Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 4th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Film studios often turn a hit movie’s script into a book to ride its popularity.  But they buy rights to many more books and scripts than they turn into movies.  Now someone is adopting an unusual business plan, buying scripts the large studios have abandoned and turning them first into books, and possibly into movies.

Victories

Dylan wrote 18k words in a two-day writing binge.  He finished a commission.

Randy finished the draft of Sins at 93k words.

Ciuin edited part of Chessmaster, reducing it by 3k words and changing the ending.

Shannon spent two weeks at a Master Class writing workshop.

Cassie’s second book is through edit and into the publishing process.

Education

Worldbuilding is important to your story, whether it deals with a subculture in Cedar Rapids, ancient Mesopotamia, or the natives on the planet Gzhorg. The writer has to select where the story is placed, who is involved, and which cultural aspects are significant to the story.  David Hair lists thirteen  basic principles that will usually apply in any world of people.   Using most of those rules will make the story more believable to readers.  Breaking one or more can make your story interesting.

Fiction Factor lists a bunch of resources for world builders, including some setting or world building comments that are more generally applicable than just to F&SF.  This one applies  to a wide range of genres.

Patricia C. Wrede of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America offers an extensive list of questions to help fiction writers build their story’s world.  Even Wikipedia has some suggestions on methods, although a bit dry to read.

Here’s a lighthearted checklist to avoid for fantasy authors.  Despite their warning, I wouldn’t worry if you match some of the tropes, but you don’t want too many of them to apply.

Upcoming Schedule

August 4
Nick (5300)
Aime W. (4000)
Ciuin (2700)

August 11
Ciuin
Randy
Open slot

August 18
Laura
Stacy H.
Aime W. (?)

August 25
Open slots

Sept 1
Stacie S.
Open slots

Sept 8
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 28th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

It has long been known that there are only a few basic plots that get retold in different setting.  Now academic research has categorized 1700 books into six types of emotional arc.  Their study used a computer program looking for emotion-laden keywords in the texts.

Victories

Dylan, Cassie, and Stacie participated in the 30-author signing event at Lindale Mall and all had sales.

Stacie donated her book to several libraries.

Aimee did a beta read for Stacie and gave lots of feedback.

Nick edited a short story.

Dylan gained more patrons and sold an old novella.

Education

Dialog is an important part of nearly all fiction.  Some of the guidelines are pretty well agreed.  Mostly use “he said” for a tag.  When it works, use an action instead of a tag.  Good dialog has some of our natural speech habits with sentence fragments and pause filers, but is brief compared to a real transcript of conversation.
Here are some guidelines for choosing dialog tags and proper punctuation.  However, Steven James revises some standard rules.

We’re often cautioned against opening a story with dialog.  It is easy to lose the reader with a long conversation between people who have not been introduced, talking about things that have not been established as important.

On the other hand, dialog that establishes the situation and people can be very effective.  My favorite quote on this point is the opening of the Robert Heinlein story Free Men where the characters give much information by implication.

“That makes three provisional presidents so far,” the Leader said. “I wonder how many more there are?” He handed the flimsy sheet back to the runner, who placed it in his mouth and chewed it up like gum.

The third man shrugged. “No telling. What worries me-“ A mockingbird interrupted. “Doity, doity, doity,” he sang. “Terloo, terloo, terloo, purty-purtypurty-purty.”

The clearing was suddenly empty

“As I was saying,” came the voice of the third man in a whisper in the Leader’s ear, “it ain’t how many worries me, but how you tell a de Gaulle from a Laval. See anything?”

“Convoy. Stopped below us.” The Leader peered through bushes and down the side of a bluff.

Notice that he does not tell you we are hiding in the woods with a resistance group in a country where a breakdown or conquest has splintered the loyalties of the population, because that can be inferred from the dialog and action.

Upcoming Schedule

July 28
Randy
Aime W.
Aimee K.

August 4
Nick (5300)
Aime W. (4000)
Ciuin (2700)

August 11
Ciuin
Mark
Randy

August 18
Laura
Stacy H.
Open slot

August 25
Open slots

Sept 1
Stacie S.
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 21st, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Superheroes are showing more ethnic diversity.  Wikipedia has a roundup of older stereotyped characters.  And they don’t even mention a blue woman from India.

Victories

Aime did research for a story about an evilly possessed water heater.

Dylan has published copies of Sand and Blood & Sand and Ash in time for the author signing event.  He got more supporters on Patreon.

Ciuin was asked to do an academic review of a holocaust book by a Romani author.

Education

Devlin Blake offers a list of ways to make your story boring.  If you aren’t writing a bedtime story to help readers fall asleep, then you need to make sure you aren’t doing those things.  Another article is aimed at bloggers, but can be applied to most writing.

Upcoming Schedule

July 21
Ciuin
Laura
Stacie

July 28
Randy
Aime W.
Aimee K.

August 4
Nick (5300)
Aime W. (4000)
Ciuin (2700)

August 11
Ciuin
Mark
Randy

August 18
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 14th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Several of our members will participate in a 30-author signing event on Saturday July 16 from 10 to 7 at Lindale Mall. (link) (FB link)

Victories

Aime set a deadline for finishing her short story.

Randy read Stacie’s entire book and gave feedback.

Bill read Nick’s Star Trek book and gave feedback.

Education

So  you’re writing fiction.  That means you get to make up the characters, their actions, and perhaps their world.  But some things need to be true and accurate, unless you are popular enough to get away with changing geography and physics and pretending it is the real world (e.g., a list of Dan Brown errors).

I get riled up when a story changes history or has real people doing things we know they didn’t do, without presenting it as an alternate world.  Don’t defy known physics without invoking magic or future technology, and please make characters react realistically for the situation portrayed.  Watch for blatant anachronisms.

A blogger and dozens of commentators complain about their pet peeve errors.  Paula Fleming writes about blending history and fiction.  Jenni Ogden writes about how medical and psychological problems are often portrayed incorrectly.

Upcoming Schedule

July 14
Ciuin
Mark
Dylan

July 21
Ciuin
Laura
Stacie

July 28
Randy
Aime W.
Aimee K.

August 4
Nick (double)
Aime W.

August 11
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 7th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

An eight-episode series QUARRY based on the novels by Iowa author Max Allan Collins will appear on Cinemax beginning September 9 .

Victories

The CR Gazette published a guest column by Aime.

Dylan has a new cover for Sand and Blood, and is very near publication with Sand and Ash.

Education

Some similar words cause much confusion.  Is it past or passed?  Is it affect or effect?  Their, they’re, or there?  Here’s a long list that you may want to review to be sure you are using them correctly, since the spelling and grammar checkers won’t help.

Upcoming Schedule

July 7
Nick
Aime
Stacie

July 14
Ciuin
Mark
Dylan

July 21
Randy
Ciuin
Laura

July 28
Aime W.
Open slots

August 4
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill