Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 31st, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The Hugo Awards for science fiction were recently announced.

Victories

Aime has the cover for her Time Traveler Blues short story.

Ciuin has Petty Theft done with new scenes and twists.

Shannon fixed his short story, now done at 5,000 words.

Education

Picking a good title for your book can be difficult.  Of course, if you get a major publisher they will probably dictate the title.  This article lists several well-known books with the authors’ working titles for comparison, and offers lots of good advice.

If you are picking a title yourself, you need to consider many factors.  The title should fit the genre, and whether it does can be a matter of opinion.  Short is good –two to four word titles usually work best.  Memorable is great.  I think the title should appear naturally somewhere in the prose , and the reader should understand a connection to the title after reading the book.

You can’t use a rip-off of something popular like Harry Potter’s New Adventure.  The first link above discusses that issue.  However, titles are generally not protected by copyright, so It can be a title that has been used before, and some titles appear on many books.  Scott Berkum offers many thoughts on picking titles.  Here’s more advice.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ~William Shakespeare

We don’t have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.
~Carl Sandburg

Upcoming Schedule

August 31
Dylan
Ciuin
Aime

September 7
Nick
Aime (?)
Open slot

September 14
Randy
Open slots

September 21
Open slots

September 28
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 24th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Real book stores continue to succeed despite ebooks.

Victories

Randy was interviewed by a Gazette person, and hopes this will lead to a published review of his book.

Aime is revising Scourge using all our collected critiques.

Education

A run-on is two independent clauses put together without proper joining means.  The clauses could be two sentences.  A run-on is usually bad form.  A comma spliced run-on is an inadequate attempt to separate them.
Run-on:  It was seven hundred miles to the event we arranged to fly.
Comma splice: It was seven hundred miles to the event, we arranged to fly.

Using two sentences cleans it up, but may make the writing choppy.
It was seven hundred miles to the event.  We arranged to fly.

A semicolon or colon is adequate punctuation if there is a close relationship such as cause and effect, but semicolons and colons are discouraged in fiction.
It was seven hundred miles to the event; we arranged to fly.

A coordinating conjunction can be used:
It was seven hundred miles to the event, so we arranged to fly.

One clause can be made subordinate, as:
Because it was seven hundred miles to the event, we arranged to fly.

Upcoming Schedule

August 24
Uriah
Ciuin
Exercise

August 31
Dakota
Ciuin (?)
Aime

September 7
Nick
Open slots

September 14
Open slots

September 21
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 17th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

An essay looks at what’s needed for basic education in grammar and writing.

Victories

Shannon, Dakota, Cassie, Dylan, and Stacie participated in the book signing event at Lindale.

Dakota is trying Grammarly.

Ciuin is revising her Writing Fairy site because someone else is using  the same name and getting the traffic.

Education

Last week’s piece on writers’ tools failed to caution about too much dependence on tools.  For instance, the grammar checker often suggests the wrong word or punctuation. This old ditty that circulated decades ago demonstrates the limitation of spell checkers. (Please forgive the use of poetry – it’s not a critique submission.)

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea see.
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have rung this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
My spilling’s prefect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Upcoming Schedule

August 17
Randy
Dakota
Ciuin’s discussion topic

August 24
Open slots

August 31
Dakota
Ciuin
Open slot

September 7
Nick
Open slots

September 14
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 10th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Don’t forget the book signing at Lindale Mall on Saturday August 5.

–//–

An author ponders differing opinions on what a writer should keep.

Victories

Randy received a request to talk with a reviewer from the Gazette.

Education

Many computer tools are available to help writers, going beyond basic word processing.  Here’s a list of eighty tools.  Here’s another ten, including some that you might not have thought of as writers’ tools.  Some are free and some are expensive.

A free on-line tool will evaluate 100 to 1000 word samples of your writing at the sentence level to see if the proportions of verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, etc. are reasonable.   It’s not very picky, so if you get long colored bars you’d better pay attention.

Pro Writing Aid is a much more extensive tool.  You have to create a free account to try it (and probably get related ads).  It gives a thorough analysis of your writing, including overused words, echo words, sentence length issues, cliches, grammar, etc.  Subscription is $40/year, but even the free version (limited word count) can be an eye-opener and quite useful.

Upcoming Schedule

August 10
Shannon
Ciuin
Exercise

August 17
Randy
Dakota
Uriah

August 24
Open slots

August 31
Open slots

September 7
Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill