Meeting Recap: 7/26/12

Assignment: Some traumatic or extremely exciting event has occurred in your characters life, write about their emotions and senses (What do they feel, sense, notice differently because of that event) but don't write out what actually happened to them. Goal 250 words (try to be concise, but don't restrict yourself if it turns into something longer.)

We planned to meet in Gilman Lounge, but the door was locked, so we climbed up on the roof and met anyways.

Talked about our dialogue exercises and discovered some useful dialogue tools, that will help to add depth to our stories without packing it into stilted dialogue.

How to differentiate characters:
-Dialect (aint, dunno, gonna)
-buzzwords (bro, shazzam, *whistle* chk-chk)
-Confidence level (careful with this one, it gets used a lot)
-Maturity (Father/son, master/apprentice)
-Education level (big words small words)

Here's the podcasts where I got the exercise (and some ideas):
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/12/27/writing-excuses-5-17-dialog-exercises/
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/01/16/writing-excuses-5-20-more-dialog-exercises/

Howard Taylor

The 4 authors who do this podcast are awesome teachers for epic fantasy (my eventual goal) but a lot of their stuff applies to short stories (fiction and non) as well.

In particular, Howard Taylor of the Shlock Mercenary Webcomic (schlockmercenary.com) does brilliant character arcs & sub plots (i.e. short stories within a comic that's been posted every day for more than 10 years.) I recommend you check out his work.

Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson does extremely good work in epic fantasy, and is one of the genre's best authors today. I've read his Mistborn series, very well done, and original in a genre where iconic cliches are so easy to overdo.
I'm not familiar with Dan's, or Mary's work, but I suspect that it is also good.


With that, I'll conclude this week's recap. Enjoy the writing prompt!


Interesting Fact: Howard and Brandon are both Mormon!