Manuscript Evening - 11th May, 2015

At our second Manuscript Evening of the year, four brave souls brought their work for other members to critique. First up was Jill Fricker with a piece about a poor family struggling to survive in 1830s London. She wanted to know if she'd captured the historical context, if the characters were believable and if the dialogue was authentic. This led to a lively discussion – with much disagreement – before everyone finally concluded that historical fiction needs a good deal of research and hard work. Second was Lucas Howard's start of his 65,000-word novel, a dark comedy called 'The Zed List'. He asked for feedback about voice, tone and flow, and everyone had much to say about the alien world he'd created for the target market of the young gaming community. Musetta Ripamonte was third with a dark, fantasy, written for children, which she'd illustrated herself. Members puzzled over the conundrum of people going into a magical world and then back to the real world and the need to pinpoint an age group for such a genre. Finally was Vicky Armstrong with the beginning of her first novel, the story of a young woman travelling to West Africa after to the war to meet her new husband. Her question was, 'Should I continue?' and the answer was a resounding 'yes' from all of us: everyone was impressed by the writing, which was well-paced and convincing and the subtle build-up of intrigue.

Poetry Results - 27th April, 2015

On 27^th April, Antony Mair, poet and leader of the local Stanza group, came to deliver his verdict on our second competition of the year. He spoke eloquently and informatively about poetry: rhyme, rhythm, shape, length of line and intensity of emotion. He said that two disadvantages of starting from a form are that it is difficult to maintain energy if the form becomes a straitjacket and the writer is always in the shadow of the greats. Instead, he recommended starting with a thought and letting the words come naturally before 'versifying' them. He also stressed the need to check every line by asking 'Is it accurate?' 'Is the syntax right?' and 'Does it work?'

In first place was Elizbeth Allen's 'The New Wife', praised for its quiet power and ability to convey so much in a short space. Second was Sally-Ann Clark's intriguing 'Cairn'; third was Liz Caluori's humorous 'A Little Less Conversatio, and in fourth place was John Taylor's atmospheric 'Dungeness'.

We are very grateful to Antony for the depth and detail of both his individual and group feedback, which we all found extremely helpful.

An Evening With Our Patron - 14th April,2015

On Monday 14^th April, the group's patron, best-selling author, Tamara McKinley gave generously of her time, advice and experience in a talk entitled 'From Idea to Novel in 4 Months'. With wit, warmth and honesty she talked of the writing process in general with realistic reference to the world of publishing in particular. She showed us the cover of her own recently completed novel, 'Echoes From Afar', to inspire us. She then led us through her own process, starting with the fleshing out of characters, how to research setting and time, emphasising the need for real passion about the story to be told. She talked about her own joy in playing the 'What If' game, i.e. putting her characters in certain situations and seeing how they act, which for her is all-consuming. She then focused on structure, saying that every conversation and scene has to move the plot forward, with the conflict being established in the first line and hooks being distributed throughout to keep the reader engrossed. Tamara then suggested how to organise both the novel's chapters and our writing time and how to produce both a short and long synopsis. Finally, she gave us practical tips on editing and on how to present our work to publishers and agents. However, it has to be remembered that Tamara is herself 'a lot to live up to' as she is extremely prolific and also writes under the name of Ellie Dean and sometimes has more than one book and one writing persona on the go at the same time! We were all extremely grateful to her for taking time out of her incredibly busy writing schedule to come and spur us on.

Poetry Entries - 30th March, 2015

Our poetry evening started with Jill Fricker reading her poem, 'The Cordwainer's Son', which came second in the 2015 Four Counties Poetry Competition. Members then read out their own entries for our second HWG competition of the year - as well as those submitted by members who were not able to attend. There were nineteen poems in all, their subject matter ranging from family relationships -  passionate, tender or angry - through landscape and seascape to the secret life of an X-ray particle. Some were light and witty, some tender, some following tight structures, others more loosely organised. In the second half, Eileen set us a writing exercise: we were encouraged to use a verse form, but she kindly allowed those of us who found this rather too challenging to relapse into prose. So, required to imagine ourselves in Sainsbury’s, having just suffered or welcomed some life-changing event, we broke down, shop-lifted and wreaked havoc - sometimes in rhyming couplets.

Flash Fiction Results - 16th March, 2015

On 16^th March, our judge, Alexandra Benedict, who writes under the name of A K Benedict, gave her feedback and verdict on our Flash Fiction entries. A possible record of 24 entries of exactly 250 words had been submitted, and Alexandra commented on the quality and interesting range of approaches taken: the humorous, the scary, the touching and the lyrical. Her one piece of advice was that in every story, she felt at least one sentence digressed and distracted the reader from the main thrust of the narrative, and that we should trust our instincts to go with the flow of the story. In first place was Sally-Ann Clark's 'In Perspective', which was praised for its structure and lyricism. Diana Locke came second with 'Missing Baggage', Marcia Woolf third with 'Devotion' and Roz Balp fourth with 'The Green Door'.

In the question and answer session which followed, Alexandra talked of the value of what she had learned from the creative writing courses she had attended at the University of Sussex, of finding an agent and the auction for her first novel. She told us an intriguing tale of the inspiration for this novel, The Beauty of Murder, with its time-travelling serial murderer, in a strange experience while an undergraduate at Cambridge.

Journalism Workshop - 2nd March, 2015

A lively and informative workshop, led by experienced journalist Emma Boyde, offered a strong foundation for entries for our journalism competition. She explained the different structures required by a both news story and of a feature. A news story is often drawn as an inverted pyramid, which has the meat (who, what, when) in the opening paragraph with following paragraphs having progressively less crucial information, so that sub-editors under pressure can cut from the bottom without loss of meaning. In a feature, the introduction often takes an individual instance, then moves onto the core arguments, ending either with reference to ‘expert opinion’ on the subject or a return to the individual.

Emma then provided us with examples of a range of journalistic models: a piece of news analysis, a theatre review, a blog which went viral – and a piece by our judge for this competition, Kathryn Flett. She encouraged us to examine these in terms of structure and the use, or otherwise, of the first person. Feedback from this exercise involved some lively discussion of the merits and demerits of journalism and its function in the age of social media. Emma suggested that there remains a vital role for traditional journalism which uses proper fact checking as against the unknown reliability of social media. She talked about so-called ‘balance’ in a story as a misguided ideal because bias is inevitable, and a ‘balanced’ story would be, at best, 80:20. Our practical exercise was then to interview a partner, to write up the interview, incorporating a quotation, and for the interviewee to assess accuracy.

Manuscript Evening - 16th February, 2015

Elizabeth Allen offered a brief introduction to the challenges and value of effective critique. She gave general guidelines, such as being specific, addressing the text, rather than the writer, and establishing trust by pointing out positives. She also  emphasised the value of the writer deciding on the focus of the discussion and what type of comments would be most helpful.

Four members then presented their work in progress, all of which offered a great variety of approach and provoked a lively discussion on topics and technique. Bill's first short story as a member of HWG was inspired by our first writing exercise of the year in which Eileen gave us a prompt for a story opening, featuring a clock, a hat and a body in a church porch. The story drew on his wartime experiences, and people commented positively on its lucid, pared-back style.  Marcus gave us the opening of a charming novella in an undefined past, featuring a boy who appears seeking sanctuary in a remote, 'ill-fated village'. Members remarked that the opening had the feel of a fairy tale and was far removed from Marcus's usual violent robots! Glyn's chapter was not the opening of his novel but chosen because he was keen for feedback on whether he had been heavy-handed with the symbolism used to construct his creepy, controlling male character: an advocate of Nietzsche, an owner of Doberman Pinschers and a man who keeps finches in cages. The story was set in the 1970s, and there ensued an interesting general discussion on the difficulties of using time-appropriate terms and convincing your readers that these were indeed used in the given period. Members remarked on quality of the writing, and we now have the added intrigue that Glyn's chosen writer's name is a woman's... Our fnal manuscript was from Kate O'Hearn; like her published work to date, it was aimed at a Young Adult readership but went down well with our rather older group of adults. Her concern was with voice: she is not a lover of first person, but, knowing that all the super-successful YA fiction uses that technique, she had reluctantly adopted it for this novel. We all agreed that it was handled very effectively, and we are now much more informed on the nature of incubi and succubi.