Minutes from Writer’s Hangout on 1/18/19

Attendance:

Kate from Oregon
Mary from Maryland
Jennifer from Australia
Debra from California
Cherrie from Arizona


Welcome to our newest attendee, Kate. Kate is in the query process for her 5 book dystopian series about a second civil war in the U. S. She has 3 of these books completed and she resolved this year to reclaim the joy of writing. She asked Mary for advice about publishing.


Since Mary already has one book published, she is working on her author platform. She has committed to a blog and Facebook page. She Is thinking about joining Spark/Engram.

Debra is taking 3 classes and editing her memoir. She plans to start blogging soon.

Jennifer is working on completing her first draft this year.

Cherrie had a successful NaNoWriMo and has a new first draft fantasy to edit in addition to the forever project of editing The Long Now. She resolved to finish The Long Now and send query letters by the end of the year. She has been busy with creating a new writing group in Flagstaff: Flagstaff Writers Connection. On 1/26/19 she will be starting an editing workshop series. Members may attend by Skype at 10 am-12pm at Mountain Standard Time. More details to come.

Reading:

Mary: Infinite Pieces of Us. She loved this book and says it is well written with a wonderfully slow narrative release that compels you to keep reading. Minimal backstory.

Kate: The Future Home of a Living God. She thinks this book feels like a response to The Handmaid’s Tale. She is also rereading many of the books she read in her formative years like The Catcher in the Rye and Women’s Room.

Jennifer is reading a lot of Liane Moriarty including Nine Perfect Strangers. These are excellent character driven thrillers with multiple points of view.

Debra is reading Educated which she feels is similar to The Glass Castle
Her favorite book of last year was the thriller A Woman in the Window.

Cherrie is reading All the Light We Cannot See. Her favorite book for last year wash N. K. Jimesin’s Broken Earth series. She also was surprised that she liked Rick Yancy’s Fifth Wave as much as she did. She was surprised about the complexity of that series.

Deep Dive into Self Editing

Announcing a Deep Self-Editing Workshop Series

Did you completed your NaNoWriMo challenge of a 50,000 word manuscript?

Congratulations!

You're Amazing

No, really. Only 12-18% of participants in NaNoWriMo manage to win the challenge. You are among the persistent few and I, for one, salute you.

Or

Maybe you didn't take on the NaNoWriMo challenge but you have a manuscript that is a complete first draft ...

Or

nearly complete first draft.

That's still amazing. It takes persistence, and you are among the minority of the 81% of people who say they want to write a book or script someday.

The first draft tells you, the writer, the story. The next few drafts are about making the story palatable for a reader. That process is called Revision.

Cline Library and Flagstaff Writer's Connection are teaming up to help you with the Revision process.

Join local Flagstaff writers in a 6 month journey to systematically scrub your manuscript or script and get it ready for critique and then agent review. Workshops will be held about every 2 weeks on the weekends. The sessions will include a lecture, question and answer session, step wise exercises to buff your manuscript, and buddy exercises so you can meet other writers and form writer/critique alliances. All lectures and handouts will be published to the internet afterwards, so if you miss a lecture you won't miss out on any of the steps.

Now that you completed this monumental amount of work, what do you do?

Let Your Manuscript COOL

Nothing. Well, nothing with this first draft manuscript. Let is sit and cool off for 2-4 weeks. I mean it! Lock it up if you have to. Don't touch your manuscript or look at it for at least 2 weeks (4 weeks is better.) If you do that, I'll show you something magical at our first workshop.

Well maybe doing nothing is a too hard after kicking butt in word count for days on end. You don't have to completely sit on your hands. Brainstorm your NEXT manuscript. Have you seen our Brainstorming tab above? Or just start writing a new manuscript. Pantsers, you know who you are, I'm talking to you. Don't let those good writing habits you just developed go to waste.

Schedule:

1/26/19: Pre-Editing: The Cloud, Story Drivers, Story Structures, First Read Through, Series/Motiff
Attend this lecture from the internet through Google Hangouts. You will need high speed internet, a mic and a camera. The mic and camera on a smartphone work fine. Download the Google Hangout app before the meeting.

Downloads                                Cloud Apps
How to Use Google Slides             Scrivener                   
Presentation                               Google Drive
Presentation Script                    MS One Note
Plot Meets Character                 Amazon Drive
Book Report                              iCloud
Print MS                                    Carbonite
Plot Points                                 Sync.com
Plot Points by Driver                Sugar Sync
Mercer Sequences Wksht         Dropbox
Star Wars Comparison              EverNote
5 Way Plot Structure 
(A Work in progress)
Plot Points Comparison
Story Eq Plot Worksht
Story Grid Worksheet

Books for Narrative Arc

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas

Structuring Your Story by William C. Martell

Blockbuster Plots by Martha Alderson

Writing the Blockbuster by Albert Zuckerman

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks

Plot and Structure and Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

Writing Screenplays that Sell by Michael Hauge

My Screenplay can Beat Up Your Screenplay by Jeffrey Schechter

Dan O’Bannon’s Guide to Screenplay Structure by Dan O’Bannon

 Worksheet for Dan O’Bannon’s Conflict analysis

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (The original)

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler

Perfecting Plot by William Bernhardt (Briefer and more to the point.)

From Girl to Goddess by Valerie Estelle Frankel (If you’re working with a female lead character)

Books for Character Arc

The Plot Whisperer by Martha Anderson--This is a great book for beginners.

Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell--I really like this one and it has so much I recommend if for everyone to read.

The Story Equation by Susan May Warren--Also a great book that really helped me to see Character Arc structure.

The Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson--One of the easiest books for plotting your novel before you write.

Practical Emotional Structure by Jodi Henley

The Midpoint by Mary Lynn Mercer--She uses Sequences instead of Acts to build her story and this might be a good book for everyone to look at for that reason.

Books for Thematic Arc

Story by Robert McKee (Mostly geared toward the Screenplay but with very useful information about Value Progression.)

Story Grid by Shawn Coyne

Blueprint Your Bestseller and  Book Architecture by Stuart Horowitz

Dramatica by Melanie Anne Phillips (Word to the wise. This is NOT a beginner’s book. This book is very complicated and you would do well to have a little story theory under your belt before you try to tackle this one.)

Handout comparing some of the structural elements

2/9/19: "Series": Working with Series, Series Grid, Key Scenes, Theme, Story as a Whole, Scrivener

I will also have this presentation on the internet. 

You can watch on 2/9/19 at 10 am at this LINK.

Make sure you take a look at how to use Google Hangouts before the meeting if you want to watch via the internet.

Hope to see you at the next session!

2/16/19: Cutting: Word Count, Timekeeper, Values, Acts, Sequences, Scenes, Beat Sheet, Synopsis, Scrivener Cork Board

You can watch on 2/9/19 at 10 am at this LINK.
Make sure you take a look at how to use Google Hangouts before the meeting if you want to watch via the internet.

3/2/19: Scenes: Scene vs. Sequel, Scene Eval, Character Driven, Plot Points, First and Last Page.

You can watch on 2/9/19 at 10 am at this LINK.
Make sure you take a look at how to use Google Hangouts before the meeting if you want to watch via the internet.

3/23/19: Point of View and Causality

You can watch on 2/9/19 at 10 am at this LINK.
Make sure you take a look at how to use Google Hangouts before the meeting if you want to watch via the internet.

Week 6 TBA: Tension, Conflict, Emotion, Visceral Response
Week 7 TBA: Dialogue and Setting
Week 8 TBA: Action and Body Language
Week 9 TBA: Thought, Exposition, Backstory, Color Analysis,
Week 10 TBA: Voice: Rhetorical Devices, Backloading, Simile, Metaphor, Cliche
Week 11 TBA: Word Searches, Grammar, Final Buffing, Critique Exchange
Week 12 TBA: Left Overs, Troubleshooting, More Critique Exchange

All sessions will be 10 am to 12 pm at the ">NAU Cline Library, 2nd floor Learning Studio.