When our merry melange of muses gathered for our July meeting, the first order of business was selecting from our number a new shepherd for the flock. We did not need a California sized ballot as we quickly settled on Phil Arnold as first among his peers and elected him by acclamation. A decade long member of SCWW, Phil served a two year term on the Board and at the same time was Editor of our chapter newsletter, Printed Matters. Another year he served as Assistant Editor of The Quill, taking care of the writing contests.

Phil's encyclopedic knowledge of Rock and Roll music, particularly all things Elvis, has earned him the title of Contributing Editor of Elvis International Magazine. In fact, this subject was the genesis of Phil's writing career. It all began with an idea for a comic book. "I could picture it. I had in my mind the sentences in the dialog balloons. Then we got a computer with a primitive word processor and my story evolved into a screenplay: Big E and the Santa Man."

One of Phil's proudest achievements is having his work published for the past nine consecutive years in SCWW's annual anthology, Horizons, now Catfish Stew. For three years in a row, he had a poem, an essay and a short story selected. This is something he encourages each of us to emulate.

"I'd like to get more people to submit to the anthology, I'd like to get more people on the Board, I'd like to get more people doing critiquing in Printed Matters. This chapter is basically unknown now to the rest of the state organization. We used to be really strong in the anthology, three or four people on the Board all the time, a lot of folks going to the conference--that's the kind of stuff I'll be working on."

Don't Fall by the wayside! Come out and show us your talent at our next meeting, 6:00 p.m., Thursday, September 1st at The Open Book.

John Migacz's story, "The Table," takes a twist into the bizarre. Our hero is confused about time. His friendly game has become cutthroat, and his friend Dave accuses him of cheating. Dave pointed out his fanning chips, a gesture he denies until he sees he is really doing that.
In the next scene five months later, he has a new set of poker players, known only by clothing, cowboy hat or gray hair. The dollar count in the pot has increased dramatically. A reference to the vines in his lap controlling his plays confused me. I needed a little update on the fact that those vines were on the table legs. The group needed to hear what happened in those five months, wife gone, strangers around the poker table. Give us more information about how that happened. It is a good mystery story. Reminds me of Stephen King.

Cindy Kay continued her story, Dance of the Water Spider, with chapter 2. In this segment, we got a picture of the young Jim Stephens and his attraction to Annabel in medical school. We begin to see how he longed to meet her. The writing scene at the coffee shop needed more beats, or conversation. The pace seemed to slow down there. Compared to the present-day Jim Stephens, I liked the Jim in the anatomy lab. It makes me eager to see how what happened in his, and her, life, to change him into the fanatic he is when he preaches at Reverend Tucker's church. These are characters that draw me in and make me want to turn the next page!

Both of these story tellers make me want to be at the september SCWW meeting to see what happens next. It is like those serial movies that left you hanging on a cliff with the words, "To be continued next week..."

"ROCKS," presented by Phil Arnold, was an essay describing his vacation to Colorado. It seems out of all the things he saw and did there, Phil was most impressed with all the rocks that he found.
Phil asked for suggestions as to how to put more humor into this essay, but no one offered him much help. This most humorous part of the story was his description of the desert - NASTY! The group pointed out to Phil that he probably should not publish this piece anywhere in the western states, since the natives might take offense at his descriptive term. What were you thinking, Phil?
There were a few other minor criticisms, but overall, the essay was informative as well as enjoyable.

Dawn Ely read her poem, "The Garden of Eden," which was beautiful and well written. Despite the fact that this poem flowed like a bird flying in the open spaces of the sky, many of us had problems understanding it. Come on, guys and gals! We can do this, can't we?
Dawn inquired if this piece should be considered an essay instead of a poem since the structure was made up of complete sentences. It was a unanimous vote to keep it as a poem and shorten the title to "My Eden."

Bob Bearden shared his rewrite of the opening chapter of Five Mossy Rocks. All agreed it was more entertaining than the first reading. The group thought it could use more tension (the cup of tea on the edge of a table was used as an example.) Some felt it could have used more dialogue, less description and had too much passive voice. We hope to learn more of the story next month.

Steve Heckman's short tale, "The Walk," was a study in the reveal technique. His story kept the reader in light suspense then snowballed to a surprise ending. The table felt the story could use more character descriptions and clarification about the interviewer's physical condition. The lack of a news crew also was cause for some confusion. Another thought provoking story from Steve containing examples of good writing for all of us.

Faye Tollison's short story, "The Intruder," lulls us into "sweet, sweet rest" only to jerk us awake "as if we were touched by the hand of Satan." The Intruder is vintage suspense and Faye does it so well. We know something is lurking out there simply by the way she soothes us. It doesn't matter that it turns out to be a spider, that's one scary spider, and it's nearing her, while she searches desperately for a weapon.
I got a little gooseflesh when she reached her hand blindly down the side of the chair. Would there be an accomplice? Ugh! A few suggestions were made by the group. One was to use small sentences to build suspense and to eliminate the word very. Another thought that the scene would be scarier if the shoes were off, then what? Since the villain was crushed so hard that the windows rattled, then maybe the spider should curl around the heal instead of the toe. Keep on scaring us, Faye!

"Red White and Blue Wedding" by Pat Stewart is a pragmatic answer to the skyrocketing prices of weddings. Pat tells us of Gloria and Dave who would like to get married for five-hundred dollars. Is that possible? You bet it is. Pat always has her finger to the pulse of real America, where everything is possible.The couple will get married at the family reunion scheduled for July Fourth.
Invitations have already been sent, the whole family is already bringing their favorite recipes, it's to be held in a park, and the theme will be a patriotic one. Gloria's sister works for a television studio that is interested in this simple approach to matrimony. The studio would like to do a piece on the wedding and offers to give the couple a complete tape for the story. Another dollar saved and in such a nice way. On television, no less. The groom's father is a good photographer and will probably take better, more intimate pictures than a pro. Why don't I ever get invited to these weddings? Barbecue, blue jeans, and no organ music. It sounds heavenly.
The group suggested that Pat might want to watch her redundancy. The name Dave and Davis were too similar. A five-hundred dollar amount came up twice for different events. And July 4th was overused. But we always look forward to viewing the world through Pat's American-colored glasses.

We're never sure what sort of thing Gene Fehler's going to bring to SCWW, but we can always count on it being good. This month, Gene brought a children's picture book, and it's no exception. Muff's Nine Lives is about a cat who goes through all nine lives every day, and it's filled with images that any illustrator could have fun with. Snapping dogs, buzzing bees, spilling goldfish bowls, even a granny rocker threaten Muff in clever rhymes. Some reviewers thought that five mice in life number four interrupted the counting, though, and most wanted all of the lives to have an element of danger, at least until the last one. In a couple of months, Gene can tell us which publisher has selected this fine little work.

Russ Burns told us about a fox, but unlike Muff, this one wasn't the least bit cute. In "Nature's Revolt," Russ tells a harrowing tale about a personal encounter with a rabid fox. This is no children's story. It was actually a little too frightening for Der Tubemeister -- it took three glasses of scotch for him to get to sleep that night. Russ starts with dark images of drought, pestilence, disease, and flood. Then when the reader is already down, violence strikes suddenly and graphically as the fox attacks and Russ bloodily defends. All ends well (Russ arrived at the meeting alive, with no foam in his mouth), but we were all left catching our breath. This one should find a home in a nature magazine or Veterinary publication.

Okay, so you're new to SCWW, and you just been to a meeting with the first chapter of your great American novel, and now you're back home leafing through ten copies with notes like "POV" and "needs a beat here" and "telling" scribbled in the margins.

"What are these people talking about?" you say.

"So you didn't think it was that bad?" your husband asks.

"No, what are these people talking about? I have no idea what these notes mean."

And of course he can't help you. No normal person would have a clue. Some of us have been doing this a long time, and it doesn't occur to us that we're being obscure. In an attempt to bring newcomers up to speed, and to remind veterans of what jerks we can be, I'm going to tell you everything I've learned about critiquing. Don't worry, it won't take long. A few short monthly articles, and by Christmas you'll be able to tell your husband he's got a nice POV.

This month we'll talk about basic critiquing courtesy. A few simple rules, first for critiquers:

1. Find something positive to say first. Don't open with "This really sucks." I often forget this rule, and I always regret it.

2. Be gentle. Don't pull any punches, but the reader shouldn't feel like he's under attack.

3. Stay focussed. We don't have much time, and the reader is counting on you to give helpful suggestions, not tell him how his piece reminds you of something you wrote ten years ago.

4. Jot down your suggestions in the margins and sign your copy. I know I like to know who made which comments when I get home.

And for critiquees:

1. Don't bring too much to read. You can cheat and use space-and-a-half instead of double space, but you'll just cut into your own critiquing time, and you won't get as much out of it.

2. Don't bring your best passages, bring your worst ones. We're here to help each other, not to show off. Okay, we're here to show off, but the best way to do that is to get better over time. Bring the stuff you need the most help with, and tell us why you think it needs help.

3. Don't defend yourself. If somebody has misinterpreted your work, maybe it needs to be written more clearly. Anyway, arguing just wastes your valuable critiquing time.

4. Don't bring a piece back to read again unless you've done a major rewrite. We don't need to see your tweaks. We assume you've done them. This is another example of using your critiquing time efficiently.

5. Go to Rafferty's. Sometimes it's the best part of the meeting.

Printed Matters is the newsletter of the Greenville Chapter, SCWW, which meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at The Open Book, 110 S Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville, SC.

Thanks to our contributing writers and news reporters: Pat Stewart, Faye Tollison, John Migacz, Cindy Kay and Steve Heckman.

Copyright 2003 by Leland Beaudrot, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work.