Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 31, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

If you didn’t get a ticket to the June talk by Stephen King in Iowa City, forget about it.  They sold out the Englert right away.

John Grisham is giving away his latest book because he thinks it covers an important topic.

Victories

Ciuin was admitted to grad school.  She has been doing rewrites on Pawn and Petty Theft.

Dylan finished a commission.

Stacie got 120 copies of her book and has now sold or given away all of them.

Education

A story needs enough plot that the reader doesn’t have it all figured out right away. Here are some ideas about plot.  Chuck Wendig offers a lot more ideas (foul language warning).

Some people plan meticulously.  The snowflake method is one planning tool, where you make a very short summary, and revise on successive passes to add finer and finer detail like the branches on a snowflake.  Others recommend just letting the creativity flow and seeing where it ends up.

If you want to see some scholarly study of plot in an abstract sense, try this link.  What I took away was that frequent alternations of positive and negative events and descriptions make for a page-turner.

But all good things in moderation; this article says you could have too much plot.

Upcoming Schedule

March 31
Stacie
Cassie

April 7
Nick
Ciuin

April 14
Randy
Aime W.

April 21
Open slots

April 28
Bill H.
Open slot

Keep Writing,
Bill