THE REVIEW

OFF TO A NEW START

For the first Meeting of 2018, Kay, Roger, Annette and new member Chris Wnuk joined me last night. We started with my handing out some printed reminders. One was the definition of story structure contained in one paragraph which succinctly condenses the mythical story structure for easy reference. The other two handouts were about critiquing and all the elements of story to consider both as a reader and as a writer. It’s sometimes helpful to remind ourselves of what we should pay attention to in our writing.

I also read a short, short story of mine which is about an actual phone call I received from a woman asking about the writers’ group. She was a teacher of creative writing and was disgusted we were mostly a support group and then she hung up on me. I had written the story many years ago, but some points in it are worth looking at again. And I do say that everything that happens can be fodder for a writer. The bumper sticker on my filing cabinet says “WRITERS HAVE THE LAST WORD”.

We also looked at writing goals for the coming year. Kay said she wants to be done production of her screenplay by summer and hopefully see it marketed, and she also wants to finish her second script. Chris is aiming to find an agent for his novels. Annette wants to finish her current novel and work to getting it published. I want to find a publisher for “Honey Signed The Waiver”. And Roger said he wants to find a publisher for his novel and get a sizeable advance for it. We will look back at our goals next January to see what we’ve accomplished.

Kay talked to us about the use of culture and cross-culture in her script for “Porcelain”. She wants to portray how diverse the cultural backdrop of Vancouver is without her story being too “busy”. We had an interesting discussion on how culture is portrayed in different movies and TV shows.

Roger read from Chapter 1 of his literary novel (as yet unnamed), which he said has been a 3 year project so far. He asked for feedback on the development of the two characters in this chapter, and their interaction with each other. We commented on the sexual innuendos in their meeting, and the male character seeming egotistical while the woman seemed to take charge. I thought the male might be bi-polar. Kay and Chris both asked for more visual description of the male character. I asked for a time frame for the story. Roger said the chapter title included the year, so that provided the time of the story for any reader. The personalities of both characters were very evident in this chapter.

Chris read the first chapter of his comedy/thriller novel “It’s Hot And It Burns”. We see the main character waking up alone on a flat desert with only a tarp shelter, military cot, and one bottle of water. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there. This story is first person, present tense and the tension is palpable right from the start. This chapter grabs the reader right from the start and then also ends with a hook.

Annette didn’t have anything to read. She was tired after a stressful week over her husband’s ill health.

Charity said she was unable to attend last night as she had a cold. Carolynn said it was her husband’s birthday but hopes to attend later this month.

At our next Meeting, Wednesday, January 17th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place, former Rams member Jim Williams will be attending and reading from his newly published YA book “Haunting Of The Wired Monk – The Coventry Ghosts Book I”. Jim also said he’s willing to discuss the steps in the publication process that he went through with our group as well.

Hope to see everyone on the 17th. Take care and stay healthy and may all your goals be met this year!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author