Cleckheaton Writers Group took place last night with Kathy, Andy and myself in attendance, Sarah, Mandy and Neil having passed on their apologies.
The minutes from the last meeting were passed and then we discussed WIP updates. I informed the group that I had written five more chapters of my current WIP and had attended an Ilkley Literature Festival event with Sally Wainwright and Ann Dinsdale (further details in an upcoming blog post), plus a women writers session on a canal barge at Shepley Marina, Mirfield. Last week I received a constructive rejection for my novel Thorde, which was partly down to personal preference, but the publisher had asked if I had any non-heavy fantasy YA novels or writing for adults. The publisher also included some notes on writing a good synopsis which I agreed to pass on to any member that would like to see them. I was also pleased to announce that my submission had secured a place on a scriptwriting professional development course. Kathy has written more on her current WIP and had brought some along for feedback regarding one of her characters. Her short story has now been published in the Baby Shoes anthology. Andy has restarted the first chapter of his WIP and written a new section which he believed will lead him toward the end of the story. He now feels he knows which characters story it is as he can now see who has shown the most growth.
We then had a discussion about scripts and screenwriting and Andy talked about feedback one of his scripts had received from Pozitive Productionz. I felt that Andy's style, coined by the feedback as British miserablism, was maybe more sought now and that he might consider re-submitting.
Kathy then shared some chapters from her WIP. The first section was a lovely touching goodbye scene and we felt the characters were coming across well. We as readers could pick up on the subtle clues that there was something not quite normal about the MC and there was nice use of foreshadowing. There were a couple of things to edit, including a re-spelling of a character name, and Andy thought of a great solution to a problem Kathy had about a mobile phone in a scene, which I thought could also be used to subtly hint an outcome to a reader. We look forward to hearing more.
I shared a small excerpt from my WIP script that I had submitted to New Writing North and informed the group that I would be unable to attend the next meeting as it would be the first day of the professional development programme. The next meeting will take place on Monday 8 May 5.30-7pm at Cleckheaton Library where both feedback sessions are available.
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