Our meeting of 11th June 2025 was a manuscript evening.
We welcomed a new potential member, Ian who introduced himself.
First to read was Peter with the first part of a short story, “Body Count” , which is, as yet, unfinished, so he asked for comments on providing an ending. The story starts with a female police officer arriving at a murder scene with a body that has no means of identification. However the officer recognises the body as someone from her past where a group of friends committed a crime which has repercussions on their lives, including the recent death of other members of her coterie of friends. Members made several suggestions about the structure and length of the piece.
Next to read was Denise with a piece, “Eleventh Hour”, that she has recently rewritten with a change of the main character. It started with the line “Peter was a collector of people”. The story told of an enigmatic character, Peter, who arrives at the narrators shop and invites her to a party which was populated with a dialectic mix of different people including the beautiful Alice.
Next Ian read the first chapter of his book “The Blooding Of Brian Blake” which follows the career of a young policeman from his first day in the force. This is based on the author's own experiences but with some of the storyline fictionalised.
Finally was Joan with “Moving On” which told of two school friends. Susie looks out of the window and thinks how much she would miss Peter. They had lived next door to each other for ages and had grown up together, like brother and sister but his father had to move with his new job. Then Susie meets the new occupants of next door, one of whom is a girl of a similar age to Susie.
Denise announced that she would be going to Bath and reading out her story which had been accepted in an Anthology for Flash Fiction Day. Peter then read a story from the archive, “Selkie”, which was published in MyWeekly which shows how what could be a dark theme can be transformed into a love story. There was then a discussion about endings.
Our next meeting on 25th June 2025 is the adjudication of the poetry competition. Details of our programme can be found online at https://harrogatewriterscircle.weebly.com. If you want to improve your writing then why don't you pop into the next meeting.