Friday

I felt much better Friday though still a little wiped out. At least my food (the little I ate) didn't make a return journey!

I went to a workshop titled Creating the Action-Adventure Heroine by Vickie Hinze and Natasha Wilson.Vicki is a wonderful writer and a very generous lady. She provides an invaluable service to writers (published and otherwise) in her Aid4Writers newsletter which is available on her website.Natasha is, I believe, a Bombshell editor (I didn't quite catch it during the bio's).

Primarily, the workshop centered around creating a good heroine, her world, background, childhood. In other words, creating a detailed, multi-dimensional character. The Heroine should have some quality or skill that makes her larger than life (does anyone know what that means?). She should have an emotional stake in the conflict. Her book plot and characters should be unpredictable (to keep the reader guessing). Among the things Natasha said, there should be a great first line--something that draws the reader in and makes her want to read more. Natasha doesn't want to 'notice' curse words popping up or names in dialogue, ie "Joe, give me the money." "I'll give it to you when I'm ready, Kate." She advises writers to think of the 100 word back cover copy (or blurb). And she's looking for the 'spark' that sets the book apart from all the others she gets. Both speakers emphasized motivation which leads to creditable, believable character action. After the presentation, Vicki had a drawing of prizes. I won a mouse pad that says 'Writing is not for Wimps' which is the honest to god truth!

After that, I attended the Best Sellers Guidebook presentation by Susan Elizabeth Phillips which was described as having 15 practical tips a writer could take to the bank on managing subplots, nailing characters and keeping yourself sane. Right off the bat, Susan admitted she didn't have 15 tips--she only had 4. A person could feel cheated but Susan's force of personality and the tips she did give made so much sense, I don't think anyone left the workshop feeling let down. Susan gave a guiding goal for writers--Keep The Reader In The Story. She advises doing this by writing a book that is so compelling the reader can't put it down; the reader cares so much about the characters, she doesn't want to leave them; the book shows the world in a rivetting way; and the author's voice shines. Among her tips 1) Work to master good craft--IOW, don't make grammatical mistakes, don't use repetitive words, don't have long, boring paragraphs of description, Do vary your sentence structure, alternating between simple and complex sentences, don't have awkward POV shifts. 2) Create dazzling characters--characters should produce an emotional response in the reader, they should be sympathetic but not perfect, give them flaws but keep their hearts pure (the villain has flaws but his/her heart isn't necessarily pure), make them realistic and larger than life (there's that term again), they should be well motivated (both in their actions and motivations), the character should develope and grow through the story, each character should have a strong individual voice. 3)Revisions--start with the hero, read ONLY his scenes to make sure his thoughts/feelings/actions are consistent from scene to scene. Then do the same with the heroine. 4) Write a fast moving plot. I think I may have missed other good pointers but I don't take notes fast. Sigh.

After that workshop, I took a break and returned to my room until the luncheon where I met with Susan Baxter and Patti O'Shea. Patti was up for the Prism award for her THE POWER OF TWO at the FF&P Gathering on Thursday night which I was unable to attend. Regrettably, Patti took third place. First place went to CJ Barry for her UNLEASHED. All the finalists were strong books--it's too bad they couldn't all be first place winners!

After lunch, I attended a workshop titled Writing Paranormal Romance with speakers Anna Genoese, Susan Kearney, Jill Barnett, CT Adams, Lori Handeland, Susan Grant and Patricia Simpson. This workshop was somewhat unmemorable, perhaps partly due to my location near the door. I couldn't hear some of the speakers clearly. In fact, the only thing that really stands out was a question from the audience to Anna G. The question was 'Does Tor accept paranormal chich-lit? Anna sounded just a bit peeved when she retorted 'Do you read any of our books?' IOW, it's a real good idea to do a little background on the publisher to see what they publish.

After that, I attended a workshop given by Jennifer Crusie Revisions 102++. Jenny is another speaker who can keep you enthralled by the force of her personality alone. However, she talks faster than I can write! The little I actually caught suggested that a writer concentrate on revising by units of scene. A scene is a unit of conflict between the protagonist and antagonist that happens in one time/place in pursuit of a goal. The scene is over when the reader sees that the protagonist is going to achieve their goal. An effective scen has one goal, one conflict and escalates the tension/plot. The basic scene dynamic is: Will the protagonist defeat the antagonist in pursuit of her goal? Jenny also spoke about Conflict Lock where the protagonist and antagonist have the same goals. I confess I missed a lot of this due to her speed talking but I think I'll try to locate her website and see if she has something on it to clarify it.

After that workshop, I again returned to my room. I had wanted to attend the Spotlight on Tor but was still feeling wiped from the illness I had on Thursday. I ended up falling asleep and missed the later workshop on Writing Hot by Jennifer Dunne. Oh well. At least that one was on the conference CD I ordered.

Today, I have my editor/agent appointments. So I guess I'd better start practicing my pitch for them. Let's hope I get the right pitch to the right person!!