The Writers’ Nook is a place where we, as a group, can provide a safe and positive environment in which to encourage one another and hone our own writing skills.
Just Keep Writing
At our last meeting we encouraged each other, and ourselves, to find and use our own voices. Let’s talk about how to stay motivated and keep writing!
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Zig Ziglar quote
This meeting was held via zoom at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 27th, Blind Bay Time (aka Vancouver Time). If you would like to join our group, please contact us. Your first meeting is free.
THE CHALLENGE
Challenge yourself to join all of the authors who are attempting NaNoWriMo this month; or start thinking about attempting NaPoWriMo in the month of April. OR
Have you been inspired to write by something we’ve read today — c’mon show it to us.
Responses
Chance, Circumstance and Intervention by Joyce Adrian Sotski. This is the first few pages of a script that I wrote several years ago, and have now decided it was worth editing.
ALL HAL LOW’S EVE by Shirley Bigelow DeKelver. I will not be able to attempt NaNoWriMo this month, my agenda is stuffed, overpacked and daunting. I am, instead, sending a short story about Halloween.
A Gift for Freud by Karen Lesli
Retrograde by Kevin Gooden
Hi Joyce, I enjoyed what I think is the opening part of the play. It definitely involves the audience (or the reader, here). The circumstances are real. Just a personal point that probably no one else will bother about: 🙂 I have such a time of keeping all the characters straight in a novel and am always so relieved that in a play, as you have done here, there is a list of players. Having the same lists in novels would be lovely. I was feeling safe. And then in the third line…”Jenny” Ack who is Jenny? I know, silly detail, maybe the word “wife” could be worked in. Even in a theatre the audience may want to know. The following dialogue sort of explains it, sort of. Anyway, it’s just me.
Your dialogue is natural sounding and moves the story forward at an accurate pace. The reaction of eating dead Dad’s stew was real, and imagining the body language of actors, they’d all feel/show the awkward/ disgruntled/uncomfortable reaction.
Daphne’s character is the most filled out so it may make sense to begin any edits, if you wish to edit, with her. She’s likable and the other siblings seem to like her. As well she seems to have liked both parents. Most of the time when we speak we use conjunctions: “I think she’s right”…. “Mom wouldn’t have accepted that.” Though she is a college student (not a hill billy 🙂 ) I’m guessing she would (she’d, except that using she’d isn’t recommended because some could see it a ‘she had’.) often use the short form. Read aloud Justin’s ” Sorry ….etc.” See what it sounds like. I did have one prof grumble at me…”we don’t speak with semi-colons!” but he was grumpy about a lot.
There’s notable tension here and clearly hints that things are not going to be easily resolved. Memories combined with disagreements are realistic at death times.
Totally unfair that you leave us with Colt (gun name!!) standing there with the axe! But yes, excellent way to invite us onward.
Karen, interesting that you mention ‘the wife’ and thank you for pointing it out. Remember that the audience who sees the play does not have a handy ‘list of names’ to keep everybody straight. They are dependent upon the dialogue and the acting to keep everybody straight. How much more confused will they be?
Hi Shirley,
This is a story well told and certainly timely. The subject matter and style suits a broad audience and we can all envision Mortimer (hhm mort means dead in French 🙂 ) as a much more evil man than “that old fart down the street.” I’m not sure if “units” is needed. “Time immemorial” is a really long time, which means you are expecting your reader to accept an exaggeration, and you get to do that in a tale. 🙂
I’m bit confused. If the parents weren’t letting their kids out then why did they have all those treats (good descriptions) for him to demand. It’d probably just take a sentence or two…your voice…to make that happen.
This well written story has a “read aloud” cadence to it so sometimes makes it easier for listeners to have shorter sentences. (Not to say that I am not guilty of sentences that wander and …wander.)”Why hadn’t the people stopped…” The description of Adam’s fears was well-done, sort of funny, though rather unfortunate for Adam. I wonder if that “could” if italicized might add some tension? The story flows naturally to Mortimer’s demise. Try going through with your, uhm finger, uhm, pointer, something, and count the “ing” words in that important final section. It’s possible that a change to the verb might give more punch. “He froze, strained” “turned his head” “and morphed” It’s certainly an author’s choice but often the more present tense is helpful. Excellent ending. Though it ties up ol’ Mortimer, it still leaves the audience wondering if they are actually safe.
Shirley, ALL HAL LOW’S EVE: Poor old Mortimer. This story rocks! I like your choice of descriptive names for characters and places, i.e. Phantom Creek and Arrogant Adam. I had a small problem with a few words that didn’t exactly describe what I perceived the action to be. For example the use of the word “impart,” did you mean something like he high-jacked or stole their treats? And with “spiteful annotations,” did you mean spiteful comments or jibes? I don’t know if you used a thesaurus but I find that sometimes I have to be careful when using these handy synonym dictionaries because they derail the train of thought from what I had intended. On the other hand, I find your over-use of adjectives and alliteration (dark shadows, creaky trees, bats, rats and alleycats) throughout the story is, in this case, totally acceptable and entertaining.
Karen, A Gift for Freud: What would Freud say you ask? He already said it, “One day, in retrospect, these years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
― Sigmund Freud
I struggled with the opening, “Off the dock…” What off of the dock? I reread it several times.
I like many parts of this piece that are rather rough, hardly edited. But I would edit it. It occurred to me that might streamline it with long long sentences that go on forever, using punctuation only where absolutely necessary because I think it might make it more fluid and surreal. For example, “just a floating surge of brown that moved like smoke when I touched bottom. Perhaps it was my glasses or perhaps just because anything is possible when you dream but dive after dive I brought up a vase, an atlas I didn’t know I owned an atlas, blue — was I going, had I gone — more books, I stacked them in sopping piles on the dock or passed them to one, maybe two people who urged “There must be more, dive again” and but for hanging on the edge of the dock to gain breath, in exhaustion, I dove…”
I also like some of the short sentences: “into the murk. Murk. Not gravel, not sand, just…” And I think you have some great expressions in here, like, “dried this soggy story with the heat of a hungry sun…”
Joyce: I was just getting into the play, the family siblings remembering the good times with their father, and the emergence of their individual personalities as they discussed the dividing of their father’s possessions. Eating the deceased’s stew and Daphne asking for the axe builds the suspense, when suddenly Colt appears at the door holding the axe. Can’t wait for the next scene.
Joyce—I enjoyed the beginning of “Chance, Circumstance and Intervention.” Parts I found particularly well done were characterization, with each character coming across as a unique individual. Also good was the way they talked to each other—nice touch with the brothers teasing Daphne about the hatchet, ha-ha. The discussion about the missing sibling resonated in a true-to-life way.
Some aspects I wondered about included the cleaning out of the cupboard before the funeral. Given that both houses are part of a single property I didn’t understand why there’d be any urgency to clean out the small house. Also, given that the father was well-regarded by the children, they don’t seem THAT upset by his passing. Might be logical for that family, but a bit more sadness or explanation of lack of visible sadness might be good.
Colt walking in with the hatchet at the end is somewhat funny and is a good setup for potential conflict or humour or other interesting happenings to come. It would be fun to see more of this one!
Shirley—”All Hal Low’s Eve” is a fun little yarn. The vocabulary is excellent. The first person narrative style is fun and I can imagine this story being spoken to a group. The rhyming of “bats, rats, and alleycats” made me laugh.
Karen—“A Gift for Freud” is an interesting and odd sequence (my kind of story, LOL) that partway through I decided had to be dream-based.
I found the ordering in the first paragraph confusing, probably because there are two subjects and multiple verbs accompanying those subjects. A more clear separation between the subjects and their verbs would help, something like: My arms stretched out in horror, then panic, and finally inevitable surrender when my bookshelf slid off the end of the dock and smashed into lake water that burst its sides and detonated its contents….
Lungfuls is a word… though I had to check, ha-ha. There’s good exposition and symbolism galore in the piece; for example, having an atlas but not knowing you have an atlas… something going on there.
Freud would have a hootenanny with this one. Perhaps a sense of loss of control? Bookshelf jumping into the water unbidden? That’s deep.
However, not being trained in dream analysis, I’m going to go with a simpler suggestion. Perhaps you saw that warning in the Ikea assembly instructions to fasten the book shelf’s safety chain to the wall in order to avoid tipping, but decided not to?
Kevin, Retrograde: What a hoot! You challenge me in this process called ‘feedback.’ What are you? A robot, a web bot/crawler? And what year were you born? You must be a physical robot because you can juggle, but no you are still, or were, a chat bot; and though you use the word retrograde you can’t be very retro because you’re talking about using the old Tesla battery pack; well Tesla was only born in 2003 — did you do your research? You certainly made me do mine! Doesn’t matter. Even if you’re not paying attention to anything real or sensible, this is a very creative piece and a very fun read indeed.
Kevin, I loved your piece and laughed while reading it. For some reason, I kept thinking of 3CP0 and R2D2, when they both were recycled, then rejuvenated for the next Star Wars show. On a more serious note, will this be us in the future? Is this where we are headed? Only time will tell. Good job.
Joyce, I have a hard time reading a script but I enjoyed the intrigue of the “little red hatchet”
Shirley, I thought the story line was fun. I had to look up the meaning of a few words, which I enjoy. As to Mortimer’s demise, I wonder if Arrogant Adam finally got his revenge and heard the last scream??
Karen, I loved the line “with shoes that burped”. I found it very interesting that when she surfaced for the last time, no one was there, but they were at other locations on the same lake diving into the water hoping to find something. I think we are all searching for something. Perhaps some of us find it and some of us are still searching? I enjoyed it.
Kevin, Very interesting! I thought of the old Wang computers and robots. I enjoyed trying to figure out what you were thinking and thought perhaps you were describing the decline of the human race? I loved it!