Next Noble Pen Meeting

September 12th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Ethan, who found the group.

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Frederik Pohl died recently at age 93 after a 75-year career as a science fiction writer and editor.  He wrote numerous books and short stories by himself and in collaboration with other well-known authors.  He is also remembered for two laws, “No one is ever ready for anything” and “Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere will not hate it”.

Victories

Tyree read some pulp fiction and wonders how such bad writing gets an audience (e.g., protagonist never in danger).  He got good advice from Nick about European railroad terminology.

Barbara is reworking an old story.

Rachel made an outline for a story.

Dylan finished a 50k word story he had promised 5 years ago to write.

Tina finished her novel and has interviews set up to research a non-fiction piece.

Jed is writing a lot and has 21k words on a new story.

Education

World building  (and here) is an important part of writing any story that is not set in the here and now.  How do you invent a possible future or an alternative world?  It should somehow make the reader think about his own.

Restructure the world we live in in some way.  You look at the world around you, and you take it apart into all its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens. ~Frederik Pohl

That’s really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have. ~Frederik Pohl

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.  ~Frederik Pohl

Upcoming Schedule

Sept 12th

Tyree
Dylan
Jed

Sept 19th

Nick
Barbara
Tyree

Sept 26th

Jed
Dylan
Tina

Oct 3rd

Tyree
Nick
Rachel

Oct 10th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill