Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference Report

WRITER’S DIGEST NOVEL WRITING CONFERENCE REPORT Last week I promised a rundown of the convention I attended this previous weekend and right here it's! The convention was even higher than I’d hoped it would be and I’ll reiterate my “thanks Tweets” to everyone who attended and to Writer’s Digest, who put on a incredible event. I’ll additionally reiterate my strong suggestion to everyone reading this who hasn’t been to at least one author’s convention: Go to 1!If you can’t get to LA or New York, discover one closer to residence. They’re all over and the one closest to you is only a Google search away. So then, my expertise last weekend… I flew in Friday afternoon, understanding (however not liking) that I would miss the full day of sessions on Friday. After a bit of a delay getting off the bottom in Seattle, I lastly made the short flight down to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. If you’ve by no means flown into Burbank, put it on your bucket record. It’s like arriving at a frontier airport in some tiny desert na tion. It’s the only airport I’ve ever flown in and out of that has no jetways. Don’t imagine me? Here’s an image of the sheet metallic ramp that places you proper on the tarmac! The shuttle driver actually picked me up at the airport (not a lot on the return trip, but that’s one other sad story of woe and wish) and I obtained to the Westin Pasadena in time to get to see most of Robert Crais’s opening keynote. I was a little frazzled from journeyâ€"the way in which journey frazzles, I think, most individualsâ€"so didn't take any notes, however I liked the man. He has a very human strategy to writing and I suppose he’d like my Pulp Fiction Workshop. Anyway, he did encourage me to put his books on my to learn listâ€"I wish to start reading more thrillers, so why not his? So now I’m in Pasadena, which, truthfully, shares lots of the issues that I really, really don’t like about LA normally, but it had some character to it, not like “LA generally.” Anyway, I didn’ t come for the sightseeing, I came for the conference and was downstairs bright and early Saturday morning determined to soak up a full day of programming. Hour-long sessions have been set up in four tracks: Craft & Character; Inspiration & Idea Generation; Genre; and Platform, Business & Beyond. I figured, if I could, I’d try to get to at least one in every observe, however mostly I went to what seemed like it will help me most as a authorâ€"exactly the advice I’d give anybody who’s attending considered one of these. I started my day at 9:00 am with The Secret of Mission-Critical Storytelling with Larry Brooks. His message differed from my own “the villain begins the story, the hero ends it,” to rely extra on what the hero wants, focusing on “the hero’s downside.” Though that may make it seem as if we’re by some means diametrically opposedâ€"not so. It’s all about motivation for each hero and villain, protagonist and antagonist. With simply an hour he couldn’t cover the entire premise of the guide he has popping out on the subject, so he stuck with the ideaand his attention-grabbing tackle the distinction between or the combination of concept, idea, and premise that asks, or begins to ask, “What’s the mission of your story?” I took a snap of certainly one of his slides that we’ll name a “teaser” for the forthcoming guide, which might be alone to read shelf. During his talk I scribbled quotes like: “It isn’t a story until one thing goes mistaken,” “Enter a scene on the final attainable second,” and “Do one thing to your story to make it glow at midnight,” which I simply beloved. Next, at 10:15 am, I sat in on April Eberhardt’s The Changing Face of Publishing in which she laid out a reasonably bleak picture of the publishing world. I have to admit I cringed greater than as soon as at her clearly anti-conventional publishing bias. Yes, it’s sluggish. Yes, it’s (extremely) exhausting to break into. Yes, they d on’t do as a lot “advertising” (whatever that really means) as you need them to. But no, they don’t tie up all rights to your book endlessly. No, they don’t call back advances for books that don’t earn outâ€"if she suggested a consumer to sign a contract like that… yikes. But yeahâ€"although it can and routinely does take years to get via the mill from first question to published e-book, it’s still nicely worth a try. Anyway, she had some good, solid recommendation on indie and co-op publishing and received some good, direct questions from an audience longing for help. Also making it onto my to read record was creator Erika Mailman, who talked historic fiction in Delving Into the Past. I’ve been in far orbit round an thought for a historical novel for so lengthy you can write a historical novel about after I first obtained the concept. This session was a lot of enjoyable, especially the arms-on train that compelled me to work out a really sketchy bullet level mini- outline for the start of that book. It was the primary time I ever truly sat down and did that with that idea and a character appeared as if by magic that in all this time thinking about this story by no means occurred to me, then that character’s relationship to another character… wow! This could be the best possible cause to go to one of these conferences: It’s an inspiration-wealthy surroundings,and you by no means know what’s going to trigger an idea, another thought, a connection, and so forth. Lunch, then Not Just Your Hero Needs a Plan from TV author Greta Heinemann, which started out feeling a bitâ€"no, a lotTony Robbins but she’s hilarious and cool and totally pulled it out with real, human, actionable advice on what she called “productiveness hacks” and “accountability hacks” to assist reprioritize writing in our in any other case busy lives. She also has a e-book coming out, the Writer’s Productivity Journal,that might really help you when you’re hav ing hassle getting yourself motivated, preserving your self motivated, and writing. Another TV/movie author (it's LA, after all), Erik Bork, was up subsequent with The Seven Elements of a Viable Story Idea, which was closely slanted toward Hollywood, together with a frankly unusual warning in opposition to originality that I hope no one within the room took to coronary heart, however there’s still a lot to love in his PROBLEM idea: Punishing (hero “in hell and underneath siege”) Relatable (tight POV) Original (“a fresh twist on the acquainted”) Believable (achieve viewers buy-in) Life-altering (massive inner and external stakes) Entertaining (and why not?) Meaningful (theme, which he downplayed) Sounds like I didn’t prefer it right? I appreciated himâ€"the message, on the other hand, could also be all you need to learn about why studio movies and community TV exhibits are so awful. I feel unhealthy saying that, however there it's. Anyway, I was up subsequent withWriting Scaryâ€"once more: great crowd, good questions, and I hope people obtained lots out of it. Saturday drew to a detailed with Curtis Sittenfeld, who I should admit I had never heard of, however I will hunt down her work after her charismatic, snarky, but honest speak. She gets extra overtly political than I’ll ever get, really writing from the POV of Hilary Clinton in each an upcoming novel and a brief story. She read from the latter and it was amazing. Sunday was a brief day beginning with the closing keynote by the refreshingly forthright and refreshingly nerdy Nicola Yoon, another writer I need to start out studying, although a huge YA viewers has way back beat me to her. And right here’s another reason to come back to those: Writers talk to different writers differently than they'd talk to an interviewer for a weblog, a magazine, or a newspaper (and so forth.)â€"and they answer questions about process and the writing life that may be more informative than any staged seminar wi th a strong PowerPoint. Speaking of which, I helped close out the convention with my robust PowerPoint for Act of Villainy, which built out from my on-line tutorial and broke down motivations for villains/antagonists into three layers of motivation. Who is aware of, maybe you’ll see that covered right here in the weeks to come back. But what you received’t get hereâ€"not in the identical method, anywayâ€"is the possibility to ask questions and get an immediate reply and then hear the solutions to different questions. This is one of the few benefits this old recluse can consider to being out there in real lifeâ€"the occasional directed, purposeful, however sincere and inspiring interaction with like-minded fellow travelers. Get on the market, writers! â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Fill in your particulars under or click an icon to log in: