We were a few minutes early and we stopped to sit by the river, where I went over the notes that Margaret J. had provided last week and read over my story once again before we arrived.
The writers assembled, we started with a couple of hints from Margaret then there was a draw to see who would start first to read their work out loud to the group. My name came up as the first and I began to slowly read my work. I finished reading my presentation then Margaret J. encouraged the others to criticise, I was expected to keep quiet while this was happening. I was mildly surprised that most of the feedback was positive. Etienne remarked that he actually liked the way I read the story aloud. I felt quite satisfied with the results of these responses.
Points to remember~
~ I will certainly be using dialogue a lot more than I usually do when I write in the future.
~Theme was another aspect that I have learned about. I will be certainly looking for the theme that runs through everything I write in the future.
I got an excellent feedback printout from Margaret J. and on the basis of this I think I can improve and enlarge this story into a posible book. I will qoute one paragraph from this excellent summary as I like the way she has expressed this.
"I think you have created a really interesting character in Maxwell, John, it just needs a bit more clarity I think."
These are the suggestions for changes and/or improvements
1) Lose the first section.
2) In places more clarity is needed, for example There was confusion over the funeral that followed on very closely to the letter from the solicitors saying that Maxwell was dead. The assumption was that this was a fake funeral for Maxwell.
3) Clarence Hall came in from nowhere without any explanation about who he is. ( This was because I had cut his introduction out to keep within the 1500 word limit ).
4) Occasionally I should include more action and/or thoughts/description between lines of dialogue.
eg when Maxwell and his wife are talking in the garden, the first description could be 'threaded into the dialogue,' maybe interspersed with image of men carrying furniture etc past.
5) I changed viewpoint a few times from Maxwell to Clarence Hall and Joey Brown. making the story a bit hoppy. A film-like quality since if it were a screenplay you would hop from character to character in this way.
Occasionally the dialogue felt stilted This is easily fixed by the use of contractions ~ i.e. instead of 'We are broke,' 'We're broke,' and 'We're just leaving.'
My Margaret was the last but one to read her work and this also went down very well with everybody present. The work entitled 'Madam Butterfly,' was cleverly presented in the Epistolary form, we had had a lesson on this form of writing during the course and Margaret had put her story together brilliantly using this method.
The story started when two elderly ladies discover a body in a run down cottage. This is the body of a celebrated Opera singer. Sadly after she had reached the top and sang a role in the Opera, she had an affair with the conductor, Bellini. He rejected her and cut her dead after making her pregnant. She had an abortion and then her parents cut her dead. It seemed she lived as a recluse for a number of years and finally committed suicide. This also went down very well with the rest of the group and Margaret 'J' said with some revision, my Margaret has a very good book to be written.
We may come into contact with Margaret 'J', again if we decide to attend her coffee shop creative writing sessions from 9th September in Norwich at Stephanies Coffee House, Eaton. These will be held from 10am to 12.00pm
The writers assembled, we started with a couple of hints from Margaret then there was a draw to see who would start first to read their work out loud to the group. My name came up as the first and I began to slowly read my work. I finished reading my presentation then Margaret J. encouraged the others to criticise, I was expected to keep quiet while this was happening. I was mildly surprised that most of the feedback was positive. Etienne remarked that he actually liked the way I read the story aloud. I felt quite satisfied with the results of these responses.
Points to remember~
~ I will certainly be using dialogue a lot more than I usually do when I write in the future.
~Theme was another aspect that I have learned about. I will be certainly looking for the theme that runs through everything I write in the future.
I got an excellent feedback printout from Margaret J. and on the basis of this I think I can improve and enlarge this story into a posible book. I will qoute one paragraph from this excellent summary as I like the way she has expressed this.
"I think you have created a really interesting character in Maxwell, John, it just needs a bit more clarity I think."
These are the suggestions for changes and/or improvements
1) Lose the first section.
2) In places more clarity is needed, for example There was confusion over the funeral that followed on very closely to the letter from the solicitors saying that Maxwell was dead. The assumption was that this was a fake funeral for Maxwell.
3) Clarence Hall came in from nowhere without any explanation about who he is. ( This was because I had cut his introduction out to keep within the 1500 word limit ).
4) Occasionally I should include more action and/or thoughts/description between lines of dialogue.
eg when Maxwell and his wife are talking in the garden, the first description could be 'threaded into the dialogue,' maybe interspersed with image of men carrying furniture etc past.
5) I changed viewpoint a few times from Maxwell to Clarence Hall and Joey Brown. making the story a bit hoppy. A film-like quality since if it were a screenplay you would hop from character to character in this way.
Occasionally the dialogue felt stilted This is easily fixed by the use of contractions ~ i.e. instead of 'We are broke,' 'We're broke,' and 'We're just leaving.'
My Margaret was the last but one to read her work and this also went down very well with everybody present. The work entitled 'Madam Butterfly,' was cleverly presented in the Epistolary form, we had had a lesson on this form of writing during the course and Margaret had put her story together brilliantly using this method.
The story started when two elderly ladies discover a body in a run down cottage. This is the body of a celebrated Opera singer. Sadly after she had reached the top and sang a role in the Opera, she had an affair with the conductor, Bellini. He rejected her and cut her dead after making her pregnant. She had an abortion and then her parents cut her dead. It seemed she lived as a recluse for a number of years and finally committed suicide. This also went down very well with the rest of the group and Margaret 'J' said with some revision, my Margaret has a very good book to be written.
We may come into contact with Margaret 'J', again if we decide to attend her coffee shop creative writing sessions from 9th September in Norwich at Stephanies Coffee House, Eaton. These will be held from 10am to 12.00pm
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