Who?
Leawood Creative Writing Meetup, a group for writers at all levels.
Why?
Writing time
Expand your writing network
What?
The purpose of the group is to grow your writing and build your network of writing friends and encourage one another in our writing lives.
How?
This virtual meetup will give space for getting to know other authors in your area, we will have a schedule with free writing time, we’ll work through the book Writing Fiction (Gothan Writers’ Workshop) and share out what samples of our writing if we want to share with the group what you’re writing.
Where?
Virtual Event. Sign up through the Eventbrite links below. You will receive the meeting link via email. The link you receive will be the same meeting link for all meetings.
When?
Friday 6:30 PM Central
Purchase the Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Writing Fiction (Kindle Edition) to follow along, or just take some extra time for writing on the prompt while everyone else is reading. It’s up to you!
2/5: The Best Words (pg. 110)
YOUR TURN: Pick a person you know. Fictionalize the name, which will also give you license to alter other characteristics, if you so desire. Now describe this person as vividly as you can. Here’s the catch: you cannot use a single adjective or adverb. This will force you to use strong nouns and verbs and employ some of the other techniques you’ve picked up in this chapter. Though challenging, you will probably end up with a very well-drawn picture of this person.
2/12: Tricks of the Trade
YOUR TURN: Take one of the previous exercises from this chapter and revise it by leaning on such devices as simile, metaphor, lyricism, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and perhaps even synesthesia. Run wild, using as many of these devices as you can. The results may be a bit overripe, but you will have cultivated your inner poet.
2/19: Telling Details
YOUR TURN: Return to the previous exercise, where you let your poetic impulses run wild. Pick a telling detail—one particular thing that most embodies the thing you described. Revise the passage, this time focusing only on that one telling detail. And while you’re in there, this time try to keep the description from being too long or overwrought. You should end up with a description that is both economical and effective.
2/26: Description Traps
YOUR TURN: Describe a character who is going about the mundane job of cleaning his or her home. Write from the POV of this character (either first, second, or third person), which means the character’s consciousness will inform the description. Here’s the twist: the character has just recently fallen in love, and you should let this emotion color the description without being directly stated. Then rewrite the passage, but this time the character has just had a painful romantic breakup. You’ll see how different the world looks depending on how people feel.
Average Bird 