THE REVIEW

DETERMINED DUO

Cougar joined me last night for a Ram’s Meeting of two. I know Annette and Jim have been dealing with health issues. Charity had been doing so as well, but was on the road to recovery two weeks ago. Hope everyone regains their health and stays healthy. I did contribute to immunity of the herd and had my flu shot yesterday. However, yesterday was also known as Weed Wednesday, the first day of legal cannabis sales in Canada. I hope that won’t detract from any writer’s determination to create.

Cougar read his next chapter, which was very long. It was a good chapter that showed Eric’s introduction to Elfa’s home and the people who lived with her. At the beginning of the chapter and part way through, Cougar had switched into omniscient point of view in order to deliver information about Iceland, and I strongly recommended against doing that. I felt it severed the reader’s connection to characters and broke the story line. He said he would try to incorporate that info some other way as part of the story.

I read another revised beginning to my story “Penny Pincher”. Then I discussed with Cougar my thinking that I would send the story to one of two mystery/crime magazines. He said if I did that I should change the title to indicate the story would contain a violent crime, as the story doesn’t start out that way. He said readers of mystery/crime magazines are expecting that type of content and I needed to promise them that at the start. He was absolutely right. I hadn’t thought of intended audience when I started writing this story and had no idea how it was going to end. The violent outcome was a surprise to me when I wrote it. The title “Penny Pincher” applied to the main character, not the situation in which she found herself. I think I’m going to go with “Grisly Remittance” or “Bloody Quittance”. Anybody have a preference on which I should use?

I had downloaded “Proper Manuscript Format” by William Shunn and read through it. Most of the info I already knew, but there were a couple of things I learned. It said if you want a line break between scenes, instead of a blank line, center the character “#” on a line by itself. Do this so scene breaks are not lost with editing and revising, because word processing can often hide blank lines if they come at the beginning or end of a page. You don’t want your scene breaks rendered invisible to your editor. And the other thing was about placing your name in the top left corner of the title page, and also using a byline. The name in the corner is who the publisher sends the cheque to, and the name in the byline is who receives credit for the story when it’s published. Sometimes the two are the same, but sometimes the author uses a pseudonym, and sometimes a married woman uses her maiden name as author. Both should appear on the manuscript.

I gave Cougar an article from the Vancouver Sun entitled “10 Ways Iceland Can Kill You”. It was a travel article warning tourists about natural phenomenon that can be very dangerous. I said there were some good suggestions there that could up the danger to any of his characters. Writing tips can come from anywhere.

The next Meeting will be Wednesday, November 7th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Really hope to see you then!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author

THE REVIEW

RE-WRITES

At Wednesday’s Meeting, Charity and Cougar joined me and all three of us read from projects we had been re-writing. It was wonderful Charity had regained her health well enough to attend. Unfortunately, Annette wasn’t feeling well and was unable to join us.

Cougar said he had been working on changing the character Erik, to make the conflict he feels about his trip to Iceland more intense. He re-read the same chapter as last time, with all the changes he’d made. Charity said she could really see how depressed, paranoid and neurotic Erik appeared, so Cougar achieved his goal. I especially liked the descriptions of the desolate Icelandic landscapes.

Charity read from her YA western, “Trixie Trouble”. This chapter was “Georgina Clay”, about Trixie’s mother. Trixie is still recovering from her injuries but wants to leave. Her mother wants her to stay. Trixie thinks Georgina wants the gold from a previous stage robbery and Georgina thinks Trixie knows where it is. There is also a bounty out for Trixie for Brett Marley’s death. Donovan arrives in town for a boxing match. Charity said she had re-written earlier parts of the book to add to the relationship between Trixie and Donovan, that will intensify the conflict that may, or may not, be resolved. Charity is thinking of writing another book to continue Trixie’s saga. In this chapter I enjoyed the portrayal of the mother’s character. She is a beautiful woman who can be kind and caring, or else as hard as nails, whatever she needs to be to attain her goals.

I read my re-write of “Penny Pincher”. At Cougar’s suggestion, I started the story with a scene that included dialogue, instead of the narrative and introspection I had first used. I let Cougar and Charity read both beginnings. Charity, like Annette did previously, said she liked the first writing better. She felt an instant connection with a woman finding the perfect purse at a thrift store. I liked the first version better, too. So I guess preference is a gender thing. Men and women respond differently not only to content of stories, but also to how they are told. That is something to consider when you think of who might be your audience. And I will do some more re-writing on this story.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, October 17th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope you’ve had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. And I look forward to seeing you on the 17th! Keep writing!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author