Highlights From #SIWC13

As many of you know, I had the good fortune of attending the Surrey International Writers' Conference this past weekend. If you've never been to a writer's conference (or even if you have), I'm telling you, this is the conference to go to. The workshops are varied and informative, no matter what you write, the opportunity to pitch and get feedback from professionals is superior to any other conference I've heard of, and above all, the friendly camaraderie among writers at all levels and industry professionals is nothing short of incredible.

I wasn't the crazy note-taker that I sometimes am at conferences, but I wanted to pass along a few of my personal highlights:

1. The guy that came up to me in the hallway and told me his kids are my fans.

2. The writers (you know who you are!) who I was able to encourage by sharing some of my personal failures and successes.

3. The three new workshops I was able to book while chatting with teachers and writing groups at the conference.

4. The self-publishing workshops with author Jodi McIsaac and the detailed and highly informative chat I had about self-publishing with author Elena Aitkin. I will be adding some info on this topic to the AuthorStarts website soon!

5. The hands-on training in Presentation Skills with author and presenter Anthony Dalton. I had to get up and do a cold-reading from his book (a book I had never read) while he was pretending he had fainted during a presentation. I had to take over and read until he relieved me. A good challenge!

6. Author Janet Gurtler gave a great talk on cliches in YA, and I came home with a huge list of things that I have done and ideas of how to make them more unique.

7. Great list of things to keep in mind when Writing Heroines, a workshop by Susanna Kearsley. She mentioned how most of these things come naturally to us when writing men, but we have to pay special attention not to skip over them while writing female characters.

8. The awesomely inspiring keynote speeches, especially by Jane Porter and Bruce Hale.

9. The theme! This year's theme was heroes and villains, and here is a little pic of me and a few of my friends:

The weekend was jam-packed with learning and networking and fun, so I could probably go on for pages here, but these are a few things off the top of my head. All I can say is make it a point to be there next year--third weekend in October. You will not regret it!

Highlights From #SIWC2012

I had a FABULOUS time at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference last weekend. I always do, and yet every year I seem to debate whether or not I’ll be able to go again. I get so much out of this event, I NEED to go, even if it means sacrifices. Somebody please remind me of this next July.

So much inspiration. So many new tools for my writerly toolkit. I wanted to share a smattering of my favorite bits from workshops and keynotes over the weekend, but this is by no means comprehensive. Many of the workshop notes will be available through the SIWC blog or website, or through the individual authors’ websites, in case you were unable to make it.
Here are a few of my favorite snippets…

The Room Party
We started meeting with our made-of-awesome Calgary friends a few years ago in one of our rooms with several bottles of wine. It has become an event, and it seems to grow each year. Here’s a little snapshot (thanks Trish Loye Elliot) from this year’s get together:

Yep, we can pack a lot of people into a hotel room!

Pitches and Cardiac Arrest
During my early years at the Surrey conference, I spent at least half my time in the “pitch room” giving pitches of my projects to agents and editors in 10 minute spurts (this is how I actually met my editor, the fantastic Anica Rissi, for Losing Faith) or sitting in terrified silence as published authors read and dissected my work during Blue Pencil appointments.

I arrived at this year’s conference knowing I didn’t need to pitch anything, but thinking maybe I should make a Blue Pencil appointment for one of the many works in progress I have on the go. I arrived at the table outside the pitch room where you make appointments, and my heart started to beat faster. It wasn’t really fear, but the memory of fear. And it also had this addictive quality. I felt like once I booked my first appointment, I’d probably end up standing in lineups and booking ten more. This year I chose to walk away and try to get the most out of the workshops instead.
It was a good choice, because there were some AMAZING workshops. But...I have to admit, my pitch addiction didn't go completely unused over the weekend. I ended up sitting with an agent during one of the lunches, and though I have an agent I'm thrilled with, I couldn't seem to help from pitching my friend's book (and getting a request from him to see her manuscript (!!!)

The Workshops
Here are a few of my favorite snippets…
On Writing Dialogue, with brilliant Eileen Cook:

“You can’t un-know what you already know. The author knows it all, but to a reader, it may just seem like random clapping.”
“In fiction, dialogue needs a purpose, or even better, multiple purposes. It should advance the plot, reveal characters. What people say or don’t say gives us a lot.”
“Avoid adverb overload. “You bitch,” he said angrily. – How else would he say it?”
“Think about how upbringing and social status affect your character’s word choice. How does a low income person express anger? How about a British high roller?”
“Is this dialogue happening at the worst possible place or time?”

On Inspiration in Writing with the Ultra-Inspirational Tanya Lloyd Kyi:

One of my favorite things from this workshop was a writing-prompt type exercise. Tanya handed us each an envelope and three slips of paper. We wrote a character name and description on the first slip, then put it in the envelope and passed it to someone else. Then we wrote out a setting, placed that in the new envelope and passed it to someone new. On the third slip, we wrote a problem, then passed the envelope along.
Then we wrote a scene based on the envelope we were each now holding. Some of the scenes were hilarious, and really wonderful! I hope to use this interactive exercise when I’m giving workshops in the future!
She also had some wonderful bits of advice. Here are a couple:
“To nurture creativity, we have to maintain a sense of childishness and play.”
“Start your day with writing prompts instead of Twitter.” (easier said than done, Tanya!)
“Our eureka moments usually come when we’re generating or combining other ideas.”

On Standout Characters with deep-thinker Donald Maass:

One thing I always love about Don Maass’s workshops is that he always asks lots of great questions that really help me get to the depth of my characters and their situations. What’s their best quality? What’s the opposite of that quality, and how can you show it? What’s an injustice in their world? What would make them react strongly to that injustice?
Plus, here are a few great quotes:
“How characters are when they are at their best is what we care about – brave, funny, good, principled.”
“We back away from suffering. We don’t back away from hope. Readers are drawn to hope.”
“Find a way to make your character strong, real, and filled with hope. This is how to make our readers care about our characters right away.”

On Advanced Social Media with tech-savvy Sean Cranbury:

“The main things you need are Twitter, Facebook, a blog, and Google Analytics connected to your blog.”
“Iterate, Share, Measure, Learn, Connect, Repeat.”
“It’s not either/or anymore. It’s either/and.”

On Writing Teen/Tween Mysteries with sleuth-smart Linda Gerber:

“In a mystery, what will happen if they don’t find out the answer? It has to be a personal thing and it has to matter.”
“The hero is only as exciting as your villain. (An exciting villain will push your hero farther.)”
“In teen novels, you can plant unreliable witnesses all over the place. Teens will often say things that aren’t true for their own benefit.”
“Things to avoid: The clue that changes everything, deus ex machina, schizophrenia, stupid characters, adult intervention, clichés.”

On Pacing with the quick-thinking Boyd Morrison:

“Leave out the boring details. Describe a character with one very distinct characteristic – a scar above his lip tells a lot with so little. You can imagine the whole character.”
“A thriller should be like a roller coaster. Build suspense to the first hill. Release and exhilaration on the fall. The biggest hill should be the last one. Without the quiet in-between scenes, you can’t build up the energy and adrenaline.”
“Dialogue speeds up the pace – especially short and snappy dialogue. Your eye moves quickly down the page.”
“Enter late, leave early, or the Law & Order technique. Leave out the transitions, travel, and boring details.”
“Leave the reader wanting more.”

The Keynotes
ALL of the keynotes were awesome, but I didn’t pull my laptop out and make notes for most of them. So here are just a few short snippets…

From the fabulous and funny Jane Espenson:

“When characters are filled with emotion they get very, very simple. So much more is said by what they’re not saying than by what they’re saying.”
“You don’t have to look good or smell good to be a writer.”

From the forward-thinking Donald Maass:

"New York is like a fortress and your catapult might seem small" but "these are exciting times in publishing."
“Dig deeper. Go further. Change the world.”
“I think the destination ahead is a place we are going to like.”

As I said, this is only a very SMALL amount of what I took in this weekend. This conference is so worth the money, and I think all writers need to find some yearly thing to rejuvenate them. I’m so glad I found the Surrey conference. I hope to see YOU there next year (and make sure to find me and ask about the room party!)

#SIWC2011 Recap!

I had a great time at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. It was the 19th year, and you know what that means. Next year is the big 2-0, which promises to be a huge celebration. The theme will be Roaring 20's, and there will be a big dress up gala on the Saturday night. Write it on your calendar now: October 19-21,2012.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! What about THIS year? I went to some great workshops and took oodles of notes. I'll have to spend a bit of time sorting through them and figuring out what will make sense to you, but here are a few of the highlights:

On Thursday I took in Donald Maass's Master Class: Impossible to Put Down: Mastering the three levels of story to construct a gripping novel. Don talked about the iron skeleton, upon which the big problem of the novel is built, the scene by scene tension, and the micro-tension.

 My biggest takeaway phrase from this class was: "What would you do in your story if you were a braver writer?" Don spent a lot of time helping us wrap our mind around pushing the boundaries and our characters further in our novels.

One of my favorite workshop presenters was my friend, Eileen Cook (and I'm not just saying that because I like her, either!) She came prepared with notes and jokes (she goes everywhere with those), and even movie clips. One of her workshops was on tension (Make War, Not Peace) and talked about how we can take the rules of counseling on how to resolve conflict and reverse them to put our characters into some entertaining situations.

Eileen's other workshop was on the stages of change. Her made-up character "Stan" went on a hilarious and though-provoking journey throughout the class as she took him through the stages of change - starting with getting hit by a bus. If you ever get a chance to take a workshop or writing class from Eileen Cook, I highly recommend it!

 I also enjoyed taking a screenwriting class from Luke Ryan, and even though I'm not a screenwriter, I've always found the principals of screenwriting extremely helpful with novel-writing. He talked about appealing to the four quadrants of viewers: under 25 year old men, over 25 men, under 25 women, and over 25 women, as well as what producers are looking for and why.

Hallie Ephron is another great teacher. Several years ago I took a mystery-writing workshop from her, and I still refer back to my notes from that class. This year, I was able to glean some insight on beginnings and endings, and suspense-writing.

There were lots of other wonderful workshops, and I'll be back later this week with some notes. The food was awesome. The company was even better (*waves hello to the Calgary ladies and all the new folks I met this year*) but probably a highlight for most people was seeing Donald Maass strip an auctioned T-shirt off of Robert Dugoni. True story.

Any of you who were not fortunate enough to attend this year's conference, I highly recommend listening to this inspiring (and funny) keynote by Robert Dugoni:


http://booksontheradio.ca/2011/10/21/robert-dugoni-this-day-we-write-live-audio-from-surrey-international-writers-conference/

Conferences and Kismet

I'm having a great time at the Surrey International Writer's Conference. I've blogged a bit about this idea before, but this conference has reminded me again that kismet is key to the business of writing and publishing. But the thing is, there's not a lot of opportunity for kismet when you're sitting in your house.

I know it's not always possible to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to go to writing conferences. I was extremely blessed this year to receive a grant from the Access Copyright Foundation, which has covered my conference expenses for this weekend. But even if you can't attend a conference, I encourage you to get off of your computer once in a while, get out around other writers, booksellers, librarians, whomever, and get some facetime that's focused on writing and books.

Every time I've come to this conference, or any writing conference, actually, I've had moments of kismet that I can look back on and pinpoint--certain people I've spoken to that have ended up making a difference in my writing life and/or career. In every one of these cases, it took a little bit of coming out of my comfort zone to make the opportunity happen.

This weekend I've seen friends of mine get really impacting writing advice, find new opportunities, and one friend even got an offer of representation right on the spot here. I've had several very informative conversations with professionals about foreign rights, e-rights, film options, and many other things. Not only do I feel enlightened, but I have some new contacts in the business, some of which I have high hopes will be fruitful.

So I encourage you...step out. Talk to someone new about books and writing, and see where it leads. Even if it's a little uncomfortable.

Saturday Stuff

I'm at the Surrey International Writer's Conference and having a fabulous time. Plenty to do here, so just a quick update:

No, I did not shake hands (or offer a signed copy of LOSING FAITH) to the ex-presidents.

But...much more exciting....I have been able to hang out with some great authors, including Eileen Cook, KC Dyer, Elizabeth Boyle, Elena Aitkin, and the ultra-fun Calgary gals! (One of these ladies even got an offer of representation right at the conference! - Which is understandable if you hear her pitch. Still laughing out loud thinking about it).

Aside from celebratory drinks and laughs, I've also been taking some great workshops! Highlights include a great workshop on screenwriting by Luke Ryan (I'll be back this week sharing his extremely easy way of writing a logline), a wonderful, in-depth master class with Donald Maass on making your book a page-turner, and an inspiring keynote by Robert Dugoni.

And I still have two days left of the conference!

I'm just starting another session right now, but I'll be back with more. Lots to share!

#SIWC Madness!

Last night I was excitedly getting ready to go to the Surrey International Writer's Conference, when an email popped up in my inbox from the conference coordinator. The email was instructing all of us "Master Class Attendees" to arrive plenty early today. Why, you ask?

Because--I kid you not--Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would be sharing the hotel with us today.

So I arrived early, as instructed, to this:

In case you can't make it out in the pictures, there are protestors galore (and I'm not going to repeat the things they are yelling!), TV, cameras, there are police in neon jackets everywhere and secret-servicey guys-- complete with the dark suits and little earpieces--throughout the hotel. In our usual "pitch" room, they're right now having the Mayor's lunch with the presidents.

This is just my arrival and it's already very exciting! Can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of the conference!!

#SIWC2010 Notes - 3

This is my third and final set of notes from the Surrey International Writer's Conference. All my other notes I took by hand, and don't have time to transcribe at the moment. But I must say, these are some of the best notes from the conference anyway.

I don't recall what this workshop was called, but it was by the fabulous James Scott Bell and basically outlined his revision process. If you're looking for a good book on craft, specifically on plot and structure, James Scott Bell is your guy. He has a real gift in teaching this area, and I know he has at least a couple of books out on craft.

Here are a few interesting points from his workshop:



Drafting:
Push limits in your first draft.
Revise previous days pages and then move forward.
At the 25k mark, check – are all the elements in the plot engine working? Are all those things solid, because need to be ready to push on for rest of novel.

First Read Through:
First – cool off. Put it away, don’t think about it for at least two weeks.
Print out a hard copy.
Intention is to come back to it as a reader.
He prepares a cover for his book. He wants it to be like a real reading experience.
He has fun – gives himself a blurb on the cover - LOL.
Read like a reader – resist the inclination of stopping to take notes – minimal notes.
James uses 4 main symbols:
Check mark – story is dragging
Parenthesis – incomprehensible sentences
Circle – when stuff needs to be expanded. (fill in the circle)
? – why did I write that? Why is this character doing that? Whatever questions arise.

Systematic Revision Process:
Does the story make sense?
Do the characters act like real people? Would someone really act like that?
Consciously look at story from every character’s POV and get them to make the best decisions that they can for them. Every character must have an agenda.
Are the stakes high enough?
Can the problem have a higher reach?
Does the main character jump off the page?  Needs to be different when they first appear. Plots have all been done, but characters haven't.
Ray Bradbury likes to give every character an obsession.
No wimps! We want active characters.
Use the voice journal – write as fast as you can, trying to get the subconscious mind going.
Inner conflict is one of the great keys. No one should be absolutely sure about what they’re doing.
Hitchcock’s Axiom – a great story is life with the dull parts taken out.
Where is there no conflict, tension, or worry in the characters. Every scene needs to have that feeling.
Is there enough of a worry factor?
At what point could an editor put my book aside and decide not to come back to it? Consider cutting that part.
Raymond Chandler’s advice – bring in a guy with a gun.

Write a summary – 2000-3000 words about your story, not of what it is, but of what it could be.
Do this more than once. Keep working on it over a couple of weeks or more. Keep making the premise and structure stronger.
Change what you need in order to make the story more compelling. Next draft gets done according to the new summary.

Major areas to watch for;
Weak opposition – does you opposition have the power to kill your lead? Crush your lead’s professional pursuits? Crush your lead’s spirit? Opposition needs to be stronger than your lead character.
Slow openings – happy people in happy land. Need some kind of disturbance or ripple. That’s when your story begins.
Too much backstory – you think the reader needs to understand. But readers will wait a long time to understand as long as the disturbance is engaging. Pepper in a little bit of backstory to help bond the reader with the main character. Koontz and King do this well.
Don’t open with weather and dreams.
Characters alone with their feelings. Need to see characters interacting, something happening. (ex. A woman’s husband has just left. Don’t care because we don’t know her. Even if it's just her being served divorce paper’s, at least it’s interaction so we can feel more for her.) Need to see a character doing something and talking. Dialogue helps us know the character quicker. This also forces you to write a more active scene.
So much dialogue is not done well, so show early on that you can do it well.

Chapter 2 switcheroo. Start with second chapter instead, because that’s often where things kick in a bit more. Withhold info from chapter one and pepper it in.
Start deeper. Can you start your scene further in? Check this with every scene.
Action scene – viewpoint character has an agenda and is being opposed. Action or reaction?
What each character wants in every scene, and how are they being opposed? At least one character in every scene must have this.
If the character’s not worried about something, the reader won’t be either.
Action/ Emotion mirror – impending doom – lots of emotion there.
Dialogue – fastest way to improve a manuscript. A compression or extension of action. If characters are saying something, it’s because they want something or are resisting something. Flows from one character to another without extra explanation. Cut boring dialogue. Need tension always.
Great dialogue begins with orchestration – are they all different so there’s potential for conflict? Do they all sound different?
3 acts – 1 memorable line of dialogue in each to elevate it for the reader.
Write out a vanilla line and then play with it.
Use silence and action responses, not always dialogue.

End of revision process – what is a possible theme? – how to find – imagine character 20 years later. Why did they have to go through the story – ask them. What would character say. Have the character make an argument about that very lesson early in the story.
Wizard of Oz – says to Toto she wants to get away from home. Ends with no place like home.
Polish – concentrate on scene openings and endings. Sometimes you can turn around the descriptive passages at beginning – move description later.
Chapter endings – try cutting last paragraph, see if it works. Don’t write scenes to their full logical completion.
Compress dialogue. Final pass through dialogue, cut entire lines, words within, put in silences. Gives a real sense of tightening.
Dial up or down 25% - try to overwrite emotion, you can always bring it down later.


See, amazing, right? The more I learn, the more I realize I need to learn. I hope you got something out of this, and if so, I'd love to hear what you find most interesting/enlightening here.

I'll be back tomorrow with Teen Author Tuesday, and then later in the week with some NaNo Prep Tips!

#SIWC2010 Notes - 2

I chose some great workshops yesterday! Unfortunately, the Internet has been dicey, so it's been difficult to get any notes up and posted. I didn't make it to the social media workshop yesterday, but I heard that they put twitter up on the overhead projector. While exploring hashtags, they looked up #siwc2010 (by the way, if you haven't been watching this hashtag, you should! Lots of interesting little bits from the conference there.) Anyway, while looking up #siwc2010, my blog post happened to have been the latest tweet up on the screen, and KC Dyer clicked on the link to my blog! I'm very sad that I missed out on seeing this, but not completely sad, because I was at another AWESOME workshop.

What’s So Funny?
by Senior vice-president of theatrical production at MGM, Luke Ryan!

Too cool, right? Luke started as a screenwriter, so he had plenty of insight on the writing, and some wonderfully funny things to say about humor. I don't want to give away all of his notes here, but I'll pass along a few highlights. If you ever get the opportunity to hear him speak, I highly recommend it!

Out of the top 50 movies of all time, only 6 were comedies. It costs much less to make comedy than action/fantasy/adventure.

Luke asked the group in the workshop what’s funny to them, and this is what they came up with: the unexpected, slapstick, sarcasm, black humor- making fun of something nobody would normally make fun of. The joke you can feel coming, exaggerated personalities, absurdity.



But Luke brought it down to three main points:
1.    Pain
2.    Awkwardness
3.    Discomfort

Develop character we care about and then beat the snot out of them. (One of my favorite lines of the class!)

It's easy to have a good comedy idea, hard to come up with good comic writing.

Two types of Diminishment
1.    Physical – bathroom humor, bonked on head humor, can’t control himself
2.    Emotional- over-reactive/under-reactive – character responds with more or less emotion than expected. Witty banter/dialogue.

Everybody loves it when a fat guy falls down. Jim Carrey.
Over-reactive – Will Ferrell, Chris Farley.
Under-reactive  - Bob Newhart, Chevy Chase
Bill Murray/Steve Martin – can do both.
2 or more people – usually one over and one under reactive.
Beat - unit of narrative measurement that expresses a specific idea or action
Single beat jokes – no set up, and seldom very effective. Incidental comedy.
Two-beat jokes – set up to prepare jokes, follows with a payoff. The beats can come right next to each other or separated.
Resonance – like two old friends that show a joke over time.
Multi-beat jokes – still starts with a set-up, ends with a payoff but inserts anticipation beats in between to heighten interest and add information. Rule of 3.
The longer of setup and anticipation beats, the greater the payoff.

Make a comedic spine to run over the course of the movie.

Luke also gave us 21 things that are always funny. Here are a few highlights:
1.    I’m not going to… - character swears he won’t do something, cut to where he does.
2.    Physical comedy – head bonks, contorting in impossible way, falling down, impossible physical challenges. He showed a clip/montage from Dumb and Dumber – tongue stuck to pole in winter, carrot on snowman, throwing snowball too hard, tackle girl he likes. Over-reactive comedy.
5.    Gross-out Humor – bodily functions and secretions. Always have to outdo last, but can’t go too far. Comic suspense starts in Dumb and Dumber scene when Lloyd Christmas gives Harry Turbo-Lax. Then we wait for the payoff. Waiting to laugh. We don’t see what’s so gross (that would be too much). Embarrassment sets in when he cracks the window, Invasion of Privacy when Mary knocks.
10.    Doing exactly what he’s told (instead of the implied).
11.    Playing To/ Playing against – well-known stereotypes. Race or gender things work well here.
13.    Comic Reveal – reveals a hidden truth to audience that character doesn’t know.
16.    Defining the Underdog – we find humor in what’s expected and what they’ll actually be able to do. (My Cousin Vinnie – unskilled lawyer, failed Bar 6 times, needs to get them out of jail).
19.    Vulgarity
20.    Comic Repetition – use it until it’s not funny anymore, then digging it up and using it to a greater degree until it’s funny again.
21.    Obsessive Drive – can’t control himself and tries everything to complete goal, may actually bring him further from his goal.

I hope that's helpful! Do you have any favorite types of comedy or favorite comic movies? What about comic novels? I've been reading AUDREY WAIT! by Robin Benway, and it's hilarious! It's a nice change of pace to be reading something funny after a lot of darker reads. I'd love to hear if you have any recommendations!