Writing Club - August 2024

Welcome to the second writing club update! (See the previous update here.) I hope you've had a pleasant month, and are managing to stay cool (this is me presuming northern hemisphere anyway). One short month ago, a month seemed like such a long time. But now I see it for a just a couple of weekends, and a sprinkling of free evenings.

I'm keeping this update brief, since I'm behind on my own goals. But it's raining here, and I don't have to go to work (at my job anyway) today, so I'm excited to get back to it! May you be similarly blessed with dreary weather and lack of responsibilities on this Monday.

Participants

As always, there is no pressure to have completed your goals. But sharing how your month went is super beneficial not just personally, but for the rest of us. Additionally, participants and guests are encouraged to chime in with any comments or questions they may have on project projects, writing club, etc.

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23 comments

So for my goal, I said I would
... finish my short story outline: characters, plot/events, worldbuilding (enough for the story anyway), beginning, conflict(s), and end.
I've done maybe 60% of that, but feel good about it, especially since it's my first time looking it up and trying to make a "proper" outline.
My current conflict (as a writer, not like in the plot), is that it's a story about colonialism and I've been thinking of my characters as indigenous coded, whereas I'm actually a white settler person. I've been reading through resources like this to help me through, but I worry that I don't have the experience (speaking of lived experience, as well as writing chops) to pull it off with the care it deserves.
My thinking at the moment (and I feel like this might change easily) is to keep the details scant, rather than wade right in and risk botching the job. But then I run the risk of just gesturing lazily at indigeneity as some amorphous monolith...
Those challenges aside, my goal for August is to finish the outline of my short story. Actually, now that I know more about what's involved in writing an outline, I'm even less certain than I was last month about finishing it, haha!
- That's a super understandable challenge of writing beyond your lived identity. I would say to base the characters on a specific indigenous group. Heavily research that group, their customs, and their history. Look for first hand accounts. & If at all possible seek feedback on your characters and writing from the groups you are writing about as well.
  Having the characters based on real peope helps prevent them from becomming stereotypes & can help give you the added ideas for how certain situations might be handled by different peoples.
  Good luck on beefing up your outline :) I hope august is a productive month
  
  Having the characters based on real people helps prevent them from becoming stereotypes ...
  Thank you, this is an excellent point (among several). I think your suggestion of diving into a specific peoples' lifeways is the right approach. It seems more obvious the more I think about it, yeah.

23 comments