RWA Conference – Day 1 (or Day 4 of Vacation)
There is a direct correlation between free Internet and the ability to blog on a regular basis. This post is belated since I didn't have ongoing access to the Internet, but hopefully it is still a worthwhile read. Enjoy!
I’m sitting out by the pool, surrounded by palm trees and a
summer breeze, as I write this blog. Anaheim has some amazing weather,
especially for summer.
Yesterday, my writing buddy CJ and I did some networking,
attended a book signing, and went to Downtown Disney using a Mickey pass on a
transit bus. CJ was quite happy to get her dosage of Mickey, she practically
has Mouse-Covered walls. They *did* have mouse ears for benches, which I
thought was quite cool!
Today was the “official” start of the conference. Breakfast
was more than I expected – decent food but nowhere to really sit. It was like
eating breakfast at a cocktail party. After, we began the seminar panels.
Panel 1 – Raising the
Stakes for your Characters – by Virna DePaul
GREAT panel, which made me smile because on opening day, the
panels can go either way. She was organized, well-spoken, and knowledgeable. I
really liked that she used movie references to make her point. She had
obviously attended every workshop and retreat on story structure, screenwriting
structure, book structure, etc. because she incorporated all that knowledge
into an amazing presentation.
Key points:
1. Ratchet up the stakes for your characters. Think “JAWS”
music, how it starts slow and ominous and gets faster and faster. That’s what
you want with your book.
2. Raising the stakes means something the character can win
OR lose. It doesn’t have to be something he/she can lose only.
3. Readers want to experience all the turning points that
the character goes through. The beginning, the need to change, the believable
reason for the character to step away from an average day to meet his/her goal,
and fighting for it until the end.
Panel 2- Show, Don’t
Tell
Next came a panel by Janice Hardy about the ever-repeated
writer rule: Show, Don’t Tell.
Another great panel! She brought up several words and
phrases to be careful of when writing, because often these words tell emotions
rather than let the reader experience them. Words such as “she felt happy”
doesn’t SHOW us anything, it tells us. Saying “she grinned so wide, her teeth
gleamed in the Texas sun” is better.
One key point I really liked from her speech was: If you
can’t “act” it out, then you are telling. For example, if you say, “Anger
bubbled from her heart.” She had 3 volunteers come up from the audience and try
to act out the sentence. They had no idea what to do. However, if the sentence
spoke of a woman’s shoulders slumping, her crawling into the fetal position,
etc., this helps us “see” the scene more.
The welcome luncheon was a busy experience, as always, but
good food and an inspiring speech by Stephanie Laurens. Her main point was that
no matter how the e-book revolution may change the distribution and marketing
of books, bottom line – we are writers. We are storytellers. Our job is to get
the works of emotion to readers, no matter which channel we accomplish that
goal.
Panel 3- “Dialogue:
It’s More than What You Say” by Julia Quinn
This was probably the most popular panel of the day! I
arrived 15 minutes early and there was standing room only. The host managed to
get some extra chairs, but otherwise this was a packed panel!
Lots of interesting info, the difference between dialogue
tags (such as “she said”) and action tags (such as “Jane walked into the room.
Then the dialogue is listed here)
A great day overall.
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