dialog, Minutes, Research, Writing

Minutes 2023 01 15

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Nearly twenty people, evenly split between online and inperson, joined us for Maryka Biaggio’s presentation on description and dialog today. Unfortunately, several had to leave after the talk, but we still enjoyed a lively and helpful discussion during the critique, plus a rapid writing exercise where we looked at the difference between 3-sentence and 4-sentence structure (lacking the time for a full three or four acts!).

Library Survey

Library Survey: There is a library survey going on through January 21. If you have a couple of minutes, our generous librarians would really appreciate your input and ideas: https://library.cedarmill.org/news/survey/ Please help them plan our library services for 2023 and beyond.

Upcoming Library Events

  • Medicare 101 Sat Jan 21 11am-12pm
  • Tech lab Tues Jan 24, Feb 14, Feb 28  1-3pm
  • Voices in Verse (Zoom) Sat Jan 28, Feb 25 10:30am-12pm
  • Owl book group (Zoom) Fri Jan 27, Feb 24 10:30am-12pm

Find more info at https://library.cedarmill.org/

Contest Results

Sheila started the meeting by announcing the contest results. If you haven’t already read them, don’t forget to check the website: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/january-2023-contest-page/jan-2023-entries-voting-page/ using the current password, ChangeJan23.

We had 12 entries, from 11 members, with 12 members leaving comments (yay!) and 10 voting. Our authors really appreciate your comments, and it’s not too late to leave a few more comments now. Authors, don’t forget to check and see what your readers have had to say.

In third place we had a tie (a natural result of needing more people to vote) between:

  • Gary Romans for “You Changed To a What! – A Turing Trial”
  • Lyndsay Docherty for “Even Sheep Can Change Their Spots!” (A Play with fun dialog)
  • Judy Beaston for “Jennie’s New Life” (focused on the dialog challenge)

In second place: Clayton M. Davis with his creative and dialog rich story: “A Standard Call for Servicing”

And in first place: M. L. Lyons (otherwise known as Mary Baylor) for the poem: “Frozen Radiance”  (Amazing—Awesome—Gorgeous are a few of the comments she received)

OTHER ENTRIES WERE

  • Sheila Deeth’s poem for her friend “Anna”
  • Jessie Collin’s lovely essay “As Time Goes By”
  • Robin Layne’s story “Choices, Part 2”
  • Judy Beaston’s other dialog entry “Coffee and Conversation”
  • Karin Krafft’s true-to-life story “I Don’t Want to Embrace This Change”
  • David Fryer’s Zombie tale “Rose Bowl Resolutions”
  • Peter Letts’ tale called “Whatever Will Be, Will Be”

Upcoming Contests

Monthly contests currently all have word-count limits of 1200 maximum, no genre requirements, and deadlines at the end of the first Sunday of the month. Send your entries to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org (remove the spaces).

Maryka Biaggio

You can find Maryka’s excellent PowerPoint presentation online at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LanguageDialogue.2023.pptx and see her books at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screen-Shot-2022-04-10-at-10.24.30-AM.png If you missed Maryka’s talk from three years ago, I strongly suggest you look it up on our website when you get home (just type “Maryka” into the search on the left hand side of your screen). And if you want to sign up for her newsletter, and possibly be entered into a drawing, go to http://www.marykabiaggio.com/ (DO IT NOW!)

Maryka provided excellent guidance on how to bring authenticity to our writing through the appropriate use of detail and dialog, and also introduced us to some great tools for researching the details of setting, period and dialog. See the presentation, or the post on our website for details: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/16/detail-and-dialogue-from-talk-by-maryka-biaggio-jan-2023/

Critique

Matthew led a lively critique of Robin’s next chapter. We considered topics such as:

  • How do you hold your audience (Robin certainly held us)
  • How do you reveal theme (as a writer) and recognize it (as a reader)
  • How do you inject energy into your writing

If you were not physically present at the meeting, and have comments for Robin, please email them in reply to this email and Sheila will send them on.

Writing Exercise

Someone mentioned last time about the difference between three act and, maybe, four-act structure. So we tried a three-sentence or four-sentence structure for a very, very short piece of writing. With Winter as the topic of our current contest, we set out stories in winter, and rolled the story dice (https://www.amazon.com/Zygomatic-Rorys-Eco-Blister-Colours-ASMRSC301/dp/B08T5NLF5S/) to help inspire us with ideas.

  • Pick a genre – mystery, romance, adventure…
  • Pick a protagonist, antagonist, location, threat/challenge/goal and resolution (Story dice can be really helpful in coming up with ideas quickly)

For a three act structure, your story needs a beginning, middle and an end. So  we were asked to:

  1. write a beginning sentence introducing people, place, and problem
  2. Write a second sentence where the threat/challenge becomes greater, or the goal becomes harder to achieve
  3. Write a third where it’s all resolved.

For a (Japanese) four act structure, your story needs the same first two steps, then:

  • Write a new third sentence, that changes everything – the problem wasn’t a problem at all, the antagonist was actually trying to help, something infinitely more important was going on…
  • And a new final sentence where your characters come to terms with a new reality.

Some fascinating short stories ensued, from the poetic life of a snowflake to a fast-moving spy story, with many in between. See our Facebook page for more story structure ideas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/973617269358971

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