Ten Ely Writers attended this month’s meeting, including some new faces. We always enjoy meeting new writers, but we wonder if they’ll come back! Our core members, who come almost without fail, are a great group, and we look forward to seeing each other.
Our last December meeting had a vaguely Christmassy theme; this December’s was decidedly not Christmassy.
Introductions and progress reports
I always enjoy hearing what our members are writing and why they write. I think it’s fair to say that some of us have a story bursting out of us that we need to get down on the page just to stop it buzzing round our heads. Others yearn to write something, anything.
We’re all at different stages in our writing. Some of us haven’t started yet. Some of us have been writing for a while. Some are self-published; others are (on the road to being) self-published. This mix is great because we each have something to share. The new writers can share their joy of the anticipation, which more experienced writers might have lost along the way. The more experienced writers can share their experiences with the newer writers. We’ve all got something new to learn, and it’s great to be able to do that with other writers.
Free writing
Our free-writing session is ten minutes of writing whatever comes when given a specific prompt. It can be a word or a concept or an object from the bag of things.
The prompt for this month’s free-writing session was an object from the bag of things.
Everyone chose a different object from the bag and set to work. Sometimes, we find it easy to start writing; other times, it takes a bit more thought before the words rip themselves from the pen to the page. This doesn’t matter because there’s always something written by the end of the ten minutes, even if it’s just a sentence or even a phrase. The only way to fail this task is to write nothing; that’s never happened in any of our thirty-three meetings!
If you’re sick of staring at a blank page, why not set a timer for ten minutes, look up and take the first thing that you focus on as your prompt, and see where it takes you. Perhaps you’ll write about why your character has that object. Perhaps you’ll write about why you have that object. The result, whether good or guff, means your page isn’t blank anymore, and that’s a win.
Discussion: setting
Last month, we talked about setting; this month, we continued with setting. Four questions were prepared from a suggestion made by ChatGPT; we discussed the first one last month. This month, we looked at the third question:
How can you create immersive worlds?
Taken from a suggestion by ChatGPT
It might have been an idea from a chatbot, which I again forgot to mention to the group, but it produced another great discussion.
We warmed up by talking about unusual settings, then rejected giving a description in information dumps. A block of text such as an information dump can be daunting to the reader, and if that block is all description, it means nothing is happening in the story: the block of text blocks the action.
We preferred the setting to be seen through the viewpoint character’s eyes, noting that different characters would view a scene differently to how another character might view that same scene. What each character sees depends on the same things people see: interests (fashion, architecture), short- or long-sightedness, observational abililty/interest and so on. What else can you think of?

To avoid the information dump, we agreed that the setting is best relayed to the reader through the viewpoint character as needed. To start with, there might be an overall impression of a room: gloomy or bright, clean or dirty, homely or stark. Is it what the viewpoint character expected it to be like, if anything? Later, details can be added as needed, such as furniture, decorations, control panels and so on.
Last month, we thought it might be fun to bring our favourite opening sentence to a novel to the next meeting, so that was our homework. Alas, we completely forgot. Maybe next month!
Readings
Reading out our work is strictly optional, and we only ever make positive comments on anything you read out. A single negative word can knock a writer’s confidence for six, whereas the point of Ely Writers is to encourage and embolden writers. If solicited or permission is given, we give constructive criticism.
Alas, we had no readings this week, but that’s ok.
The talent in our group is amazing. But don’t let that intimidate you: if you want to read your writing out at our meetings, we will find the positive. It’s hard for writers to see past the bits that don’t work; let us find what does work.
Next meeting
If you like to talk about writing or you’ve written something you’d like to share with other writers, why not come along to our next meeting?
The first Wednesday of January coincides with New Year’s Day, so we’ve moved our next meeting to Wednesday 15 January 2025. The meeting at the same time: from 6:15 pm till 7:15 pm, in Prosper.
And remember, we’re looking for your favourite opening sentence to a novel for next time (again)!