Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 31st, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Philip Roth (wikipedia) died recently at age 85.  He is remembered for Portnoy’s Complaint and Goodbye Columbus, among over 30 works.

Victories

Randy gathered experiential material about pickpockets for a future book.

Ciuin sold Petty Theft at an event and a lady who read some while waiting liked it.

Education

We’ve all been told to “show, not tell.” This is good advice for most people when they start writing, as the natural tendency is to summarize too much.  Wikipedia has a short article on it. Chuck Palahniuk is more extreme than most on this point and suggests that even “thought” and “remembered” are too much tell.

It is probably not sufficient scene-setting to tell that a room is elegant. You need to show enough details (thick maroon carpet, heavy drapes, flower arrangements, or leather armchairs?) to let the reader see the room.  Don’t tell us an interviewee is nervous; show them fidgeting in the chair, twisting the pen in their fingers, and stammering their answers.

If your character is making a rushed and bad important decision because she is tired and hasn’t eaten all day, so she wants to leave to get to the restaurant, then a few words about lack of sleep, exhaustion, rumbles, and the gnawing feeling in her stomach may be in order to show and emphasize her distraction. Ideally those words would be interspersed with dialog as she talks about the decision.

But you need to balance show and tell with some sense of how important those facts are.  Showing can get long and boring if you take too many words to demonstrate something that isn’t terribly important.  Here’s more on balance. If your character just needs to be in the restaurant in order to bump into another character, it may be sufficient to tell that she is tired and hungry, and not spend a paragraph describing her symptoms.

In showing important things, you should usually not interpret them for the reader (doing both show and tell),  Nor should you dwell too much about their importance, but try to make those facts a natural part of the scene. Here’s a good discussion of effective use of show versus tell

Upcoming Schedule

May 31
Jeremiah
Logan
Uriah

Jun 7
Laura
Nick
Randy

Jun 14
Ciuin
Aime
Open slot

Jun 21
Open slots

Jun 28
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 24th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Author Tom Wolfe died last week at age 88. He had a career in journalism, wrote nonfiction, and some fiction.  He published at least fifteen books, including The Right Stuff.  Here’s a republished interview.

Victories

Uriah got an A on a ten-page school paper.

Education

How do you pick the title of your novel?  If you go through a traditional publishing house, you probably don’t.  The marketing department will pick the title, replacing your working title.  If you use a smaller house you may have some say in it, and if you are independent it is all up to you.

Here’s some advice on ways to come up with a title.  This post suggests brainstorming methods.  Here is more advice.  You probably should have alternative titles and ask as many people as possible which ones are most likely to catch their interest.

Your title should be distinctive but not distracting and somehow connected to your story and genre.  You should search for similar titles and avoid any that will get confused with a classic or appear to be riding the the tails of a currently popular book, movie, or song.  It is not smart to name your book The Games of Hunger.  On the other hand, it is permissible to use a title that already exists, and this happens frequently.  Titles have little legal protection, and if the other book(s) is/are relatively unknown and not similar you are probably okay.

Upcoming Schedule

May 24
Ciuin
Uriah
Aime

May 31
Jeremiah
Laura
Uriah

Jun 7
Logan
Nick
Open slot

Jun 14
Open slots

Jun 21
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 17th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

We have room on the upcoming schedule for more submissions.  Let me know if you have material ready.

–//–

Ciuin has arranged with a bake shop in northern CR to have them display and sell books by Noble Pen authors.  Ask her for details.

–//–

The committee for the Nobel Prize in Literature will not be awarding one in 2018 because a scandal has led too many members to resign.  Interestingly, they cannot be replaced until they die and thus an impasse occurs.

Victories

Aime has identified how the Democracy story will end.

Ciuin wrote the trial, result of trial, and ending of her battle scene in Chessmaster but has a lot to do on the battle itself.

Nick has beta readers for some of his stories.

Education

Some people advise all cliché phrases are to be “avoided like the plague.”  See Wikipedia discussion.  Writer’s Digest offers a short list of overused phrases.  Here’s a list of 681 clichéd phrases.

I’m not so sensitive to them as to ban their whole list, and feel an occasional one can serve a purpose.  I see nothing wrong with “benefit of the doubt,” for instance, and wouldn’t object to occasional use of “ace in the hole”, “all in a day’s work”, or “crash course.”  However, “drives me up the wall” tends to do so, I’ve seen pancakes that weren’t “flat as a pancake,” and I’ve never seen a real “loose cannon.”

–//–

Backups are vital.   Someday you will need one when you are least prepared. What is the state of your backups if you had a crash RIGHT NOW?

Some people consider it necessary to have at least three copies of any important work, such as on the working computer, on a flash drive, and on a cloud storage service like Dropbox (read about)(sign up with referral link instead for more free storage).  If you burn CDs or DVDs that can be another option.  You could substitute more flash drives for the cloud service.  A good scheme is to have two or more and rotate which one you update in case you overwrite a version you wanted.

I find it useful to make a copy of the project file now and then with the date inserted into the file name, as  MyBook2018_05_17.doc so that I can go back and look at prior versions (the cloud may only keep old versions for a limited time).

If you know how to use batch files or command lines, this line is handy, with appropriate drive letter and folder name in place of those shown:
xcopy c:\MyBook e:\MyBook\ /D /S /R /I /Y
It will copy any newer-dated or additional files and only those files, from that folder and its subfolders to the other drive.  If the folder has blanks in its name, you must enclose the name in double quotes.  Windows should have made it easy to do this kind of copy, but didn’t.

Upcoming Schedule

May 17
Logan
Aime
Uriah (revised submission)

May 24
Ciuin
Open slots

May 31
Jeremiah
Open slots

Jun 7
Logan
Nick
Open slot

Jun 14
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 10th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Crime fiction is quite popular.  This article from the UK discusses reasons.

Victories

Ciuin has Petty Theft for sale at a bake shop.  She wrote more on Chessmaster.

Education

Aime recommends this video about cliches.

–//–

Chuck Wendig offers twenty-five rules for writing stories.   Some are what you usually hear and some are distinctly different.  You’ll need to pardon his vulgarity in spots.

Emma Coats assembled a list of 22 rules of storytelling as applied to Pixar movies.

The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict. ~James Frey

There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are. ~Somerset Maugham

Upcoming Schedule

May 10
Ciuin
Aime
Uriah

May 17
Logan
Aime?
Open slot

May 24
Ciuin
Open slots

May 31
Jeremiah
Open slots

Jun 7
Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 3rd, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The restaurant has a big party scheduled for May 3rd.  Look for us on the left as you enter the building.  It might be a bit crowded, but we’ve managed a similar situation every December.

–//–

If you have days when you don’t feel like accomplishing anything, this article says maybe that’s a good thing.  And we might guess especially so for writers.  Just don’t do it too often.

Victories

Aime broke writer’s block and turned out some words.

Randy is making good progress on Sins of Omission and has two chapters left to write in his draft.

Ciuin finished two scenes in Chessmaster, and found someone to correct her Latin.

Logan is half-done with a story.

Education

Authors often want to have a series of books that share characters and settings.  A series of books helps the author because every book sold is an advertisement for the rest.  However, each book needs to be complete and enjoyable by itself should a reader happen to get it first.

New authors are advised to never try to sell a series to an agent until they have success with one book.   Don’t put more than a hint into your query that there is series potential.  Agents or publishers may think it will be an incomplete story without the rest of the series, and they certainly aren’t going to invest in a series until the first one sells well.

Still, a stand-alone book can leave hooks for series potential without a too-obvious cliffhanger leading into a sequel.   The settings and characters from one stand-alone book can be re-used by giving them a new problem in a companion book.   Karen Wiesner has more.

The key, in any case, is to avoid a serial plot.  Make sure each book contains a complete story arc, so that the reader doesn’t feel like they’ve been tricked into reading the whole series to find resolution.  No cliff hanger books.  If your book is so long it needs to be a trilogy, maybe you’d better find the essential story and trim it down to one satisfying book.  Then see if you have enough story material left for more books.

Upcoming Schedule

May 3
Aime – short educational session on cliches
Nick
Logan (double: complete short story)

May 10
Ciuin
Aime
Uriah

May 17
Open slots

May 24
Ciuin
Open slots

May 31
Jeremiah
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

April 26th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The fight over a broadway production of To Kill A Mockingbird continues.  The executor of Harper Lee’s estate thinks the production is not true to the novel.

Victories

Aime’s son is writing and they had their first big serious discussion of writing.

Ciuin has emphasized the chess theme in prior chapters of Chessmaster.  She is at 80k words and hopes to complete the story this weekend.

Education

Every writer needs to find plotting methods that work for them, and those may differ from those of other successful writers.  You need to try lots of advice and see what helps you.  Jan Ellison offers some tips.  I particularly like her point that you need to get to the end of the story before you polish parts of it.  That approach is consistent with the Snowflake Method.  It’s hard to bring yourself to tear up a beautiful chapter when you find later that the plot needed to go a different direction.  There are many ways or levels of detail to outline, from a strict structure to a loose summary of the story.

For those who want to improve their planning, this article on outlining may help.  Here is a page with downloadable links for several types of outlines as fillable PDF forms you can edit and print.  A seven-point story structure is a classic configuration that may help you shape the story.  Here’s  a collection of outlines used by successful authors.

But not everyone believes in detailed planning.   Some people write by the “seat of their pants”, to use a metaphor that came from pilots who stay oriented by their senses instead of by instruments.  These writers let the story develop as it seems to need to go.

Which are you, or can you take a middle road? John Irving says he always knows where he’s headed, though it would appear from this interview that he doesn’t necessarily know how he will get there.

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 26
Jeremiah
Uriah
Randy

May 3
Aime – short educational session on cliches
Nick
Logan (double: complete short story)

May 10
Ciuin
Aime?
Open slot

May 17
Open slots

May 24
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

April 19th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

It’s always been known that bad news travels more quickly than good news.  Now social scientists are studying how fake news propagates, relative to other things.

Victories

Ciuin added 8,000 words to Chessmaster, putting it up to 72,000.

Education

If you know where to start and end, how do you get the reader to stay with you through the journey?  Generally, you need to maintain conflict and tension, with complications and/or more problems for the protagonist to get through.  But it should all tie together – don’t give the characters a lot of distractions that have nothing to do with the climax and resolution.

Camy Tang writes about keeping up interest through the “The Sagging Middle” Part 1 and Part 2, based on Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer.

This article offers a bunch of ideas to help keep that middle interesting.  Here are more suggestions.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. ~Ernest Hemingway

Focus on the journey, not the destination.  Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.  ~Greg Anderson

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 19
Ciuin (double)
Randy

Apr 26
Jeremiah
Uriah
Randy?

May 3
Nick
Logan (double: complete short story)

May 10
Open slots

May 17
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

April 12th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The Science Fiction News edition for 2018 Spring (Northern hemisphere) is available.

Victories

Nick edited on his SSS novel.

Ciuin finished an editing job.  She got an order for Petty Theft.

Education

You don’t dare have an important character who isn’t interesting.  There are a lot of ways to make an uninteresting, unlikable character.  It’s trickier with your protagonist than the antagonists.   Here are some negative characteristics that characters may have.

Unlikable characters can be interesting.  They typically come with built-in conflicts, and conflict is the meat of storytelling.  Here is a discussion of some interesting but unlikable characters from published fiction.

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 12
Uriah
Randy
Ciuin

Apr 19
Ciuin
Aime
Open slot

Apr 26
Randy
Jeremiah
Open slot

May 3
Nick
Open slots

May 10
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

April 5th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The young adult sf book A Wrinkle in Time is now a movie getting mixed reviews.   Here is a very somewhat favorable and detailed review.  Some like it, saying the wait for this classic to be a movie has been too long, but others say the special effects were overdone and they tried so hard to provide an ethnic mix that the effort is obvious.

This is one of the first sf books I ever read, and at the time I really didn’t like it.  Maybe I should read it again.

Victories

Randy’s book has eight reviews on Amazon, with a good average score.

Education

If you as a writer are taking your reader back to historical times, you don’t need a sci-fi machine, but you do need a heavy dose of research to avoid common problems.  There are tools to fight the problems. (besides Google).

The first problem is making the earlier times seem right to readers who may not have a lot of detailed knowledge.  You need references that they will recognize, that are NOW associated with the era, not necessarily what was hot at the time.  Mention of horseless carriages will take most people back to the early 20th century.  Fallout shelters may bring the 1950’s to mind to older people, but younger ones may not recognize them. Black and white TV might work better for them because they have at least heard of it.  Party line phones (that’s several houses on the same wired phone line) may be a foreign concept.   Music that was popular in the era may help, but there are people who haven’t heard of the Beatles, much less Buddy Holly or Stan Kenton.

The second problem is avoiding anachronisms.  The people who DO know the historical period may burn your book (and your ratings) if you have a detective in 1982 Google an address on his smart phone.  Not only didn’t he have a cell phone, he is unlikely to have a home computer, and there was no Google.  Did they use forks at dinner in 1200 AD?  Research it.   Does the heroine say “okay” in your Regency romance?  Could the Civil War soldier zip his coat?  Not by decades.

Names should be chosen from those in common use at the time.  A World War II widow named Brittney or Aimee just wouldn’t be right, any more than a 2015 graduate named Agnes, Henry, Mabel,  Mildred, or Archibald.

And the characters’ language must avoid more recent jargon, slang, and common expressions.  As this article says, a reference to a person who did not fit into 1850 society would not be “What planet is he from?” A medieval peasant would not say an easy job was a piece of cake.

Characters’ attitudes and world view (there’s a modern term) may be even harder to deal with than their words, particularly when dealing with the interaction of different social classes.  And historical accuracy may not be politically acceptable now when dealing with treatment of women and minorities.  Huck Finn’s language is getting him banned even though it reflected the era.

Jude Knight has some thoughts on the problems, limits, and some very nice anachronistic pictures.  KJ Charles considers both what doesn’t fit and what may be missing.

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 5
Aime – short educational
Nick
Randy
Ciuin

Apr 12
Uriah
Aime
Stacie S.

Apr 19
Open slots

Apr 26
Randy
Jeremiah
Open slot

May 3
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 29th, 2018 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Kate Wilhelm, a writer of mysteries, suspense, science fiction, and p*ems, died at age 89.  She raised six children and published sixty books.  Wikipedia provides a list of works.

Victories

Aime and Randy got royalty checks.  Combined, they would buy a small meal.

Ciuin sold a book.  She has been hired to edit a book.

Education

A surprising number of stories fit well into the structure of The Hero’s Journey (wikipedia-monomyth) and they aren’t all epic fantasies.   Vladimir Propp was one of the pioneers of the idea as applied to folk tales.  Elizabeth Sims discusses the structure and how a Sherlock Holmes story fits it.  Here’s another comparison using Star Wars and The Matrix.

Upcoming Schedule

March 29
Aime – short educational
Jeremiah
Randy
Stacie S.

Apr 5
Nick
Randy
Ciuin

Apr 12
Uriah
Aime
Stacie S.

Apr 19
Open slots

Apr 26
Randy
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill