Next Noble Pen Meeting

December 22nd, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Another book explores how we make decisions, a subject pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky. The outcome has a lot to do with whether the alternatives are described in a positive or negative way.  This could be useful information as you seek to show your characters’ motivations, as well as when you negotiate.

Victories

Aime got the proof copy of her cover for Time Traveler’s Blues.

Dylan’s beta reader for Sand and Bone liked it, and offered a few markups.

Ciuin is looking into publishing Petty Theft.

Education

At the last meeting, some of us were discussing the scale of the solar system and universe.  This site offers an excellent look at scale.

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Prologues are somewhat controversial, as shown by the number of discussions of them on writing forums.  See this thread.  Another thread suggests some people skip them, which could make the rest of the story confusing for them.  Often a prologue could just as well be chapter 1.  Other times they should be deleted and their information woven into the story as needed or used as a flashback.

The best use for a prologue is when it takes place in a different time or place than the rest of the story, and perhaps does not involve the main character.   The challenge is to make it interesting, since the real story hasn’t started yet, to keep it from being an info dump, and to transition easily into chapter 1.

Upcoming Schedule

Dec 22
Aime W.
Ciuin
Cassie

Dec 29
Dakota
Ciuin
Dylan (would yield)

Jan 5
Laura
Nick
Uriah

Jan 12
Open slots

Jan 19
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill