CHESTER WRITERS

A MONTHLY LITERARY SALON
meets on the third Thursday of each month at 7.30pm at Storyhouse, Hunter Street, Chester, CH1 2AR.

Please contact jane[dot]brocklehurst[at]gmail[dot]com with any questions for the group.

You can also join our Chester Writers Facebook for more up-to-date information about the group.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Minutes of the March meeting

Date: Thursday March 18th
Time: 7.45pm
Place: Bishop Lloyd's Palace

1: Apologies from Ian, Jan, Annie and Jane, and Welcome to new member Frank.

2: Warm -up session: Fighting Talk.

Our discussion on confrontation yielded a list of types:
Man against Man, Man against Self (particularly happiness), Man against Nature, Man against Society, Man against Machine, Man against God, Machine against Universe, God against Everyone, Man against Rubbish (in particular, Bins!).

We then each thought specific examples we had encountered in the last day or so:
manager against worker (bullying), two people arguing about one car-parking space, people with differences of opinion about a news item, man against bureaucracy - several instances involving authorities perverting legislation for own ends, relatives conspiring against own happiness, an item from a soap opera, and news items including murder involving a dog, a child-kidnapping and views on a child-murderer.

We then discussed how to go about writing about conflict and the following strategy suggested (for homework):
(i) Start with conflict.
(ii) Make it escalate to a climax.
(iii) Organise the rest around this ( introduce fighters and ring (i.e. characters and setting), and give the battle shape (action and reaction. minor skirmishes and victories).

3. Notices:
(i) Events at the library including Sci Fi and Fantasy Book Club next meeting 27th March 2-3pm.
(ii) New Play by Paul Kelly "Good Will" 23rd-25th April Forum Studio Theatre. Box Office 01244 341296
(iii) Society of Authors Meeting Saturday 17th April at the Queen's Hotel. It will be on fantasy and horror writing with speakers David Whitley and Ramsey Campbell. Details from Sarah Burton at the Society of Authors sburtonATsocietyofauthorsDOTorg 020 7373 6642
(substitute AT with @ and DOT with .)

4: Funding
£5 a year subscription agreed when needed.

5: Readings.


6: Homework:
Physical and verbal confrontation.
(See warm-up session above).

7. AOB.
The meeting ended rather hurriedly due to chairperson thinking we had gone over time... when we hadn't! We do, in fact, have the room until 9.30pm... My apologies to everyone.

8. Added later.
The deadline for the Museum Pieces is the end of April but if you are happy with what you have and wish to send it in now Kate's email address is kathrynDOTriddingtonATcheshirewestandchesterDOTgovDOTuk
(substitute AT with @ and DOT with .)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Agenda for March Meeting

Date: Thursday March 18th
Time: 7.45pm
Place: Bishop Lloyd's Palace

Item 1: Warm -up session: Fighting Talk. Ideas and experiences of confrontation.

Item 2: Society Funding.

Item 3: Readings. (Homework was 'write about a habitat as introduced by Kate.
Or...Describe your garden or piece of parkland or even a windowbox from the point of view of someone who has been held captive in some way (perhaps by another person or by illness or anything else you can think of).
The idea is to evoke the world anew - to make the familiar strange.') But any new writing at all would be great!

Item 4: Homework: Physical and verbal confrontation.

Item 5: AOB