Next Noble Pen Meeting

December 1st, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News and Commentary

We need to be thinking about whether to meet during the end-of-year holidays.  It looks feasible as there is no direct conflict, but will enough attend to make a good meeting?

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Glen Weldon asks, “Is the term ‘graphic novel’ a useful one?”

Victories

As far as I know, we all survived an overdose of turkey and at least some of us got a bit of writing done.

Education

Writer’s “voice” is a subtle concept.  The way you tell a story can make or break it.  Brian Klems tries to explain the difference between a writer’s voice and style.  Steve Thompson goes to greater length on the subject, but sums it up as:  “The voice is the word choice and method of speaking and thinking as demonstrated by characters, while style is much more broad.”  Randy Ingermanson links style to “writing patterns” and voice to “attitude”.

The Wikipedia article on writing style also discusses writer’s voice.  After reading these and the other articles, I’m still not sure I get it.  They seem to overlap and many sources’ explanations of one make reference to the other.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. ~Nietzsche

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward. ~Robert Frost

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It is also important that characters have distinct voices or ways of talking so the reader can easily picture them as individual personalities and distinguish them from each other without relying entirely on the dialog tags.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself about how your characters speak.

Alicia Rasley offers some advice and exercises to help a writer develop character voice.  Here’s a good list of things to think about and some great suggestions.  Beth Lewis offers some good ways to develop voice.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. ~Maya Angelou

Upcoming Schedule

Dec 1
Dakota
Uriah
Andrea

Dec 8
Laura
Aime W.
Stacy H.

Dec 15
Open slots

Dec 22
Open slots

Dec 29
Open slots

Jan 5
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill