Next Noble Pen Meeting

September 21st, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Not everyone approves of the New York Times best seller list: NPR interviews an unhappy publisher.  The Washington Post story sees it differently

Victories

Dylan wrote 27,000 words for a commissioned piece.

Ciuin had an informative discussion on teaching minority languages with representatives from Kosovo and U of I.

Education

Setting is important for a story.  Courtney Carpenter discusses ten components of setting.

Josh Pahigian gives some reasons for setting your story in a famous place.  You have to know your territory and time period well, however, and it can be limiting because your characters’ movements and public exposure are constrained by the real culture and geography (unless you’re a successful author we won’t name who rearranged Rome for a key plot point).

You have much more freedom if you make up your setting, whether it is “Anywhere, USA” or Sirius 5, but then you are responsible for making it consistent with the expectations you raise in the reader.  Moira Allen has some advice on bringing the setting to life without stopping the story.

Every story would be another story, and unrecognizable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else… Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance. ~Eudora Welty

Upcoming Schedule

September 21
Aime
Uriah
Deanna

September 28
Ciuin
Eric
Aime?

October 5
Nick
Open slots

October 12
Open slots

October 19
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill