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!
