What a day we had yesterday at the Bow, NH RWA
meeting. It was our first meeting of the year. The meetings run from September to June, if your interested.
Yesterday there was a deep discussion over the changes taking place between the National levels and the chapter levels. But, not to worry, it is all good changes that seems to be creating a bit of havoc in some of the chapters. I’m sure it will work itself out. I’m not going to go into detail. For those who need to know more you can contact your local chapter for more information.
After lunch the best part of the meeting took place. It was our speaker Hannah Bowman. She gave us a workshop on Plots, Structures, and Pushing your Characters.
It was a great workshop.
I will only highlight some of her points here. You can look for her at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference which I hear is coming up soon.
Hannah uses a check mark approach for mapping out conflict and climax within a story. You can use this approach while either creating your plot outline or with a finished manuscript where you give it a go over to see if there is enough rise and fall of conflict in your story. The check mark can be used with multiple character development in the way of a graph. Use colored pencils and you will see how your characters rise and fall at different places within your story.
I saw what my goal would be too. That would be to have all the characters begin at the same point and have them all end at the same point. This may seem to indicate that closure of the story has happened. If they don’t end at the same point you may be looking at a cliffhanger.
Some readers like cliff hangers and then there are others who are completely turned off by cliff hangers. Personally – I like both.
Next week
is the Monadnock Writers’ Group in Peterborough, NH. They hold their meeting downstairs in the Peterborough Library. This meeting is open to the public and they will have a speaker as well. So if you are in the area come on by. The meeting starts around 9:45 am. I like to get there early so I can meet and greet.
ROW80 Check-In:
I haven’t been to active with my checkins as of late. I really need to get my butt back into action and disicipline my self to make these posts on Sundays and Wednesdays.
So for the past week I have been slogging. I let the internet distract me from finishing up the revisions and edits of Witch Book. That is the last book I need to go over before I begin working on my next fantasy book to go with my Orgarlan Saga.
I think the Teen Contemporary series has come to an end. Or so it seems.
But you never know, something might happen with either my son or daughter to spark a new Contemporary idea to take hold. See, kids do have their uses when they are older, they just don’t know it. 
(lol)
My daughter is waiting for the next Orgarlan book to come out. Jeesh…
I guess I had better get to work on that.
Have a great week and don’t be shy, check out your local writing group if you haven’t already. It could be a rather fun experience.
Check out other ROWers and cheer their progress along…
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Related articles
- Kernel-to-Outline Plot Development (katepavelle.wordpress.com)
Linda Nelson 
I forgot to add Lisa’s monthly challenge. It was to change something about your writing space or system. Either rearrange your workspace or change the way you edit by changing the background color to something other than white. Or print your manuscript out on Pink paper or another color. Or even try a different font size so your errors really stand out. Experiment and let us know if you have discovered something new that seems to work for you.
I change my zoom size to 140 % to find my formatting errors, especially when formatting for Smashwords. Those dots really jump right out at you for when they are extra spaces and carriage returns.
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Getting into a pattern for check-in posts can be hard sometimes, especially when Life keeps knocking at our doors, demanding we come out and play ball on highway. You made a check-in, and it’s filled with some great information. I’m especially curious about the RWA info, as I’ve come to realize that my fantasy books are a lot more romance than swords & sorcery.
The monthly challenge idea is a good one too. For editing I think I’d get a lot of benefit from it. Writing? Probably not as much. Though perhaps the pre-writing note-making and outlining?
(Oh, and don’t make your daughter wait too long for the next book. You don’t want her doing something really bad that you can write about, now do you?:-) )
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Eden, I am glad you found my post helpful. Did you take the time to check out the bottom link post – a pingback – Kernel to Outline Plot development? It is a really great article about the process Hannah presented to us during her workshop.
My daughter does not need to worry much longer. I will begin working on the next sequel to Witch Book soon. The edits are half done. I made some progress in two days. But it would be great if she did do something interesting for me to write about in the contemporary area (lol) Maybe my son will step up soon and fill her shoes.
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I hadn’t checked the pingback, Linda, but now that I know, I’ld definitely be checking it out. Thank you again.
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