June 2023 Supplementary Meeting Minutes

Tuesday 13th June. 7.0pm. Peepo's Spirit Room

Present: Irena (Chair), Alex, John A-S, Tony H.

    After catching up, we embarked on a discussion and exercise inspired by Chekhov’s mandate to show rather than tell:

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

  We quickly established that writers in the past, for example Dickens and Hardy, did far more showing than writers today, but that faster paced writing still needs to engage the reader by using techniques like dialogue, engaging the senses, dramatizing rather than giving readers narrated conclusions. Tony pointed out that films use symbolism to show not tell, for example a couple enjoying a leisurely smoke (work it out for yourself!) Going back to writing, we also established there are times narrative is more appropriate, such as minor scenes, less important characters, back story. Our intrepid company then took 10 sentences “telling,” to convert to “showing.” An alternative task was to edit a paragraph of their own, which they considered needed more “showing.”

    Alex impressively tackled all 10 and got to no.9. His included someone experiencing blinding light to show “it was hot,” and pounding a book so hard, a table juddered, to show “he was angry.”

    Tony did a little editing of his own, but shared some “showing” from the exercise, which included creeping vines embracing a house to show the house was “run down.”

    John, whose wife says “he never uses one word if 25 will do,” wrote a mini story about sentence 10 (the house was on fire). It turned out the protagonist had wandered into a fancy-dress party and there wasn't a fire at all! From another sentence,  he also described screechy and sliding socks to show “it was hot.”

     As Peepos then informed us throwing out time would be 8.30, we decided to press on and hear the writing we had brought to share.

    We heard John's and Tony's. John, who apparently is more used to prose, had written a poem inspired by Jennie’s task for the main meeting, (The Bell), and by a particular friend. This means we can all enjoy the poem again on the 27^th, a bit of a bonus! It was a clever poem, featuring a lady called “Belle,” and funny too, featuring some (dare I say?!) schoolboy humour! Great to see ourselves branching  out into different genres.

    Finally, Tony read us part of a short story he is hoping to sell in America. It proved to be a very fitting end to a meeting in mind of “showing not telling.” It began with dialogue, showed a lady and her daughter in a difficult situation, with just enough information to intrigue and pull us in. Would like to hear the rest at one of our future meetings!

    We managed to talk about Tony's American accent (part of his story) before we left, and European accents with some similarities. We didn't know there are American Mennonites in Craven Arms, whose accent has something in common with Lincolnshire Fen people!

   I will be asking if anyone wants to beta-read my story for the Intelligent Horsemanship competition. It’s nearly ready now, and I will be emailing it to the willing!

      As this was a supplementary meeting, no homework was set. Looking forward to hearing “The Bell" homework, set by Jennie, at our main meeting on the 27^th June.

  In the meantime, happy writing!