Around 20 people attended May’s Writers’ Mill meeting, hosted again by Laura on Zoom. Our thanks to Laura and to everyone else at Cedar Mill Library who are helping us stay together during this time.
The meeting began with a zoom practice – notes at the end of these minutes will give “tips” for zoom users for future meetings.
Zita shared a very cool award image while announcing May’s contest winners.
- First place went to Jessie for “Life Story”
- 2nd to Matthew for “The End is Near”
- And 3rd to Jean for “The Fall of an Empire”
Other entries were
- Sheila: “As the World Burns” AND “Mirror Cat”
- Judy: Butter Caper
- Robin: “Reset” AND “The Locket and the Dream”
- David F: Starbucks
- Peter L: Stretched Society
- Ria: Waves of the Future
Upcoming contests are: Seasons in June, Coming together in July, and Mountains and Valleys in August. As usual, there’s a 1,200 wordcount limit, the deadline is the end of the first Sunday in the month, and entries go to contest@portlandwritersmill.org For more information, go to http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-2020-contests/ and use the new password SeasonsJune20
Mollie Hunt bravely joined us to give her presentation on Changing the World through Fiction, screen-sharing her PowerPoint presentation over Zoom. Notes are at the end of these minutes.
Then Norm led a critique of the first chapter of the second book in Sheila’s middle-grade fantasy series in which we discussed such items as:
- Should an opening paragraph start in the middle of the action or the middle of the location?
- How can you re-introduce your protagonist in a second book, without telling everything that happened before?
- How do you make readers connect with a character?
- How do you make readers connect with something they can’t experience, such as magic?
- How do dialog and backstory interact—is backstory better told as inner dialog, or told/shown in real dialog?
- How important are physical descriptions, and who’s eyes will we see the protagonist through?
- How do we describe characters with different ethnicities without causing offense?
- How do we include characters without “using” them—likewise how do we include readers without offending them?
- How to pace a story?
- How to balance showing and telling?
- How to balance past set-up with present plan when you’re starting a second book?
- How important is foreshadowing? Do we have to suggest what will happen, or can just hinting at poetential threat be enough?
- How do we avoid stumbling blocks in our writing – places where the reader stops and exits the storyworld in order to reread something?
Finally Sheila made a few announcements, one of which is already out of date!
The Willamette Writers’ Conference takes place at the end of July, beginning of August, and will be entirely online this year, using Zoom. Most probably, we’ll have a couple more zoom meetings before then, so we’ll be experts, and perfectly placed to attend the conference. They’ve halved the price because it’s online, so if you’ve always thought it would be too expensive, this is the year to give it a try. That said, it’s still expensive. Go to https://willamettewriters.org/ to find out more.
Our next meeting is Father’s Day, June 21st. Tim Applegate was scheduled to speak but will be unable to join us. Instead, Sheila is going to be our speaker on a topic to be determined. She’s been attending lots of recent workshops, so she’s sure to think of something. Or reply to this email with a topic you really want addressed.
And finally – the 2020 anthology!!!!!
- Suggested topics were Separation and Connection, Apart and Together, Quarantine, Writing in a time of Covid… Last year’s topic was “Looking forward and looking back.” PLEASE reply with your thoughts, and please think how your recent or upcoming contest entries might be said to fit with one of these topics. (It DOESN’T have to be writing ABOUT Covid – we all have our different separation anxieties and connections.)
- Suggested timeline – to mesh with the contest deadlines (which are ALWAYS the end of the first Sunday in the month)
- all entries must be received by the end of the first Sunday in September
- all edits must be finished by the end of the first Sunday in October
- all edits must be approved by the end of the first Sunday in November
- Purchase options – same as before: the book will be available from Amazon, print or kindle, with
- “author copies” ordered at November’s meeting, delivered at December’s meeting – if we have physical meetings by then.
- If we’re not having physical meetings, Sheila will share her address so you can give her money or checks and pick up your purchases from her.
So… happy writing, start getting those anthology submissions ready, and we’ll see you on Father’s Day!
ZOOM TIPS
- Move your mouse or tap your screen to see the microphone button (bottom left on a computer). If there’s a red slash through it, the microphone’s switched off. Tap or click on it to switch it on, then tap again to switch it off.
- Again, move the mouse or tap the screen. The video button is next to the microphone button. Tap or click on it to switch your video off and on again. If your video appears as a black screen, switching the video off and on might fix it. If this doesn’t help, try switching your computer on and off again. (If you have “zoom app” you can use the settings button (cog wheel) and select “video” to test your video before joining a meeting.
- Speaker view focuses your screen on the person who is speaking. On a small screen this is the only person you will see. On a large screen, you can usually see a film strip of people above the speaker. Click on the button at the top right to get a grid view instead and see “everyone.” When there are too many people to fit on the screen, tap or move your mouse over the film strip or grid and you’ll see an arrow that lets you see the “next page.”
- Names. If your name appears as something like Consumer Cellular or iPad, you may want to change it. On a large enough screen, you will see either a film-strip of attendee videos, or a grid of faces. Move your mouse or tap over your own image, click on the three dots and choose “change name,” then type in your real name. Alternatively, click on…
- This should be one of a set of buttons at the bottom (or maybe something that appears when you click on three dots if you’re using a small screen—move your mouse or tap the screen to see these). The button looks like a stylized face and brings up a list of participants, including yourself. You can change you name in the list by clicking on “more” or on the three dots next to your name.
- Chat is the button next to Participants, second from the left on my machine. It will open a box where you can type messages (such as “My mic isn’t working”) to everyone. If you want to chat to just one person, click on the arrow next to ‘everyone.’ If the arrow’s not there, that means we haven’t set up permission for private chat.
- Share Screen is the next button. That’s what a speaker will use to share a PowerPoint presentation, or a critique leader might use it to share a word document. Otherwise, please don’t touch it.
- If you can’t see the shared screen properly or you’re using a small screen, try turning your phone or tablet (or iPad) on its side, to view horizontally. If you have a larger screen, move your mouse to the top and choose options. You can now choose “side by side” which separates the shared screen from the filmstrip of participants.
- Use the Reaction button to wave or give a thumbs up during a talk.
- Use the raise hand button—on the right hand side below the list of participants—to raise your hand to ask a question. Or just type your question in chat.
And be patient. Technology can be a pain, but without it we’d be even more isolated. If something technological doesn’t work, you should always try “switching it off and on again.”
Changing the World through Fiction by Mollie Hunt
“Today’s society calls for more from a fiction writer than a fluff-piece,” says Mollie Hunt. “It’s our obligation to bring light to the causes and conflicts of our world.” In her presentation, Changing the World Through Fiction, Mollie offered methods that even the coziest of writers can implement to gently present their values within the story. So here, with thanks to Mollie, are her notes from her talk.
If you feel strongly about something, it’s easy to talk about it. Sometimes ad nauseam. I’m like that when it comes to cats. I love cats, have cats in my home, I foster sick cats, and volunteer at a cat shelter. I attend classes about cat health and behavior. I write cat mysteries and cat sci- fantasy as well as a little cat poetry.
It’s not just a cute kitty thing with me; it’s a lifestyle, a relationship, and with it comes responsibility. A lot of bad things happen to animals in this world, and that must change. Indian visionary Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I’ve chosen to be a cat advocate, both in real life and in my writing. It may come down to one cat at a time, but it’s enough. No kindness is ever too small.
Sometimes I get carried away talking about shelters, rescues, and animal aid. People’s eyes glaze over, and they begin to hear only the words: cat cat cat. If that happens at a gathering, they can just walk away, but if I bore them on the page, they will put down the book and may never pick it up again.
As fiction writers, it’s important to remember the point of our writing is to tell a story, to entertain, but that doesn’t mean we can’t educate and enlighten at the same time, without using soapbox rhetoric or putting our readers to sleep.
All causes are based on something bad that needs to be changed, but by keeping your attitude “positive,” you’ll leave your readers feeling optimistic about both your cause and your book.
The following notes combine Mollie’s handout and Sheila’s minutes:
- Pick your battle and your cause. You can’t champion everything, but, for example:
- cat advocacy leads to
- care for animals, leads to
- kindness – the battle gets bigger. It’s the theme to your story, and it’s secondary to the genre—mystery, scifi, etc—and it’s secondary to plot.
- Tighten up, and avoid the temptation to Infodump. You don’t need to put all your message into one paragraph, or have your protagonist say everything all at once. Use your message to tell yourself where you’re going, but don’t bore the reader.
- Establish your place. Use Epigraphs, quotes, a Forward or an Afterward for the less entertaining aspects of your cause.
- Readers often skip forwards, so the afterward might be better
- Epigraphs at the start of each chapter are a great way to hand over information in tiny chunks too. Just keep them short and interesting.
- Footnotes are possible too.
- Why so serious? Not everything relating to a serious subject needs to be said seriously. Don’t forget to include your cause’s lighter components.
- Humor helps people remember what you’ve said.
- Gravity puts them to sleep
- Show don’t tell. Weave the cause into your story as an element of its own. It’s easy to say what the world should be like. It’s harder to make a story.
- Whisper, don’t shout. Be subtle: don’t give in to the lecture impulse. So no soapboxes, no sermons, no lectures. It’s hard to tell if you’re lecturing, so this is where beta-readers and editors come in.
- Write to entertain. Make it fun. That’s why people read fiction. But even in non-fiction, if you don’t entertain the reader they’ll just get bored.
And finally, that bonus rule:
- Eliminate the negative. As Mollie’s father-in-law said: As my father-in-law said: “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative Don’t mess with Mister In Between.” (~Bing Crosby) This might depend on your writing voice. You might be writing a really noir story. But a cozy mystery has to not just have, but promise and move toward a happy ending. Instead of retelling all the awful things that might happen, accentuate the positive. Use fewer words for negative and more for positive.
Thank you so much Mollie, for a fun talk, very memorable illustrations, and these great notes that made my minute-writing so much easier!