The night began with books, books, and more books.
Two tables groaned with them – psychological thrillers, cosy crimes, family sagas, historical non-fiction, classic novels. Our literary array, donated by generous members for the club’s book sale (organised by Carrie), would have given Waterstones a run for their money. We clustered around them, like kids in a sweetie shop, pondering our purchases and enviously eyeing up the goodies others had already bagged. I managed to contain myself to one murder mystery to add to my huge ‘still to read’ pile at home.
Meanwhile Maggie M gathered in the ‘manuscripts’ (four anonymous copies of up to 1000 words of a work in progress) to be critiqued, then shepherded the book browsers like wayward sheep to their seats.
We were split into five groups of three or four people. Maggie handed out our first assignments – to read, discuss as a group then jot down comments. Volunteers were asked to read aloud a short extract from each piece to the rest of the room before sharing the group’s feedback. This gave us all a flavour of the work being critiqued.
My group was allocated the first chapter of a children’s fantasy novel aimed at ages 9-11.
Emilie has seen a draca (a dragon boy) – will her mum believe her? Will her brothers believe her? And will the draca like chocolate?
We loved the engaging beginning, characterisation, and descriptions. We felt children would relate to Emilie and be hooked by the mysterious draca and want to read on to find out more. Our advice to the author was to look at some of the language used – words like ‘cursory’, and ‘perusing’ are words younger children might struggle with and we suggested using simpler words.
The other groups worked on:
- The prologue of a novel – an intriguing snapshot setting up the mystery of ‘The Keeper of the Rees’.
- A short story – family conflict and drama from the first paragraph.
- A memoir piece – 25 kids re-enacting the Grand National in back gardens – humorous and relatable.
- A flash Fiction – an unusual story of friendship, love lost and death, all in under 250 words.
All this was thirsty work, so we called ‘half-time’ and had our tea break. Another chance to check out those books singing to us like sirens from the tables in the corner – and the opportunity to feed our faces. Carrie, a woman of many talents, had baked a gorgeous chocolate cake AND the Queen of all Victoria Sandwich sponges, slices being sold for £1 for club funds. Yum. See what all you feedback-non-attenders were missing?!
Refreshed, stuffed and skint*, we regrouped for round two – read and repeat.
My group’s second item was a powerful poem with a poignant message. The topic of the poem was exactly right for our club’s poetry competition theme, Vanishing Habitats, so I will refrain from giving too much info. Suffice to say we enjoyed the poem. Our advice was to look at punctuation (or lack of) and we wondered if having a capital letter at the beginning of each new line worked.
The other groups gave feedback on:
- Another poem suitable for the competition – with great imagery and alliteration.
- A short story – ‘After the Storm’ – atmospheric and descriptive, drawing the reader in.
- Chapter three of a novel –a Western Sci-fi – very interesting concept and characters.
Lots of constructive feedback and comments were provided for all the pieces which included
the usual suspects – show don’t tell, watch your tenses, beware of over-writing, look out for inconsistencies, check punctuation, don’t write the same thing twice but in different words, remember full-stops and apostrophes… ooops.
But the consensus was, yet again Ayr Writers’ members had come up trumps and we’d experienced a wonderful mixture of genres and styles, and some fabulous writing. Well done to those who submitted and thanks to all who participated.
Our evening ended slightly later than normal – 9.45ish.
Kirsty and I dodged the book stall and surplus cake (own up…who took a slice home for supper?). We dashed to the car to head back to the Valley, our heids full of dragons and secrets and racehorses. Oh, and Ilya Kuryakin … at least, my heid was.
Linda Brown
*Update – John, our Treasurer reports the evening raised £53.95. Well done, Carrie.