News

For our March meeting, R-SPEC will be holing its annual meeting for the first 30 minutes or so where we will review our accomplishments in 2015 and elect board members for the coming year. As always, this is open to the public, but only paid R-SPEC members are eligible to be on the board and to vote in the elections.

Afterward, attendees are invited to read from their current or in-progress works. (Older or sold stories and poems are also welcome, especially if you'd like some kind of feedback on it.) Please bring a short piece or a portion of a longer work -- fewer than 1,000 words if you can, but up to 2,000 words if you can't break the scene -- so everyone has sufficient reading time and attendees have time to provide their feedback. Please try to arrive before 7 to put your name on the list for reading. After the readings conclude and time permits, we'll go around and share with the group what we're currently reading.

Moderator: Ted Wenskus
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: March 1, 2016 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Your story’s success hinges on suspending disbelief in your readers’ minds. Naming your fantasy creature “Fluffy Unicorn” might be appropriate in a picture book for kindergarten-aged readers, but it will likely cause your high-fantasy novel readers to slam their books closed in disgust. Likewise, you’d be truly lucky if your readers were still reading your short story after trying to pronounce your alien’s name of “Ag-K’Li’k’-O’dam-Go’Hai, the Third” for the fifth time.

In our February 2 meeting, Alan leads a discussion on creating appropriate names for the objects, characters, and worlds that are foundation of your stories. Tips and techniques for picking good names and making sure they convey the correct meaning will be shared.

Attendees: Please bring at least one name from your favorite speculative fiction story or novel for an object, a character, and a world. If you have examples of bad or inappropriate names, feel free to bring those to share, too.

Presenter: Alan Vincent Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: February 2, 2016 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

In our January 5 meeting, Kurt will present our first Disturbing Frequencies story and interview podcasts.

Attendees will then be invited to read from their current or in-progress works. (Older or sold stories and poems are also welcome, especially if you'd like feedback on the piece.) Please bring a short piece or a portion of a longer work -- fewer than 1,000 words if you can, but up to 2,000 words if you can't break the scene -- so everyone has sufficient reading time and attendees have time to provide their feedback. Please try to arrive before 7 p.m. to put your name on the list for reading. After the readings conclude and time permits, we'll go around and share with the group what we're currently reading.

Presenter: Kurt Schweitzer
Moderator: Alan Vincent Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: January 5, 2016 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Every story plot needs to be sculpted, but you don't have to start with just raw clay. Structural elements can help you find and create something new out of some basic materials. We'll discuss three major structural elements:

1. The Foundation. The basic shape of the story, as demonstrated with various styles of act structures and plot building techniques.
2. Scaffolding. How can the foundation be built on piece by piece, and how can each story arc, chapter, or episode serve to further the plot?
3. Nuts and Bolts. Dealing with the little things to help push plot along. 

We'll finish the meeting by plotting a future episode of Space Archaeologists, a serial created specifically for the R-Spec podcast!

Facilitator: Hugh Sullivan
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: September 1, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

In our July 7 meeting, attendees are invited to read from their current or in-progress works. (Older or sold stories and poems are also welcome, especially if you'd like some kind of feedback on it.) Please bring a short piece or a portion of a longer work -- fewer than 1,000 words if you can, but up to 2,000 words if you can't break the scene -- so everyone has sufficient reading time and attendees have time to provide their feedback.

Please try to arrive before 7 to put your name on the list for reading.

After the readings conclude and time permits, we'll go around and share with the group what we're currently reading.

Moderator: Alan Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: July 7, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Fantasy and science fiction stories let your characters inhabit and explore worlds that exist only in your imagination. Yet, creating realistic and cohesive settings can be challenging, because you are dealing with imaginary and potentially transformative environments. In mainstream fiction, you can rely on the familiarity your readers may have with various cities, regions, and cultures, including descriptions from history and shared memes. It’s different for speculative fiction stories. You need to build your settings and everything else from the ground up. In many ways, your settings come to life in the same manner as do your characters.

During our June 2 meeting, our panelists will help you explore how to create speculative fiction settings that move your stories towards exciting conclusions, and leave lasting impressions with your readers – maybe even more lasting than those found in our everyday world.

Panel: Kurt Schweitzer, Eric Scoles, Lynn Spitz, and Ted Wenskus
Moderator: Alan Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: June 2, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

November is National Novel-Writing Month, so our November 3 meeting is a great time get a boost by reading your first few day's work. Please come early so we can get an idea of how many people will be reading; if we have enough folks, we'll split off into small groups for reading & feedback. 

Presenter: Alan Vincent Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: November 3, 2013 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

In October's meeting, Kurt Schweitzer will discuss podcasting. He'll offer a brief history, explore where podcasting stands today, and why you would want to do it.

From there he'll move on to a discusion of how to do it, including a hardware and software show and tell and a review of resources available to you.

Moderator: Kurt Schweitzer
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: October 6, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

What does it take to create a compelling comic or graphic novel? For an inside look, we interview Ray Claxton, writer and co-creator of the online comic The Tales of Dark Raven about his experiences, insights, and resources for like-minded comic writers of all levels.

A lifelong comics fan, Ray Claxton is a graphic designer/art director and design educator with over 15 years experience in the advertising and marketing fields. He is a visiting professor at Miami University and has taught graphic design at Alfred University, Nazareth College, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. As a comic writer, he has collaborated with artists across the globe on a variety of short stories in addition to his work with artist Brian Robbins on The Tales of Dark Raven.

Moderator: Ted Wenskus
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: August 4, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Writing successful stories is a careful balancing act of knowing where to start, removing roadblocks that keep your story from moving forward, keeping the reader engaged through dialogue and plot, avoiding boring the reader with unnecessary descriptions, and delivering a satisfying ending. Backstory often gets in the way and can ultimately cause your story to fall flat for your readers.

In our May 5, 2015 meeting, we discussed the pitfalls of bogging your story down with the dreaded “info dump” and explored the answers to these questions and more: How do I show, rather than tell, the information I want my readers to know about my characters and the story’s background? Is all that information necessary in the first place? Do my readers really need to know “what came before” to enjoy where I am taking them?

Moderator: Alan Michaels
Location: Barnes & Noble, Pittsford
Meeting Time: May 5, 2015 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.