Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 31st, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) begins on November 1st.  If you want a challenge, now is the time to register and prepare.  Some people go so far as to make up a month’s worth of meals so they don’t have to spend time in the kitchen.  You can also think about your plot, but no writing on it until then.

Victories

Cassie had a “eureka” moment about her plot and then completed the outline and 3,000Cassie had a “eureka” moment about her plot and then completed the outline and 3,000 words of her novel.

Tyree is making progress on Aoife’s Kiss.

Barbara wrote a non-fiction article.

Riley got an idea for a scene and likes how it came out in the first draft.

Jed has plotted out Castalia II.

Education

Subplots can add greatly to the interest of a novel.  Brian Klems offers some thoughts about subplots.  Here, he gives techniques for weaving in subplots.   AJ Humpage says the subplot(s) must be related to the main plot and “should happen because of the main story” and are best when they add to the conflict for the main character.   Kristin Bair O’Keeffe gives seven requirements for a subplot to fulfill.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 31st
Barbara
Tina
Aimee

Nov 7th
Riley
Tyree
Nick

Nov 14th
Cassie
Dylan
Jed

Nov 21st
Tyree
Nick
Laura

Nov 28th
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Dec 5th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 24th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Rachel’s article in Outposts of Beyond is now in print.

A story by an Australian author that Tyree published has placed high in an awards list.  Tyree’s Breathless Stars has been nominated for a Darrell award, and his steampunk story for Best Short Story.

Jed finished his first draft of Castalia by writing 15k words in the last week.

Shannon has been busy writing.

Education

Alicia Rasley lists the top 10 plot problems.  Perhaps they aren’t all strictly about plotting, but they are good advice.  Elizabeth Sims offers fixes for 10 problems. Courtney Carpenter lists just three top plot problems.  Laura Whitcomb finds 11 plot problems.

Plot is character revealed by action. ~Aristotle  paraphrased

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is – full of surprises. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer

If life is just a stage, then we are all running around ad-libbing, with absolutely no clue what the plot is. Maybe that’s why we don’t know whether it’s a comedy or tragedy. ~Bill Watterson

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 24th
Riley
Tyree
Jed

Oct 31st
Barbara
Tina
Aimee

Nov 7th
Riley
Tyree
Nick

Nov 14th
Cassie
Dylan
Jed

Nov 21st
Tyree
Nick
Laura

Nov 28th
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 17th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Canadian writer Alice Munro wins the Nobel prize in literature.

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McDonalds is going to put books in kids’ happy meals for two weeks.

Victories

Cassie is writing a blog entry every day this month.  She had people from India and Israel checking it out.

Dylan was asked to write a monthly column about writing.

Jed now has 40k words on the Castalia story.

Education

In honor of the recent passing of Tom Clancy, Writers Digest reprinted a 2001 interview.  He seems to have an intuitive grasp of how to tell a story, and doesn’t give how-to advice, but some of his big principles are interesting.  One quote about what he learned from Hitchcock: “Suspense is achieved by information control.  What   you know.  What the reader knows.  What the characters know.  You balance that properly, and you can really get the reader wound up.”

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J. A. Konrath blogged a guest post by author Tom Keller, then added his ten rules for writers, and finished off with disclosure of how much money he has received from ebook sales.   He is a strong proponent of ebooks, and by being a strong writer he has made $1.5 million in five years.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 17th
Nick
Rachel
Tyree

Oct 24th
Riley
Tyree
Jed

Oct 31st
Barbara
Tina
Aimee

Nov 7th
Riley
Tyree
Nick

Nov 14th
Cassie
Dylan
Jed

Nov 21st
Open slots

Nov 28th
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 10th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Cassie, our newest attendee.

Because of continuing problems with the editor’s email service, this week we’ll try just sending an announcement with no other content when the newsletter has been posted to the web site.

Prolific and always well-researched author Tom Clancy died on Oct 1st.

Victories

Tyree incorporated all of the critiques he has received into Aoife’s Kiss.

Nick wrote up his train spotting observations for fellow railfans.

Aime is back with us.

Riley wrote on his piece to present to the group, and is preparing for NaNoWriMo.

Barbara is experimenting with differnt forms of writing.

Jed got expert advice for his story about police procedures.

Education

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is an annual free event that encourages people to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November.  They push “get an idea and start writing” with editing and polishing postponed until you have a lot of raw material to work with.  See also the Education post here for August 8, 2013 for more thoughts on this philosophy.

There’s no shortage of people interested in writing the great American novel.  Some years, 250,000 people start NaNoWriMo, and about 1 in 7 write 50,000 words.  Yes, that’s 35,000 new novels in one month.  With competition like that, you gotta be good to get anywhere.  Keep improving.

You can’t revise it if you haven’t written it. ~Justin Cronin

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 10th
Laura
Dylan
Jed

Oct 17th
Nick
Rachel
Tyree

Oct 24th
Riley
Tyree
Jed

Oct 31st
Barbara
Tina
Aimee

Nov 7th
Riley
Tyree
Nick

Keep Writing,
Bill