We had a great writers group tonight. There were many regulars as well a couple new people, invited by one of our members. We’re technically closed to new members because we have grown to a good size and want to keep it intimate, but we’ve had a few people invited recently by current members, and I have no problem with that at this point. We all fit into a long booth at the Panera Bread (St. Louis Bread Company), with a pulled up extra small table. That’s about capacity, any larger and the conversation diffuses and starts breaking into factions.

I shared a very rough excerpt of a chapter; I’ve been sharing often as I mentioned previously. But only myself and one other person brought something to share tonight so I’m glad I printed it out. It was only my second introduction of my A.I. character and last time I was told the A.I. had zero character, which I agreed with. This time I didn’t get that feedback. I think the people who made that comment last time saw a big difference and instead were asking about the motivations of the character and their consistency. I think some things were needing to be worked on. But many seemed to enjoy the piece and some praised it.

Another critique I am getting is that I have too many characters or that I ‘need’ to have only one main character. I disagree; though in the beginning I had too many characters in each section, I’ve narrowed that down. Each character has a function in the story, and it is a large sci-fi story that has multiple plot lines that weave together and at the end coalesce.

Someone suggested I up the stakes in a certain way in a particular circumstance in this chapter, and I kind of glitched giving my response trying to explain that that would be good because it would make things harder for my protagonist character to achieve their goal. Simple enough, but it was a chapter where it seemed like the one she was asking me to raise the stakes on behalf of WAS the protagonist side. Which I feel shows that it is complex and goes into the perspective of both factions, at least to some degree. I thought of a way of explaining it, to myself, after the meeting. “I’m playing two things against themselves, and trying to favor one side, simultaneously.”

When I glitched I thought in images of boats ballast compartments filling with water, of balance and countermeasure. To raise the stakes in this instance would be to build a levy, but against whence side, where cometh the flood?

In other words, I’m writing a story with good guys and bad guys, but neither side is oversimplified.

Oh also I watched the Shakespeare Play ‘Measure for Measure’ recently. It was HUH-MAY-ZING.