Breaking News!

Congrats to our very own Carrie Nichols! She got the news today that a novel she is currently working on, Rescuing Riley, has made the finals in Georgia Romance Writers' Maggie Award for Excellence contest for unpublished novels. Well deserved, and here's to hoping she'll win the contest!

Housekeeping: Meeting Schedule

It has become apparent in the recent months that with regular discussion topics, books to read and prompts to write on top of our regular writing our lives have become too hectic. I suggested meeting every other month to allow ourselves more time to prepare, but ultimately we agreed on a much better solution: we will continue meeting every month, but will alternate discussing books on writing and craft topics. I have updated our meeting schedule accordingly, and you can download a PDF of the current version here or view the web-based schedule through the menu on the right. We still have one discussion topic open, so if there is a subject you would like to see covered please let us know.
Hope to see you next week!

May Meeting: Research: How Much Is Enough

Every novel you write requires research. Sometimes it involves simply immersing yourself in an environment or paying attention to something in particular around you; sometimes you have to study an era, person, object or concept; and sometimes you have to imagine and understand the world you are getting ready to write about down to the smallest detail (sci-fi and fantasy writers call this process "worldbuilding"). What and how you research depends heavily on the genre in which you are writing, but there is always the question of How much is enough?
Various industry leaders have weighed in on the subject, and here is a small collection of advice that represents the essence of what the writing community is generally in agreement on:

"If you love research, then you are probably doing too much of it, and you really need to get out of the library and start writing your novel... If you hate research, then you are probably not doing enough of it and your fiction writing is going to suffer in various ways. If you have done so little research that you have to depend on stuff 'everybody knows,' then do some more work, [but beware of putting everything you know in the book.] Your rule of thumb is to put in only about 1% of what you know. Save the other 99% of what you know for your next 99 books." ~ Randy Ingermanson

Lisa Gardner, author of The Killing Hour, agrees that although it's fun to know the exact ins and outs of your character's career or every detail of the setting, the danger is in going home and regurgitating all of them in your novel "when really thrillers are all about entertaining." Keep that story moving forward.

"At the end of the day, you're an author. There are people who have spent lifetimes studying [the topics you are researching.] No amount of research is going to let you get all the details right. If you try, you'll drive yourself crazy, or never start writing in the first place. What I recommend is the Average Reader Rule. If your research is sufficient to convince the average reader, that's enough; it doesn't have to convince the expert. You can definitely shoot for higher than that -- there's a wide gray area in between -- but that's the bar." ~ Ari Marmell, author of fantasy novels and roleplaying games. 

On the subject of how much research to do upfront, Marmell believes that "it's very unlikely you can do all the research in advance. You'll absolutely come across questions you didn't think to ask. Don't be afraid to stop and look something up -- if it's important, and if it's something you can look up relatively quickly. If one or the other of those is not the case, you might be better served putting it aside and making a note to come back to it. [...] If you're interrupting your writing every few minutes, or if you're taking hours-long breaks, you're probably better off either holding off until rewrites, or else devoting another day or two to research alone."

While we agree with all these pieces of advice, Ari Marmell's Average Reader Rule made us wonder how average should this hypothetical reader be. Take for example the representation of the immigrant experience in such rom-coms as The Proposal and Green Card. For a truly average moviegoer these films would work just fine. After all, majority of people have never had any experience with the process or know anyone who's gone through it. And they don't question it either. After all, this is entertainment, not a documentary, and it's all about the love story anyway.
But what if you're the average immigrant? Any average immigrant knows that you can't just barge into an immigration office and demand an interview about your case, that the process takes months (if not years), and that in this day and age the INS doesn't routinely make house calls. So for these average moviegoers both films ask for a bit too much in the suspension of disbelief department. As a result, as much as they adore Sandra Bullock or Gerard Depardieu, they aren't going to enjoy these movies as the next person. We don't really want to lose readers because we didn't dig deep enough to make sure our stories ring true, do we?

There you have it, folks. Research is necessary, it can give your book the kind of richness of detail that makes the story come alive and helps the readers suspend their disbelief. But proceed with caution. After all, we're here to write.

Meacham Writers Conference, Spring 2014: Memoir

This Spring most of the MWC schedule was taken up by readings, but there was also a masterclass on writing memoirs. Even though I'm not working on a memoir myself, I decided to attend because a) writing skills are transferable, and b) one of the ladies in my critique group is writing a memoir, and I thought she would be curious to find out what the speaker talked about.
The speaker was E. Ethelbert Miller, poet and author of two memoirs, and the information he shared with our group of 25 or so attendees was very interesting. He did not delve very deeply into the nitty gritty of memoir-writing, but he did cover the steps one should take before starting out on the journey, as well as some of the elements that would make the memoir more compelling to the reader.

The first step is determining why you want to write a memoir. Mr. Miller cautioned that it shouldn't be to get back at someone, but rather it should be because you want to share what the readers can learn from your life. Did you or your family overcome a hardship, a traumatic experience, a revelation that helped you grow or a lesson that made you who you are today? Those are all good reasons to write a memoir, revenge never is.

The second step is determining what type of memoir you want to write: is it going to be the memoir that will map your life, showing how you got from point A to point B, or is it going to be the memoir that will mine your life, focusing on a particular aspect of it and digging down to the secrets and the dark things, which become treasure when you work through them.

The third step is determining who you are writing for: yourself or the market. This is quite possibly the key factor that will shape your memoir, because when you write for yourself you will focus on the things that are important to you, but when you write for the market you will focus on things that will help sell your memoir, things that strangers are curious about. I myself would also add a third target audience: your family, because when you take your loved ones' feelings into consideration you may end up with a memoir that is drastically different from the one you'd write just for yourself or the perfect strangers at the book store.
When you've determined your target audience you'll need to make decisions about underlying issues: how will you deal with secrets and controversies, what will you leave out, how will you talk about the aspects of your life that can possibly affect the future of your family? After all, your children and grandchildren will grow up, your relatives will enter new phases of their lives, how will your story influence the way their relationships and futures will unfold?

Now that you've made all the difficult decisions and are ready to begin here are a few things to remember:
Writing a memoir is story-telling, and all the same rules and principles apply. If you want to keep your readers turning the pages you must tell them a good story.
It helps to use objects, activities and sensations as a unifying force in your memoir. Is an heirloom a focal point of your family's history? Is there a family tradition that is observed no matter what? Does the smell of a certain dish bring back memories and weave through your life?
Use objects such as photos and heirlooms for inspiration and look beyond what is in the picture or what the item is right now. Who were your grandparents in their dating days, when the photo was taken? What kind of person was your great aunt and what moved her to make the quilts that are now passed through generations? What kind of person were you back in the day when you owned that car or last wore that dress?
Last but not least, writing a memoir will require courage to examine your past and to bring difficult memories into the light of day. It can require even more courage to put your truth out into the world. But you know what? It can bring rewards you can't even imagine when you first begin.

I really enjoyed Mr. Miller's lecture, and only regret that I was late and missed the beginning of it. I'm looking forward to the Fall conference, and in the meantime will peruse the author interviews and other resources on the Meacham website. Hope you'll find something of interest there as well!

CWW March Meeting: Education for Writers

In March we again enjoyed the cozy meeting room at the Downtown YMCA. Our main subject of discussion was continuing education for writers, and Carol shared some excellent resources with the group. Carol writes romance, and there is agreement within the writing community that romance writers and organizations provide their peers with some of the most helpful and plentiful information, and most of it crosses over seamlessly into other genres. Carol herself is dedicated to learning as much about the craft as she can, and she was able to give us some first-hand recommendations for resources:

Organizations
Horror Writers Association
Romance Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Sisters in Crime doesn't actually have a section for writer resources on their website, but they do have a page with a listing of books on writing by their members, some of whom are big names in the genre

Courses, lectures & workshops
Lawson Writer's Academy
Low Country RWA workshops
Mary Buckham's lectures (Carol recommends these highly)
Romance University
Writer University

General Resources
The Harlequin Community section has a lot of information that's worth checking out, but start with the Craft Archives thread in their forum, and their Write for Us section.
Writer's Digest is a great resource. Subscribe to their newsletter and enjoy a wealth of information on topics ranging from the craft to getting published to industry news.

Social Media, Blogs & Podcasts
If you are already on Twitter and Facebook, search for and follow your favorite authors, agents and editors working in your genre or well-known for their informative posts, and publishers and markets you undoubtedly already have your eye on. Their feeds can be full of good information and fun at the same time. Some to get you started are Elizabeth S Craig (@elizabethscraig), Anne R. Allen (@annerallen), and Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn).
Check out your favorite authors' blogs too, they often talk about writing and you can learn a lot from those on the front lines. The more well-known authors will have sections on their websites dedicated to FAQs for those interested in writing (Janet Evanovich's and Margaret Atwood's sites spring to mind), the relative newcomers will be talking more about the day-to-day challenges, so follow both.
Some of the best podcasts out there are Writing Excuses, which focuses mainly on the craft, and I Should Be Writing, which primarily deals with the emotional part of the writer's journey.

Our book of the month for March was Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain. It was first published in 1965, and it shows particularly in the examples the author uses to illustrate his points and in the language, which can be quite dense for the modern reader. Despite all this the book is worth reading if only for the discussion on Motivation-Reaction units and how to build your story using them. Another member of ours, Audrey, said that Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson examines this and other subjects in a manner that's more accessible for our contemporaries, so if you prefer to not deal with the challenges of Dwight Swain's language you might want to check it out instead.

In April one of our topics of discussion is going to be the future operation of CWW, so if you plan on attending the next meeting, or if you won't be able to make it but want to weigh in anyway, here are the questions we'll be addressing:
- Whether to move the day and time of our regular meetings, possibly to a weekend time slot
- Where to advertise our group in the media and online (any connections/introductions would be welcome)
- We still have 5 months with no discussion topics assigned. If you have a particular interest in a topic or two please let us know, and we'll add to the agenda.
You are welcome to send a message either using the form in the side-bar or via e-mail chattwomenwriters@gmail.com

Hope to see everybody at the end of the month!

CWW February Meeting: Story Structure

We met at the Downtown YMCA in a very quiet and private meeting room. It's just the right size for our little group, and is very convenient.
The discussion of Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, a presentation on Story Structure, and Carol sharing the 12 Tips for Injecting Humor Into Your Writing were on the agenda, but not everything went as planned: turned out that none of us have finished the book, and we decided to postpone talking about it until March. You still have time to read it and join us at the end of the month to talk about it! We also postponed the prompt since our group was very small in February.
We looked at story structure first by examining the Three Act Structure. Act One being the setup, Act Two the confrontation and Act Three the resolution. Next we expanded on the basic concept by looking at The Seven Point System by Dan Wells. Check out the Story Structure handouts on our Drive. You can find the videos of Dan Wells discussing Seven Point Structure on our YouTube channel under playlists.
Incidentally, Carol, our member who is closest to publications, had recently completed a workshop where the instructor broke down the outline of her WIP according to the standard Three Act Structure. It was fascinating to see this work on a novel one of our own is working on.
The soonest upcoming event in the area is Meacham Writers' Workshop. They've posted the schedule on their website, and you can check it out here.
We also discussed seeking non-profit status toward the end of the year. This would really help CWW find public meeting places that are closer in spirit to what we do, such as the library.

Our next meeting will be on March 27th. At that meeting we will discuss the Dwight Swain book, read our science fiction picture prompts and Carol will lead a discussion on Continuing Education for writers. Hope to see you there!

CWW January Meeting: The Business of Self-Publishing

Our evening began with a change of plans: Cadence Coffee Company now has new business hours and we ended up moving the meeting to the old trusted Rembrandt's Coffee House. We would make Rembrandt's our usual place year round, but it's a favorite of a lot of other people and conversation can become difficult at times, so we've reserved the pleasure of having the meetings there for times when the weather is fair and warm.

First order of business was our schedule for this year. We unveiled the reading list, which is the result of synergy between the volumes on our shelves, the books on writing available at the Chattanooga library, the combined Goodreads and Amazon ratings, and my love of spreadsheets. While the books were chosen according to a highly scientific formula (ahem), the prompts were to a fair degree the work of chance: I went to NPR's Three Minute Fiction site, Easy Street Prompts and Pinterest to find ten prompts to inspire and challenge us this year. Then I wrote down a list of ten genres. Then I rolled the dice, literally. So if some prompt/genre combinations seem particularly random that's because they were. Thanks, Fortuna.
Last year we talked about missing the Meacham Writers' Workshop, and this year we have a chance of remembering to attend it, and other literary events in the area, thanks to our Area Events list. We might even venture out to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books!

With all the planning matters aside we moved on to our read of the month: The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell. Mr. Bell has a ton of good, sensible information in this small book, and some of our favorites included finishing the novel because that's the best way to learn how to write one, establishing a routine, and taking writing as seriously as a job. Some things we weren't as keen on: his statement that the writer of potential greatness settles not for "mere fiction" struck us as potentially paralyzing, snatching writing time might work for those who are not mothers running households (what mother has time to snatch, after all?), and the fact that most of the successful authors in his examples were men. And yes, I do recognize the irony of most of the books on our reading list this year being written by men. What can you do, they earned the highest marks by readers, and we do want to learn from the best.

Once we shared our writing prompt pieces we moved on to the star of the show: Carol's talk about her trip to the Georgia Romance Writers meeting where she learned about self-publishing. The speaker, Beverley Kendall, shared her experience in self-publishing and her research of the subject with the audience, and was generous enough to share a 30-page PDF of the results on her website. Check out the Self-Publishing Survey link on the home page for the document. After glimpsing the pie charts and the graphs and tables I can say with confidence that Ms. Kendall is a woman after my own heart, and I look forward to reading the results of her research.
From what Carol told us the takeaway is this: 1) Genre matters, and writers of romance make the most; 2) "Series" and "free" can be keys to success, but you've got to be clever in using them; 3) The more prolific you are as an author the better for your bottom line; 4) You must give your book a professional edge: start by writing the best book you possibly can, then hire a professional editor and cover designer to present it to the readers in the best possible way. Bottom line: becoming a successful author is a business venture, and those who want to succeed must approach it as such.

We wrapped up on this sobering note, and made plans to meet at the Northgate branch of the library on February 8th for a write-in. We'll be there at 10, join us for a couple of hours of writing. We know the library will be open, unless there's a blizzard, then all bets are off.

In anticipation of the January meeting

Since we're all very busy writing we're not updating the page very often, but we have been working on some goodies for you. Under CWW Resources in the right sidebar you will now find our schedule for 2014, complete with meeting topics, books we'll be reading (so you could peruse them up as time allows), and the writing prompts. If the prompt-genre matches look particularly random at times that's because chance in the shape of dice was involved. Apparently chance wanted us to really stretch our imaginations this time around. In the same section you will also find a listing of upcoming events for writers, both local and within a couple of hours' driving distance. I am very tempted to go up to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books, and missing the Meacham Writers' Workshop (local and free) would simply be a crime. We hope to see you on Thursday, armed with your writing prompt pieces and ready to listen to our very own Carol tell us about her trip to Atlanta, and what she learned there about self-publishing!