Copy
View this email in your browser
IN THIS ISSUE OF CHAPTER THREE


Meeting Recap 05/24/2022
Another meeting somewhat slack in attendance, but that allowed for critiquing some good writing without time pressures. Also, we have one of our own publishing in the near future.

Elements of the Writing Craft Challenge
LESSON: #43 MOVING INTO DIALOGUE

Book Review
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Articles and Other Worthies
The latest from WriteOnSC, Yak Babies, and Steven Pressfield.

COLA III Meeting Recap for 05/24/2022


8 of us made it to the meet. 5 read for critique:
 

Greetings COLA3 writers and friends! We met again for critiques Tuesday night (24th) at the Cobb House. We had eight writers in attendance, with five of us reading for critique. With a smaller gathering, we had no problem finishing on time.

Phil has been presenting short stories for many of our recent meetings. They have been well-received by the group and one, Eight Bodies in a Cornfield has been selected for publication by the e-magazine, Black Cat Weekly. Congrats Phil!

In SCWA events, I noted they will be hosting an Inside-Out event. Sat June 25th 10:00am to 4:00pm 1013 Duke Ave, Columbia. This seems to be a promo for SCWA and will feature mini-critiques, craft workshops, author book sales, Open MIC, and snacks.

There will be an SCWA Short Story Workshop in four ZOOM sessions on Aug 09-30, $150 SCWA members.

And submissions are open to The Petigru Review until 7/31/2022. I think several of our writers have short stories that would be good candidates for TPR.

Our next meeting will be on June 14th.

Ray

ELEMENTS OF THE WRITING CRAFT CHALLENGE
 
 

PART II: CHARACTER

LESSON: #43 MOVING INTO DIALOGUE

PRINTED BOOK PAGES: 54-55

READING EXCERPT: Aunt Granny Lith by Chris Offutt

…Her voice was sandstone harsh.
“Casey just might be tired of you.”…
Beth yanked his shirt.
“Beth,” he said.


MY NOTES ON THE LESSON

This lesson reviews a technique of dialogue I have tried to make much use of. The idea is to minimize speaker attributives with introductory phrases that are usually beats of action or description. In this exercise, both types are used together. In both cases, the effect is to provide and introduction to the dialogue that not only identifies the speaker, but infuses the words with meaning.

MY ANSWERS TO THE WRITING POSSIBILITIES

1. List five sentences that could describe a voice speaking and follow each with a line of dialogue.

Her words were clipped, as though painful to utter.
“There is no virus. I have murdered people.”

Sorrow flowed in his words, draining him of life like a severed artery.
“She is dead, and I could have saved her. She is gone, and I let her go.”

His voice rose shrill until it cracked in youthful bravado.
“Surrender your blade or face the edge of mine!”

His voice flowed as easy as a stream over smooth rocks, as invigorating as a summer breeze, pulling her into a place of safety strengthened by wise counsel.
“This is my clan’s land. Good people live here, and you are welcome to stay.”

Strident and screeching like tearing sheet metal, the voice tore through the smoke and confusion.
“You are dead! Dead! Your every step now is into the grave!”


2. List five actions that call on a character to speak and follow each with a line of dialogue.

I grabbed her wrist, pulling the needle away from her intent.
“Don’t stop me. I can’t live with this.”

I clamped my hand on his arm, pulling him around to keep him from just staring into his emotional abyss.
“We both know it’s true,” he said. “I am a coward and I kill by inaction.”

I jerked him around by the scruff of his cloak.
“Let me go!” he screamed, waving his sword. “I am a warrior!”

Comforted and moved by love, I raised my hand to caress his face.
“I cannot let you go in any case,” he said. “I would wither on the vine, my sun being taken away.”

He burst through the circle of howling crazies to stand with sword drawn before the fiend that controlled them.
“At last,” the demon-thing intoned. “Fresh blood red with courage for the draining.”
RAY-VIEW OF LORD OF THE FLIES
 
Following is a review I did in 2014 of a literary classic: Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I never read the book in school, but when I read it as an adult, I loved it.
 
 

Lord of the Flies
by William Golding

ISBN-13: 9780399501487
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 7/1/1959
Pages: 208

My review published: Sat 01-Feb-2014

My rating: 5 stars

CHARACTERS: Ralph, Piggy, Roger, Simon, Jack Merridew, Sam and Eric



How deeply ingrained are people's "animal nature?" With all constraints of authority and society removed, how many of us would regress to "savages?" And how quickly? These are the questions dealt with in William Golding's classic 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies

Of course, the word "savage" can carry a certain prejudicial tone, especially if used as a negative or derogatory attribution for tribal peoples. I don't believe, however, that Mr. Golding was trying to paint tribal people as brutish animals in this book. I think he is offering the suggestion that, without civilization, we are all potentially brute animals, or at least, that is true for very many among us. His story is actually more nuanced than that, but it helps to have a feel for how the word "savage" was used in the mid 1950's. For the sake of appreciating this amazing story, consider it to indicate psychopaths letting loose in all their brutal, sadistic, hierarchical fervor.

So, allowing for that definition, are we savages in suits? Brutes behind cubicles pecking at keyboards?

Lord of the Flies explores the question by stranding a large group of preadolescent boys (the oldest are 12 years old) on a tropical island where there's plenty of food and water, but no adult supervision. They simply must take care of themselves until rescue comes. It all begins as a grand adventure, especially for the older boys, but as the interactions among them become more prompted by needs for food, security, and esteem, the adventure grows dark.

This is certainly a morality play and the three main characters establish the parameters for it. Ralph is the fair-haired hero. He is strong and brave, and smart though not brilliant. He is moral and has the good sense to realize that building a signal fire on top of the mountain is the most important thing they must do to be rescued. Ralph is quickly designated the boys' leader and elected, "chief."

Ralph's obvious antithesis is Jack Merridew. Jack is the red-haired near-equivalent of Ralph and is already a leader in his own right as head of a choir. His choir-members wear black robes and caps and maintain their group identity with Jack as their leader. They assume the role of "the hunters" to provide meat from the wild hogs on the island. Jack is readily apparent as the antagonist and the Lucifer symbolism is obvious and brilliant. Jack and Ralph begin as friends but later split as a result of Jack's self-obsession working against Ralph's desire for the common good. 

Ralph's main supporter is Piggy. He is very smart, overweight, asthmatic, and badly myoptic. Today, we would call him a "geek." We are never told his real name, but he represents a lot of us. He recognizes Ralph as the better person and so supports him over Jack, who abuses Piggy. Of course, Ralph and nearly everyone else abuses Piggy for being fat and smart, but Piggy can pick his more tolerable degrees of torment. Piggy is Merlin to Ralph's King Arthur and he soon recognizes Jack as Mordred (who was also a kind of Lucifer--smart and handsome and self-absorbed, i.e., proud).

Most people probably take the sense of this story as being that people will digress to "savages" when the constraints of civilization are taken away. But I have to ask if the boys would have digressed to savagery without Jack, who is the catalyst and facilitator for that fall. The run of most people are represented by the "littluns" who follow whoever will provide for them. They are as "good" as whoever is looking out for them. If a savage takes care of them, then they become savages. They abandon civilized mores, represented by the conch. And those unnoticed little people who are also fervent psychopaths, represented by Roger, will gain power and position if even greater psychopaths come to power.

So the littluns will follow whoever will care for them. If they're lucky, it's a benevolent personality like Ralph. If not, then a Jack-type takes charge, who will likely make them do morally horrendous things. Do they care as long as they are cared for? In Lord of the Flies they don't. I'm not sure reality is so different.

There are also secondary characters in Lord of the Flies that provide their lessons. Simon is the artist who appreciates beauty and has insight. He is the only character to discover the "beast" for what it is (a dead airman) while everyone else (including, and especially, Jack) imagine it as a supernatural terror. Simon finds the beauty in the island and personalizes it in his secret hideaway. And he remains a supporter of Ralph as much as Piggy does. That is, he remains a supporter of truth and morality, but because everyone else does not, he loses.

Then there are the twins, Sam and Eric. They function so much as a single unit, that everyone refers to them as a single person, "Samaneric." Golding does an interesting job in dealing with these twins' bond (their dialogue is split between the both) by having them treated as a single person, although Sam is presented as slightly dominant. Samaneric are perhaps the most of us. They know that it is morally better to follow Ralph, but when the pressure to follow Jack is applied, they give in, and self-preservation triumphs.

I especially liked the story's ending. Though a bit implausible in timing, it is literarily brilliant. At the height of the terror that the island has become, it is brought back to "normalcy" in an instant. We are left with the visceral feeling that, in our boring and safe world, savagery lurks just below the surface.

 
ARTICLES AND OTHER WORTHIES

Here are a few articles, podcasts, and videos that might inspire and lift your spirits. 

Write On SC shownotes

Episode 186: Backstory Essentials
On May 14th, Kasie and Rex revisited a favorite subject: exposition, this time with the specific lean toward development of a character through the details you leave out.

Episode 187: The Work of Rewriting
On May 21, 2022, Kasie and Rex took on the challenge of rewriting your novel. 


Yak Babies

189- Letter Writing
The pals talk about the lost art of letter writing. A good chunk of these one ended up in the bonus pile.


Steven Pressfield

The universe comes to the hero’s aid.

CALENDAR

 


COLA3 Meetings for 2022:

                           

                       

 

Web Links
 
Note: The opinions and themes expressed by COLA III's members are not necessarily the opinions and themes of the Columbia III Chapter of the SCWA or of the SCWA.

List of previous issues of Chapter Three

List of books published by COLA III members

SCWA web page


Chapter Three FREE newsletter sign-up web-page

Write On SC broadcast


Ray’s blog site (Ray-Views)

Dea’s blog site (Faithful Conversations)

Dea’s blog site (Musings of a Writer)

Danielle Verwers YouTube channel


Lindsey's website/blog (Lindsey Lamh)

Bonny's website/blog (Bonny Miller Music)
 
Yours in Literature,

Ray
Ray's Twitter
Chapter Three
Chapter Three newsletter issue #87

Columbia III has been a chapter of the SCWA since September 2010

Copyright © 2022 COLA III Writers Group, All rights reserved.



Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp