It was a nail-biting time for three of our newer members
at our meeting on Monday 17 June. The Group’s Patron, best-selling author
Tamara McKinley, had paid us a visit to have a look at some of our work in
progress. She had specifically asked to see work from new writers, to make the
best use of her time, experience and expertise. Tamara has a straight and
forthright approach, but fortunately she clearly thought the three pieces had
promise. All the writers were initially given specific pointers about the
standard of presentation a publisher’s editor would expect – learning points for
all of us.
First up was Rachel Marsh,
with a chapter from her historical novel ‘Lanterns in the Cottage’, about
smuggling in Hastings. We all enjoyed this piece, and Tamara
gave Rachel some interesting advice on how to hook her readers in at the start
of her story. Next, Diana Lock with an extract from ‘Identity Crisis’, a
chilling science-fiction work set in a dystopian future. Again, we were all
gripped by this, and Tamara clearly felt it had considerable promise. Finally,
Emma Boyde with the prologue to a novel ‘Tomb’. Again, Tamara helped Emma to see
how she could rework her material to ensure that her readers were hooked in to
the story from the first paragraph. As writers, we all benefit enormously from
manuscript evenings – the lessons learned are totally applicable to our own
work. We were grateful to Tamara for giving up her
time.
We were pleased to welcome
no less than three prospective new members to our meeting – we hope they will
have enjoyed themselves sufficiently to join us on a permanent basis. However,
on a slightly less positive note, we were sad to hear that long-standing member
Richard Holdsworth had decided to resign from the group. His regular members’
Newsletters will be missed.
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