Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 30th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Rachel submitted a poem to the prestigious, literary publication The Iowa Review. Their current contest is open until January 31.

Janice’s story based on a song has been requested by the author of that song.

Tyree has done more writing on Aoife this week than any other week.

Ciuin is writing up a world-building exercise and story for a friend, who gets to decide after every scene what she would do next.

Education

It ain’t over until it’s over. ~Yogi Berra

Make sure your story has a good ending, so the reader won’t decide it’s over before finishing it.

The number one rule is: Don’t introduce any new characters or subplots in the last fifty pages of a novel.  The backstory should have been explained by now.  Anything there should at least been foreshadowed, or the reader may feel you’ve cheated them by not setting it up properly.

While much of the advice pertains to novels, even a short story needs an ending.

Make sure the protagonist is deeply involved in the resolution.  They need to be the catalyst for the resolution, and/or changed by the events.  It is not good for them to just watch the resolution or to be rescued; it is better if they are the rescuer but must overcome some personal obstacles to perform the rescue.

And it must have a resolution.  The reader should be satisfied that it is a logical (though unexpected) wrap up of the conflict.  A cliffhanger or obvious lead into a sequel is only acceptable if you have a multi-book contract in hand.

Try to have some unexpected (but foreshadowed) turns.  Don’t just have it wrap up like a column of falling dominoes.  Make the reader feel they need to know the outcome, but can’t predict it.  These are the books they will remember and recommend.

Make the ending a dash to the finish line, perhaps a zig-zag one, but no more complicated than necessary.  Emphasize conflict, not description.  Don’t complicate it with explanations or philosophizing.  Try not to need a lot of wrap-up after the climax.  This sentiment is echoed here.

The story can come full-circle, so the ending resembles the beginning except for the characters’ growth and solving a problem.  Or it can have a linear ending where the characters have moved on in place, maturity, etc.

It’s up to you, should it have a happy ending?

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. ~Lao Tzu

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be. ~Douglas Adams

This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. ~Chuck Palahniuk

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. ~Orson Welles

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 30th
More about commas
Dylan
Cassie
Barbara & Matt

Feb 6th
Aimee
Tyree
Nick

Feb 13th
Short grammar lesson
Tyree (?)
Rachel
Cassie (?)

Feb 20th
Barbara
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 23rd, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Alban Lake is accepting entries for a new Drabble contest.

Victories

Dylan found two beta readers for a novel and resubmitted a rejected story.

Rachel has been reading a lot.

Jed is reading very difficult material.

Cassie has been so involved with her novel that she wakes up at night and starts working on it.

Ciuin has made progress on incorporating suggestions from beta readers of Petty Theft.

Education

What’s a plot device and where can I buy one?  No, it isn’t a gadget sold at Big*Mart or on the TV shopping channel.  A plot device is  anything the author devises to move the plot along, although it is not itself central to the plot except for being a motivator or facilitator.

Here are several types.  They can be useful but also can be poor choices; for example, deus ex machina is typically a poor plot device.

A plot device could be the occurrence of an auto accident that brings together characters who need to meet in the plot.  It could be an accident that delays a character to miss a schedule.  A red herring may be classed as a plot device.  A language translator is a common scifi plot device (yes, here it is an actual device, but not available on the shopping channel) that overcomes a hindrance to the plot.

Another kind of device is the use of some background activity to mirror the main character’s development.  Alison Atlee discusses uses of the plot device. One of her example is a career ladder that parallels the character’s inner journey.

It may be some magical power, which motivates the characters, creates problems, or enables them to solve the problems they face.

It may be Hitchcock’s MacGuffin, which is some object or person the main characters are trying to find or protect, that gives them motivations and activity in the story, even though the characteristics of that object or person are not directly important.  Perhaps it is a stolen document, a deadline that must be met, a missing person, or the Lost Ark.  Any other would work as well if the characters believed it was so important.

Normally you read a screenplay – and I read a lot of them – and the characters don’t feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.  ~Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I’ve always liked the idea of taking old dramatic ideas and devices and making them feel relevant or contemporary or whatever. ~Edward Norton

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 23rd
More about commas.
Tyree
Jed
Cassie

Jan 30th
Barbara & Matt
Dylan
Cassie

Feb 6th
Short grammar lesson
Aimee
Tyree
Nick

Feb 13th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 16th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The wikipedia idea spreads to biography.   Now a writer is asking for crowdsourced edits of his bio of Steve Jobs.  He says that since technology is often the result of collaboration, he thinks it appropriate to apply collaboration to this book.  He has gotten many useful suggestions.  He will still use conventional editors and fact checkers, however.

–//–

At the meeting, we heard a recommendation for Prophets of Science Fiction, available at various times on the Science Channel or on Netflix.  The series shows how many ideas in SF became reality.  Critics say the connections they make are sometimes farfetched.  Did Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein predict medical organ transplants?

Victories

Tyree reports that Breathless Stars sold well at a convention.  He is writing a superhero novella that a pulp publisher has repeatedly asked him to do.  A slightly larger publisher has asked for a collection of stories from his mid-size publishing operation.

Jed succeeded in editing the language used by Castalia in the earlier chapters to fit her character.

Nick finished reformatting his western and is starting to edit it.

Aimee started a short story.

Ciuin is planning a research trip to New Orleans to research for her mystery story, and got the approval of her spouse to spend that time on research.  Of course, the mystery involves restaurants …

Education

Writers Digest has posted a list of 62 articles on various writing subjects.  Everybody should be able to find something of interest in this list.

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 16th
Tyree
Dylan
Nick

Jan 23rd
More about commas.
Riley ? (Tyree alternate)
Jed
Cassie

Jan 30th
Barbara & Matt
Tyree
Cassie (might cede)

Feb 6th
Aimee
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 9th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Danielle Steel, who has sold 800 million books to become the best selling author now alive and the fourth-best of all time, received France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor.

Victories

Ciuin got Petty Theft cleaned up and to beta readers before the end of 2013.  One reader is a Romany VIP and three are history professors.

Nick found a way at long last to convert his old western novel to his current word processor and has started revising.

Cassie spent the entire New Years Day writing, and produced 13,000 words of a 2nd draft plus ideas for scenes to add.

Riley made time to write 2,000 words.  He found the new CR library to be a good place to write.

Education

After a writer has decided they are done improving the novel, they need to find a publisher, which usually means finding an agent first.  Study each agent to make sure they represent your kind of material.  Query a few agents at a time, and use any information you get in rejections to improve your query.

The query letter must be finely crafted and contain zero mistakes, to avoid any hints of amateur writing. Read each agent’s guidelines and tailor your letter to each.  Send exactly what the agent wants-some want a few pages of your manuscript pasted into an email and others do not.  Never attach a file to a query email. If the agent gets ten or twenty queries a day, they will happily discard one for not following instructions.

The Query Tracker web site has a free forum for information on agents, publishers, writing techniques, success stories, etc.  You could spend days on the site.  AgentQuery also has useful information, a forum where query letters are critiqued. and examples of successful queries.  Nathan Bransford shows his favorite query letter. Creative Writing Forums has a critique section for queries.

This site has some tips on query letters and writing a synopsis.

Never mention anything about sequels when pushing your first book, even if you have another one planned or written.  The first book has to be a success before they will even think about another, and mentioning sequels will scare them that the first book may not stand alone.

More advice is listed in our newsletter for last June 13.

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 9th
More about commas
Ciuin
Jed
Riley

Jan 16th
Tyree
Dylan
Nick

Jan 23rd
Riley
Jed
Cassie

Jan 30th
Barbara
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill