Workshop Day 3, Thursday Sept. 26.
A free morning. Five of us went to Reston to hang out in a coffee shop, check out a used book shop and talk about writing. It was a chance to finish the material Joe asked for, and give him a chance to read it. I also spent more time writing.
That afternoon we had two formal sessions. First, "Dialogue As Action", with Richard Washer, a college professor. He used Hills Like White Elephants as an example of dialogue action. I'm pretty sure I've read it before, years ago. There's a lot to talk about regarding the dialogue in that story, and he lead a very good discussion.
Then we had a discussion lead by Michael. He asked each of us to summarize the first scene of our novels. He actually thought mine worked well. It begins with action, shows the main character's current life situation, ie: her crippled Talent and love for her son. And sets up for the Inciting Incident that causes her to leave home.
After lunch I talked to Joe. He had some suggestions about my magic system and antagonist, and critiqued my pitch. The pitch needed to mention the antagonist sooner than the last sentence. And the way I describe him is awkward and long-winded. So I spent time on the magic, and figuring out succinct ways to describe my antagonist, as homework.
Day 4, Friday Sept. 27.
The schedule was four sessions; Queries, Dialogue, Suspense & Scene Building, and Pitching and Market Talk.
We didn't do Queries. Few of us were ready for that stage. Michael lead sessions on dialogue and protagonist sympathy factors, using material from the workshop's e-book. My notes of that morning aren't very detailed, so I don't remember whose stories we discussed. If I contributed it was only briefly.
After lunch we had two guest presenters, Art Taylor and Emily Williamson. Art's session was about building suspense in the story, whatever genre it is. He used five or six extracts from best-selling novels as ways to discuss various aspects of creating surprise & suspense. Using short sentences to increase pace. Using description to slow the reader down if needed. Leaving out information to increase tension. I took notes on his hand-out. Hopefully I'll remember to use some of it!
Emily Williamson is an agent. In her introduction she said she doesn't handle SF & Fantasy (sigh). She talked about finding agents, what they do and don't do, and publishing in general, and people asked questions. What she said matched up well with other things I've been reading. One things she didn't do was ask us to read our pitches for her -- something Michael wanted us to have experience of.
After the sessions I continued working on my magic system and the antagonist. Joe wanted me to change the names for the magic in my world, because the terms I'm using are over-done. I kept the basic mechanisms but did some re-organizing and re-naming. Even with all the reading I've done in the fantasy genre, I'm behind on the trends in the last 5-10 years. It was a good exercise and I hope the magic system fits better now with the world I've created.
I finally came up with a good "nickname" for the antagonist. With that, I was able to write a better pitch that mentions him sooner, and brings out his importance in the plot.
The other point of feedback was the dragon. Books with dragons have been popular for decades, and there's a lot of dragon fantasy out there right now. Is the market becoming over-saturated? Will readers still want to read about dragons two or so years from now, when I'm (HOPEFULLY!) submitting to agents and publishers? Cross your fingers! Either way, it was suggested I come up with something new and "unique" about my dragons. Michael had some good suggestions, so I'm going to work on it.
Michael's other feedback was I'm not being hard enough on the antagonist and protagonist. They need to suffer more! I do tend to shy away from that. It was good to have someone point it out. Let the suffering commence!
Day 5 (last day), Saturday, Sept. 28.
Saturday was mostly on our own. In the morning I worked on dragon and magic things. In the afternoon I had a consult with Michael. He read part of my first chapter and gave feedback. He was positive about my writing, which was encouraging. We discussed the dragon more. On the fly, using his suggestion, I came up with a background story for my main dragon character that might make my novel's dragons different enough to stand out from the crowd of other dragon fantasy novels. We'll see.
It was our last evening, so we all had dinner at The Old Brogue in Falls Church. I had salmon and vegetables. I probably didn't need the tiramisu for dessert, but it was good! Going home on Sunday was a long day of waiting in airports and sitting in airplanes. At least Minneapolis airport is interesting to hang out in. Ken picked me up after midnight.
All in all, I'm glad I went. There were rough moments, and some things could have been better organized. Being critiqued isn't always fun but on the other hand, to have people actually reading my work and making suggestions based on industry knowledge was great. It's why I went to the conference. My attitude was that it was my responsibility to get as much out of it as I could, and I think I did that. Now it all depends on my ability to execute my revised plan! Ideas are "easy". Writing about them well is hard, at least for me.
Even better, I met some great people! We've agreed to stay in touch, and I hope we'll all be good writing buddies for the future.
