Next Noble Pen Meeting

September 12th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Ethan, who found the group.

–//–

Frederik Pohl died recently at age 93 after a 75-year career as a science fiction writer and editor.  He wrote numerous books and short stories by himself and in collaboration with other well-known authors.  He is also remembered for two laws, “No one is ever ready for anything” and “Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere will not hate it”.

Victories

Tyree read some pulp fiction and wonders how such bad writing gets an audience (e.g., protagonist never in danger).  He got good advice from Nick about European railroad terminology.

Barbara is reworking an old story.

Rachel made an outline for a story.

Dylan finished a 50k word story he had promised 5 years ago to write.

Tina finished her novel and has interviews set up to research a non-fiction piece.

Jed is writing a lot and has 21k words on a new story.

Education

World building  (and here) is an important part of writing any story that is not set in the here and now.  How do you invent a possible future or an alternative world?  It should somehow make the reader think about his own.

Restructure the world we live in in some way.  You look at the world around you, and you take it apart into all its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens. ~Frederik Pohl

That’s really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have. ~Frederik Pohl

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.  ~Frederik Pohl

Upcoming Schedule

Sept 12th

Tyree
Dylan
Jed

Sept 19th

Nick
Barbara
Tyree

Sept 26th

Jed
Dylan
Tina

Oct 3rd

Tyree
Nick
Rachel

Oct 10th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

September 5th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Tina, who found the group.

–//–

Barnes and Noble continues to have bad news as its founder drops a plan to buy out the corporation’s bookstores, splitting the company.  And a deal falls through that might have transferred their digital media to Microsoft.

–//–

Writer information:  Tyree brought in a digest from Pro Se Press, www.prosepulp.com.
They are looking for pulp-type fiction, from short stories to novels.  They also promote a pulp culture convention in Springville, Arkansas.  For more info check out
http://www.pulpark.blogspot.com.  Next convention is April 2014, I think.

Victories

Dylan is happy with progress toward an expanded family, but is unhappy that he still has  no response from his editor.

Barbara & Matt did some recalibration on their story and have decided  to give it a change of direction, which will be evident in their next submission to the group.

Janice managed to do more writing than usual, despite the distraction of classes.

Jed’s new story keeps reminding him to work on it.

Education

Accents and dialect are tricky for authors.  They are easily overdone and difficult to do well.  Anyone wanting a bad example might look up Poe’s Gold Bug, or the example used in this advice, and here, and here.  It points out that subtle use of word choice , sentence length, slang, idiom, and phrasings can be more effective than overpowering the reader with difficult spellings, overuse of contractions, and other devices that make it difficult to read.

At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects. ~David Crystal

I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories. ~Ron Rash

My whole deal when I do accents or dialects is I gotta fool the locals. If I fool the locals then I’ve done my job.  ~Brion James

Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech. ~John Steinbeck,

Upcoming Schedule

Sept 5th
Nick
Laura
Rachel

Sept 12th
Tyree
Open slots

Sept 19th
Nick
Open slots

Sept 26th
Open slots

Oct 3rd
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 29th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Prolific author Elmore Leonard died recently at age 87 after a long career – his publication dates run from 1951 to 2012.  He started with westerns and became known for crime fiction and suspense thrillers.  About 15 of his nearly 50 novels  and even some short stories were made into movies, some were used for TV series, and he also wrote screenplays.

Victories

Janice is happy that her classes have started.  After being away from school for 15 months, she missed it.  In that time, however, she read 28 books and wrote 180,000 words.

Tyree’s Breathless Stars is out from the printers.  He got a silver English crown coin, which is relevant to his current story, and it comes with a detailed history lesson.

Dylan got a test print of Sand & Blood to check the layout.  He is still waiting for the paid editor to finish so he can put out the real thing.

Jed wrote several pages of a new story.

Education

Should you use split infinitives?  We’ve been taught to avoid doing so, possibly as a hold-over from Latin.  This article and this one say it can sometimes be effective, as in “to boldly go where no man …”, or “The population is expected to more than double.” However, it should only be done when not doing so weakens the sentence, and never in a cover letter or query where it might turn off an editor.

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before–and thus was the Empire forged. ~Douglas Adams.

Upcoming Schedule

August 29th
Janice
Matt & Barbara
Jed

Sept 5th
Nick
Laura
Rachel

Sept 12th
Tyree
Dylan
Jed

Sept 19th
Nick
Tyree?
Janice?

Sept 26th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 22nd, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Tyree has a long list of resources he is willing to loan.  See the lending library.

Victories

Nick wrote on a sequel to the story we are currently reviewing.

Janice wrote again on her story about Chloe.

Tyree survived a year and looks forward to the next one.

Education

And they lived happily ever after.  That may sometimes be a reasonable ending, but you certainly aren’t going to keep most readers turning pages if the characters are already living happily from the beginning to the end.  James Scott Bell points out common problems with stories, most involving a lack of unpredictable challenges.

I can take two people, throw a world of obstacles at them, defy the odds, and still give them a happily-ever-after. Together. I am a romance author. What’s your superpower? ~Kelly Moran

‘Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.’  That depends… on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen. ~Jane Yolen

Upcoming Schedule

August 22nd

Molly
Tyree
Dylan

August 29th

Janice
Matt & Barbara
Jed

Sept 5th

Nick
Laura
Rachel

Sept 12th

Tyree
Open slots

Sept 19th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 8th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

England plans to honor Jane Austen by putting her picture and a quote on paper currency.  Some cheer and some nitpick that a good quote used came from a not-so-nice character.   It appears that they aren’t as limited in their choices as the US, where dead presidents are mostly pictured.

-//-

Poll: please email the newsletter editor (privately if you wish) as to what percentage of the “News” and “Education” sections are worth your time to read.  I get almost zero feedback about items being useful or worthless, and wonder if it is worth the time to collect them.

Victories

Ciuin’s submitted her academic article to the museum journal.

Dylan got 4th place in a short story contest.  He has made good progress in packaging Sand and Blood for publication.

Tyree needed a change of focus, so he pulled out an old short story and a poem, polished them up, and submitted them for publication.

Education

Some (but not all) writers advise that your first draft should be just be a way to capture ideas, “mining the clay and not making the sculpture,” as Kathy Leonard Czepiel puts it.  Jon Gingerich says the first draft is expected to be pretty bad.  You should then rework it before anyone else reads it.

This is also the philosophy pushed by NaNoWriMo, where you write a novel in a month (that’s coming up in a couple months, so think about participating).   Julie Danneberg also likes the “fast and furious” method.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. ~Terry Pratchett

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. ~Jane Smiley

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave during a period of severe sunspot activity. ~Stephen King

You can’t revise it if you haven’t written it. ~Justin Cronin

(The minority opinion:) I don’t write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.  ~Dean Koontz

Upcoming Schedule

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Nick
Ciuin
Tyree ?

August 22nd

Rachel
Tyree
Ciuin

August 29th

Janice
Matt & Barbara
open slot

August 36th

Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 1st, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Barnes & Noble is discontinuing their color Nook after 2013, and plan to work with other vendors for hardware.  The company has recently been losing a lot of money.   Some pundits think the discontinuance is an indication of a bleak future for the chain.

–/–

The Drabbler is accepting submissions for 100-word stories about alien sports.  They typically pick 20 or 25 out of 200 submissions, so your odds are reasonably good if you are good.  Submit to http://albanlake.com.  See guidelines.

Victories

Jed finished reading Moby Dick.  He’s making great progress on his reading list.

Aimee read Fahrenheit 451.

The new edition of The Drabbler published Tyree’s quiz about alien cuisine and eating habits across the galaxy.

Education

What are you taking for granted, and leaving out of your writing, that could help define the world your characters live in?

Perhaps food?  Its scarcity, richness, or strangeness could add a lot.

Clothing? (another link)  “Joe looked up from lacing his boots” versus  “Joe smoothed the velcro flap of his slippers” paint very different pictures.  Does he wear a suit, sweater, sweatshirt?  How long is her skirt?  Does she wear a hat?

Weather?  Maybe not “a dark and stormy night”, but does the character pick up his umbrella before leaving, put on sunscreen before going out, use insect repellent, go fetch his overcoat, get lulled to sleep by the sound of rain?

Most of these things can be slipped into small actions between dialog or commented on by the characters to save having paragraphs of explicit description.

Upcoming Schedule

August 1st

Tyree
Nick
Barbara

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Nick
Ciuin
Open slot

August 22nd

Open slots

August 29th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 25th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame is very angry at the law firm through which word leaked that a novel by “Robert Galbraith” was really hers.  First edition copies signed with the pseudonym have become expensive collector items.  The new novel, which had received only moderate reviews, is now likely to be a best seller.   Many people would be glad to have her problem.

Victories

Dylan made a cover for Sand and Blood, which he posted on his blog.

Ciuin’s editor for Petty Theft had her switch around some scenes and re-smooth it, and is recommending a few agents.  She has also been (involuntarily) researching crisis management.

Tyree was pleased that one of his light-hearted quotes helped someone relax and do well in a test.

Jed has been planning to go back to college and has picked his major; he plans to become an actuary.  Actually.  Or maybe in probability, since he’ll have to study a lot of statistics.

Education

An author needs to re-read their manuscript many times.  Zachary Petit comments on what Patricia Gussin says you should pay most attention to on each read.  Note that the first step is to cut everything that isn’t important.  Here’s another six-step list for editing.   Joel Pierson has his list.  One pass could concentrate on improving dialog.

And this is all before sending out queries.  If it is accepted for publication, it will be gone over again, and maybe again.

It wasn’t always so.  This article says that in past times authors and editors did less revising.

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~Colette (Casual Chance, 1964)

This book fills a much-needed gap. ~Moses Hadas [Think about that wording carefully.]

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. ~Abraham Lincoln

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. ~Elmore Leonard

Upcoming Schedule

July 25th

Rachel
Aimee
Jed

August 1st

Tyree
Nick
Barbara

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Nick
Ciuin
Open slot

August 22nd

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 18th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

A court ruled against Apple in the ebook pricing case.  One commentator thinks that isn’t as important as the trend of renting instead of selling ebooks.  Think NetFlix for books.

–/–

Maybe you don’t have to play chess and sudoku to keep your brain working – a new study says that reading and writing reduce the progression of dementia.   Of course, it may already be too late for some writers who are already demented.

–/–

Google won a court appeal, which now says the Writers Guild and other organizations can’t collectively sue Google over infringement.  The new decision lets Google continue to display portions of copyrighted books.

Victories

Tyree says, “Hey, dudes, I’ve been very successful with research for the current story.”

Shannon has also done research, including asking a NASA scientist.  She couldn’t tell him much about vampires that he didn’t already know, so he’s writing about adventures in space instead.  She says don’t travel economy class.

Jed finished reading Thomas More’s Utopia, a best seller from 1516, English edition 1551.  And I thought I was a little behind on my reading list.

Janice attended CONvergence and found it both extremely interesting and educational.

Dylan successfully participated in WisCON panels.  He also got 3rd place in a writing competition (again) and will participate in another round.

Education

Readers need to feel a story has hope for a happy ending to keep them reading.  Even if it isn’t delivered, or is a mixed outcome, they want to feel the characters’ situations will be resolved.  Tragedy is not as popular as melodrama.  Literary fiction will less often deliver a “happily ever after” ending where the characters hopes are met, but usually does wrap up most of the threads.

Charlie Jane Anders tells of ten kinds of ending she likes.

Heather Sharfeddin argues that having only happy endings in fiction is not good for our society.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means. ~Oscar Wilde

Thy only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. ~Margaret Atwood

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story. ~ Frank Herbert

Upcoming Schedule

July 18th

Tyree
Ciuin
Nick

July 25th

Rachel
Aimee
Jed

August 1st

Tyree
Nick
Barbara

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 11th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Send the moderator your list of references for authors that you would be willing to loan other members. The Lending Library is posted here.

–/–

Dylan renewed the noblepencr.org domain name for five years at a cost of $52.50. We collected some donations to cover part of that and will accept any further donations at the meeting.

Victories

I know some of us had victories, but they will have to be reported in the next newsletter.

Education

How many agents should you query?  This article says a few at a time, because the response or lack thereof can tell you whether you need to change the query letter, synopsis, or first chapters that have been submitted.

Tips on query letters.  Writing a synopsis is difficult, but here are a few tips.

Upcoming Schedule

July 11th

Nick
Shannon
Jed (swapped with Ciuin)

July 18th

Tyree
Ciuin
Nick

July 25th

Rachel
Aimee
Jed

August 1st

Tyree
Rachel
Barbara

August 8th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill