Welcome to the SVA blog. Until last week I didn't really know what a 'blog' was. The internet was just a useful tool to send emails. Now I am faced with all sorts of dilemmas: can I blog and Twitter at the same time? Should I Google or should I Bing? Why would a search engine be named 'Dog Pile'? Anyway, my friends at the SVA have forced me into the 21st century, so here goes.
We meet every two weeks in the beautiful Worcestershire town of Bewdley, famous for its 19 pubs, 5 Indian restaurants and more litter than a McDonald's wheelie bin. The town is surrounded by beautiful woodland and open country and of course the River Severn.
Last week we discussed Anthony's short story 'Drinking with Alphonse', which I thought was a great title. The story revealed much about Anthony's mis-spent youth as a student in France. It was clear that he did more drinking than studying. The story threw up (excuse the pun) many topics for discussion: When is a short story not a short story? Must there be a beginning, middle and an end or indeed what we traditionally consider to be a plot? When is it permissable to break the rules? Rob thought it was, as long as you knew the rules and when you were breaking them. Can you introduce your main character - in this case Alphonse - half-way through the story? There was no real agreement on this, but I thought it was amusing and it kept my interest. Should there be speech marks around a thought? We thought not. And lastly one for the pedants to get their teeth into: How many dots should there be in an ellipsis? There was considerable discussion on this point, but I will let one of my more learned friends illuminate.
Please put your anoraks on and send us your pearls of wisdom on these topics and any others that you would like to discuss. Send all corrections to spelling and punctuation errors from this blog to someone you don't like.
Linda
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