Cleckheaton Writers Group took place tonight where N, A and K were in attendance, M, L, J, P, P and M having passed on their apologies.
For our work in progress updates, K told the group that she had written a short story for the No Exit Press crime short story competition (deadline tomorrow) that was inspired by her novel. N revealed that he had entered a short story of his own into this competition.
A had been writing poetry since the last meeting but had signed up to do CampNaNoWriMo hoping to work on PE2 (PE1 is at 60k words). N and K have also signed up and we are both going to be working on crime fiction, but N's will have a gory slant to it. He has already written 4k words, so will be working on c2 onwards and it is about a detective chasing a cannibalistic serial killer on an unused oil platform.
For the feedback slots, N had sent around a new sci-fi novel that he and his girlfriend are working on. A and K agreed that it did not need the prologue in that it was information that was useful for the writer to have, but too much backstory gives too much away to the reader and it would be better to put snippets of information into the story for a slow reveal to keep the reader hooked. A said that the guide to prologue is that if you took it away would it matter.
A told the group that if a writer completes CampNaNoWriMo there are various 'prizes' such as a reduction on scrivener, create space for Amazon where you would get 2 copies of a published book (therefore free proof copies) or Evernote. He used the create space to get a couple of proof copies of VH the last time he won NaNo.
As there was a feedback slot free, K asked the group what they thought about her character having short, chaotic dreams that were not totally understandable, so that the reader knows they are significant but you can't work out why. These could begin to increase and become more clear, revealing more and more to the character and the reader over time. There was agreement that this was a plot device that could work well with her psychic protagonist.
There was then discussion about supernatural plot devices in both novels, film and television and A recommended the books Clovenhoof and Pigeon Wings and the television programmes Sense8, Unbreakable and Darknet. N recommended Deadbeat.
The next meeting will take place on Monday 13 July 6-8pm at Cleckheaton Library.
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