Next Noble Pen Meeting

February 27th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Successful novelist James Patterson is giving one million dollars to about a hundred independent bookstores, up to $15,000 apiece.  He thinks they are endangered and are important in making our literary culture available.  He also helps college students buy books at independent stores.

Victories

All our victorious battles were non-literary this week.

Education

Genre fiction books, according to Wikipedia, are plot-driven works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.  A lot of books fall into a “standard” classification in genre fiction, such as Crime, Fantasy, Western, Romance, or Horror, etc., but not all do.  It is possible to have a mixed or cross-genre book such as a sci-fi thriller, historical drama, romantic mystery, or even science fiction western.

To sell a book that mixes genres, it needs to meet most of the expectations of both.  Michelle Richmond offers some advice on mixing genres.  Here’s another article on cross-genre books.

Upcoming Schedule

Feb 27th
Tyree
Cassie
Dylan (end of S&L)

Mar 6th
Nick
Tyree ?
Open slot

Mar 13th
Open slots

Mar 20th
Open slots

Mar 27th
Janice
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

February 20th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Barnes and Noble has reduced the staff at their Nook division, another bad sign in the prospects for that product.

Some publishers are putting out books in a series at a much faster rate to suit the “gotta have it now” world we live in.

Victories

Dylan got a good edit of Sand and Blood back from his paid editor after waiting too many months.

Bill wrote an 11 kword technical training guide.

Nick’s favorite railfan magazine published his letter to the editor.

Tyree found three haiku in his old files and submitted them to a magazine.

Education

Should your characters cuss? It depends on your target audience and your publisher.  Elizabeth Sims explains the correct terms for the various kinds of crude language.

You should be rather cautious about using it for the young adult market, despite the fact that you could probably hear all the terms you know and some you don’t in any junior high school.

Sims offers the advice that for some characters such language in moderation may be appropriate and useful to set them apart.  It should be realistic for the character and their *&@%$ environment, but probably not as extensive as real life.

A little goes a long way. Rosanne Parry offers advice on how to balance authenticity versus respect for the audience.  Another article talks about how reviewers lowered their ratings because of sparse profanity, but justifies it in some cases.

A Wikipedia article points out how science fiction has the opportunity to make up profanity in unknown languages, but some consider it preferable to use the real words or none.

If you would like more discussion, a search for    profanity in fiction    will get you 2.6 million more items to read.

Upcoming Schedule

Feb 20th
Barbara
Dylan (end of S&L)
Nick

Feb 27th
Tyree
Cassie
Open slot

Mar 6th
Janice
Nick
Open slot

Mar 13th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

February 13th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

If you have any Vampire poetry (yeah, Noble Pen doesn’t do poetry, but some of you may) that you would like to see in a new anthology being assembled, contact Tyree for submittal information.  Deadline is in about a month.

Victories

Nick got his own printer.  He found a beta reader for his revised western.

Cassie integrated her research into the outline of a new novel.

Dylan received feedback from three beta readers of various novels.

Education

There is no end to the mistakes a writer can make.  Here are a few to avoid from James Scott Bell, Brian Klems, Susan Breen, Sally Zigmond, and others:
-Lack of problems at the beginning of the story.  Characters without problems tend not to catch the reader’s interest.  This can occur if you begin the story too early.  Start where the protagonist is doing something important for the plot.

-Lack of stakes throughout the book.  To create tension, the protagonist needs to have something at stake, be about to lose it, and have to work toward the goal.  The stakes don’t have to be saving mankind or finding the Lost Ark.  Small goals or fears can serve if you can make the characters realistically worried enough about them.

-Too-long dialog.  Dialog should be more condensed than real conversation.

Too much or too little detail. Readers need only enough detail to fill in the picture in their imaginations.  If you don’t give them enough, they won’t follow the story, but too much will bog them down and bore them.

-Too predictable.  Readers like to be surprised by logical turns of events.  Even if you are inspired by true events, your fiction doesn’t have to stick to the facts if you can make it more interesting.

-Characters that the author hasn’t developed enough.  Understand your protagonists and antagonists, their inner goals and motivations.  You don’t have to tell their life story, but knowing it will let you drop in the necessary clues for the reader to understand them.

-Getting too attached to your words.  Sometimes you need to cut out things that don’t contribute enough to the plot, characterizations, mood, etc., no matter how much you like those words.

-Setting unreasonable goals.  Be realistic in how much time you will work or how many words you can produce, and then meet that goal.

-Neglecting your backups.  Hard drives and flash memories sometimes fail, and it’s always the worst possible time for losing your work.  A good plan is to periodically save copies on hard drive, portable media, and cloud storage.  Putting the date or version number into the file name lets you keep multiple versions so nothing gets lost in revision.

Upcoming Schedule

Feb 13th
More about commas
Tyree
Rachel
Cassie

Feb 20th
Barbara
Dylan (end of S&L)
Nick

Feb 27th
Tyree
Cassie?
Janice

Mar 6th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

February 6th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Get your books published while people still know how to read.  A recent report shows “shocking levels” of illiteracy around the world.

Two poems have been identified as coming from ancient Greek poet Sappho (ca. 600 BC).  Despite her fame, very little of her work has survived.

Victories

Dylan received a rejection of Flight of the Scions from Harper Voyager, 15 months after submitting.  He also received three other rejections from various places on other work.  The real disappointment was that only one of them was personalized.

Cassie completely rearranged the scenes of Dreams In Red.

Education

You may come across the term “high concept story”.  This term doesn’t have a clear definition.  Brian Klems says it generally means the work embodies some original, imaginative ideas (what if …) and is easy enough to understand that it will attract a significant audience.  It must clearly tell a good story.  Steve Kaire mostly agrees with this. Nathan Bransford has a simpler, more negative view that focuses on the simple-to-understand aspect.

A high concept (in the positive sense) is a good start, but of course the story needs to be well-written and involve interesting characters in a good plot;  such a story is the essence of what an agent likes to see submitted.

–//–

I feel like the high-concept shows that have some kind of gimmick tend not to be the hit classic shows of all time.” ~Mindy Kaling

Right now it’s only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea. ~Woody Allen

Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong. ~E. O. Wilson

Upcoming Schedule

Feb 6th
Aimee
Tyree
Nick

Feb 13th
Tyree (?)
Rachel
Cassie (?)

Feb 20th
More about commas
Barbara
Dylan (end of S&L)
Open slot

Feb 27th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill