Writers’ Mill Minutes April 15th 2018
Those of you who missed April’s meeting missed a wonderfully informative and encouraging presentation from Oregon Book Award winner and self-published author Joyce Creswell. I wasn’t able to upload the power point presentation to our website, but you can find details here: http://portlandwritersmill.org/19/one-self-publishers-experience-from-joyce-creswells-talk-april-15th-2018/.
After snacks from Joe, Matthew handed out singularly appropriate contest awards for his “before 1900” contest. First place went to Joanne for Jemima’s Letter, second place to Richard for Saving Leonardo, and third to Jean for Herstory. See Judy’s email for a list of other entries.
Upcoming contests all share the 1200 words or less requirement. Poetry, essays, creative non-fiction, short stories, chapter of a novel, etc… are all welcome, provided they’re inspired by the theme. Entries should be sent to contest@portlandwritersmill.org. Current and upcoming themes (and deadlines) include:
- End of Sunday May 6th, Plunged into Darkness, from Judy: look at the why, where, how and what of the darkness, be it external or internal, global or very very local…
- End of Sunday June 3rd, If I’d only known, from Karin: think outside the box
- End of Sunday July 1st, Summer Solstice from Richard: any summer, any event or accident in summer, etc
Details can be found on our website at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/current-contest-may-2018/ and http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/
Sheila led a critique of Jim’s short chapter; it seemed particularly appropriate that Jim’s novel concerns the Civil War, since Joyce Creswell’s novel is also set at that time. Topics discussed included:
- What draws readers into a story, or into a chapter (after all, we don’t want our readers to pick up the book, start the chapter, and walk off to brew coffee)?
- Jim’s question, spoken in the character’s inner thoughts –What went wrong?—worked well,
- as did the interesting setting—sitting in a saddle.
- What makes the time in history seem real?
- Dialect or slang perhaps, but not so much that it distracts the reader or makes it hard to read.
- Historical characters (clue to alternate history lies in the fact that the character should have been dead).
- Putting history into the character’s mouth.
- What’s the difference between internal dialog and character narration in a first-person novel?
- Possibly internal dialog in present tense, narration in past tense
- Use of italics helps
- Character interactions clearly depend on what went before (which we didn’t have access to), but some readers are very forgetful. How do character interactions remind them of what went before?
- Dialog helps a lot.
- Dialog creates attitude.
- Importance of small details
- If I’m watching a finger, what is the finger doing?
- If people are working on their saddles, what are they doing to them?
- Author knows who’s sitting and who’s standing, but how will the reader know?
Jim shared the name of a book that he has found very helpful in rewriting his novel (and inspiring him to see the rewrite as a good thing): Dynamic Story Creation by Maxwell Drake
Robin shared information about her novel on tapas.io. To find it, go to tapas.io, click on novels, all novels, order the results by name, and Against Heaven and Hell is on around the third page. Or go to https://tapas.io/series/Against-Heaven-and-Hell
Our meeting ended with a short writing exercise, using those wonderful Story Cubes (also available from Barnes and Noble). Using “plunged into darkness” as our theme (since it’s the theme of our current contest) we rolled three dice, came up with three words, and called for snippets and concepts inspired by them. With three sets of competing ideas to inspire us, we spent five minutes writing and shared some intriguingly different results. If you were there, you have NO EXCUSE not to enter the contest. If you weren’t there, consider yourselves plunged into darkness for missing an amazing presentation (details below).
Our next meeting is on Sunday May 20th. Robin will bring snacks and we have two critiques scheduled –
- Critique of Richard’s story led by Matthew
- Critique of Robin’s story led by Jim
If there’s no speaker, we’ll open the rest of the meeting to other critiques, BUT an excellent, best-selling speaker may be able to join us, so watch this space (or watch your emails).
June’s (Father’s Day) meeting is arranged by the library, with Beth Jusino returning (she was here last September and I missed her!) . She’ll lead a workshop on Pitching Your Book. The library is paying for Beth to come. Anywhere else, you’d be charged quite a serious fee to hear her. So… keep those two hours free from whatever Father’s Day celebrations are distracting you. And invite all your friends!
Meanwhile, happy writing!