Derby Scribes Shared World Sessions
Recent sessions of Derby Scribes have been devoted to getting an oft talked about Scribes idea off the ground, a shared world free for all Scribes members to use and set stories in.
There has been lots of fun in sessions that have been less structured than normal and thus far we have a floating castle-like library tethered by a mighty chain above a small townstead. Large spider like creatures tear up and down the chain and in the depths of the library proper is a room that allows the 'reader' to step into the story.
Being that this is a library the many genres allow us scope to write any type of story we like.
The upcoming session (2nd August 2010) will also be devoted to hammering down specifics and listening to initial drafts of stories that explore the world then we will be back to a regular schedule for a while to give the world time to percolate.
Come join us at the library next session and have a hand in creating the world.
Cheers
Chris
Playing it for laughs at a recent Scribes session
At the last Scribes session former member Claire performed her first ever stand-up routine in front of an audience, here is the video :
‘Perfectly Formed’ – Waterstones Short Story Competition
By all accounts this would be a good competition to enter, deadline is 1st July 2010.
Follow the link for more details :
WATERSTONES SHORT STORY COMPETITION
NOTES ON THE APRIL 5th AGM
Hi Scribes folks,
Sorry for the delay between the meeting and this being sent out but I had to make sure members who had been assigned sessions were fine to do them on the days allocated.
Although attendees to the AGM last Monday were thin on the ground we did our best to work through issues raised by other members in advance.
Below I've listed things planned and actioned, if anything you raised isn't specifically mentioned then chances are it was bought up but we decided it needed further discussion with more people around.
Interesting – Kurt Vonneguts Eight Rules for Writing a Short Story
This is nothing new but a great little list to muse on, according to Wikipedia, these are KV’s eight commandments:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
Interesting – Cory Doctorow Talks Publishing Economics at Bloomsbury
Interesting viewing fro anyone interested in the future of publishing or Creative Commons.
Cory Doctorow - ebooks from Bloomsbury on Vimeo.
Earlier this month, the UK publisher Bloomsbury (best known for having struck gold with the Harry Potter books, though also a real leader on the use of Creative Commons in publishing) invited me to give a talk to its staff over the lunch hour at its London office. I gave a talk about the theory and practice of book pricing in the age of the Internet, talking about the way that strategies that are focused on maximizing revenue from existing customers can cost you access to new markets. I got into the economics of distribution channels, DRM, lock-in, and talked about what I see as the top priorities for publishers looking to continue with their success in the Internet age.
Interesting – The Next Big Thing : Literary Scholars Turn to Science
Interesting article over at the New York Times, a bit outside of the box but a snippet and link are provided below :
"The brain may be it. Getting to the root of people’s fascination with fiction and fantasy, Mr. Gottschall said, is like “mapping wonderland.”
Literature, like other fields including history and political science, has looked to the technology of brain imaging and the principles of evolution to provide empirical evidence for unprovable theories.
Interest has bloomed during the last decade. Elaine Scarry, a professor of English at Harvard, has since 2000 hosted a seminar on cognitive theory and the arts. Over the years participants have explored, for example, how the visual cortex works in order to explain why Impressionist paintings give the appearance of shimmering. In a few weeks Stephen Kosslyn, a psychologist at Harvard, will give a talk about mental imagery and memory, both of which are invoked while reading."
Another ‘blog-as-I-write’
Following on from the previous post on Graham Joyce's blow-by-blow blogging of his writing, 'friend of Scribes' Conrad Williams is doing the same with his latest novel 'Loss of Separation'.
His blog 'Black Notes from a Dark Building' can be found HERE.
Does anyone know of any other published authors bloggin their novel writing?
1st March 2010 – Meeting – Collaborative Fiction
The next Scribes meeting will be held on the 1st March 2010 in the Meeting Room of the Derby Central Library.
The session will be on the subject of Collaborative Fiction and will be presented by David Ball.
Hope to see you all there.
Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity – a TED talk.
A really great funny lady talking about 'Creativity', a must watch.
