THE MAY meeting of the Airedale Writers Group got to the heart of what the group is about: examining what makes good writing.

This time it was through critiquing original items submitted by members themselves.

First up was Joan Nicholson’s account of a tour of a Hindu temple.

Members noted that it said little about the temple, but a lot about the mix of social and religious activities taking place inside and the conduct of the guide, whose explicitness about both temple and personal sexual mores was more memorable than the architecture.

The humour of the piece and the portrayal of the guide’s character were among the discussion points, questions of split infinitives and other grammatical points were disputed, but all agreed that focussing on the guide rather than the temple was a novel approach.

Pat Farley’s poem The Spindlies was next.

Six stanzas in gothic style took the reader on a terrifying walk at dead of night through a dense forest haunted by Spindlies, a supernatural phenomenon entirely conjured out of Pat’s imagination but so well conceived everyone thought they must be genuine folklore.

We decided it was a very impressive incarnation of pure fear and terror, reinforced by the relentlessness of the regular rhyming scheme, which graphically heightened the tension with clever use of internal rhymes, effective alliteration and arresting vocabulary.

The third piece was an extract from Neil Wilson’s autobiographical memoir on being a GP in the Dales.

It took the form of a dialogue between him and a newly qualified doctor who was amazed how recently handwritten notes had been superseded by computers.

Neil wanted to check out how digestible the inevitable technical detail would be to non-medical readers; in the event we found the detailed history of medical record-keeping fascinating.

There was useful discussion about the pros and cons of presenting the material in the form of a dialogue, and how to keep the lightness of conversational tone whilst imparting large chunks of information.

So much was learnt by everyone from detailed examination of different kinds of writing in an atmosphere of critical friendship.

Two newcomers attended: Lisa Firth works for The Dalesman, so gave us useful insight into the newspaper world as well as having one work of non-fiction and a novel soon to be published under her belt.

Jess, with a degree in criminology, has had to postpone her PHD but wants to keep her crime writing going. These young, aspiring writers are a great addition to the club.

So if you’re an aspiring writer, why not join us! We meet on the second Tuesday of each month.

The next meeting, on Tuesday June 14 at 7.30pm at Sight Airedale, Scott Street, Keighley, will feature a talk given by Noel Moroney on Past Times in West Yorkshire.

• Have you missed any of our previous Write On columns from members of Airedale Writers Circle? Simply visit keighleynews.co.uk, click on What’s then Out & About, and you find a host of interesting articles.