuss several formulas.

This blog argues that formula or not, it is very important to balance several aspects.

Upcoming Schedule

September 28
Ciuin
Eric
Aime

October 5
Nick
Uriah
(Dylan if needed)

October 12
Laura
Ciuin
Eric

October 19
Dakota
Aime
Ciuin

October 26
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill