While a lot of time is spent
roaming the halls, hugging and chatting with friends, I am also making a point
to attend several panels and seminars, since the con does a great job putting
together a track for writers, as well as artists, media fans, and gamers. This
afternoon I started out with the Writers Reception, where John Hartness served
as MC, inviting each writer guest to introduce himself or herself, and briefly mention
new or upcoming publications. This is a great open venue for attendees who don’t
know most of the guests, and it is nice to hear what people are up to. But I
keep up with most of these folks on Facebook and various other social media, so
this was a pretty social rather than informative event for me.
I skipped out of the end of the
Writers Reception to attend my first “real” panel, “Can’t Stop the Signal,”
because, well, Firefly! And I know panelists writer guest Misty Massey and music
GOH Mikey Mason, although I didn’t know the 3rd panelist, Tony
Finkelstein. I’ll confess, I didn’t stay long. The panel had gotten way off
topic by the time I came in, and they were having a hard time wrangling the
discussion back to an interesting Firefly-focussed theme. *shrug* That’s the way
it goes sometimes, but I decided I would go check on a few dealers I knew who
should have been setting up in the dealers room by then.
The dealers’ room was half empty
close to 5pm? Weird, because I knew at least three dealers who were missing but
had planned to arrive even earlier than I. Well, I made the circuit and said hi
to several more folks that I knew – I’ve spent a lot of money in dealers rooms
over the years.
Waiting to catch up with a couple
of friends for dinner, I stopped in to the “50 Years of Doctor Who” panel,
where I knew Davey Beauchamp, Angela Pritchett and Drew Meyer would be waxing
eloquent about all things Doctor Who. Joined by K.G. McAbee and Jaysen Buterin,
they thoroughly entertained the audience with discussions of favorite Doctors,
favorite Companions, best story elements, theories on the successful longevity,
and more.
Another swing through the dealers
room connected my dinner party, and we enjoyed walking across the boardwalk to the
Bad Dog American Pub. Coming back, we admired the Gotham car and the
Ghostbusters car outside the hotel.
The highlight of the Friday
sessions for me was the first Magical Words Seminar, “Choosing the Right Words,”
led by Misty Massey, David B. Coe, and Faith Hunter. Misty pointed out that telling a story is essentially painting with words, and choosing
the right words is so much more than throwing darts at a thesaurus list. David
staked his position that every writer needs a good *print* dictionary and
thesaurus at hand when writing, though Faith argued that there were certainly
good applications or even online resources available. An audience member asked
if the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is still the “gold standard,” which the
panel agreed. David said he happily uses the Merriam 11th Edition,
which includes the 1st date words came into usage, which is
important when checking for historical accuracy. A few fun examples:
- “Par the for course” would
be well after the late 1800s when golf was first established in Scotland.
- Paranoia was a concept 1st
expressed in the 19th century. An earlier character wouldn’t
even recognize the term, even if they were familiar with feelings of fear,
distrust, etc.
- Misty pointed out the use
of “You’re okay” early in the Pirates
of the Caribbean movie. It bothered her to hear, but upon checking,
the word “okay” was in use at that time, although perhaps not by a young
English lady.
There was a long discussion about
the use of “said” attributing dialog. Often called the “invisible word,” some
writers (and even some editors) mistakenly engage “said bookisms” to avoid
overusing the word, choosing words like “retorted, opined, declared, etc.”
instead. Faith pointed out that writing dialogue itself is creative, but the
effort of going through and making sure it’s all properly and clearly
attributed is just must-do technical detail.
Another interesting discussion
point centered around point-of-view (POV), especially the “headhopping” or omniscient
narrator of the 80s, which seems to be resurfacing lately.
This led to a discussion about
the constraints editors face in today’s industry. Where they used to have
greater resources and time to devote to each book, now the author must take
more responsibility to make sure their work receives a thorough editorial
review. David said he thought that reviewing his own work with a critical
editor’s eye was one of the greatest strengths he had honed over the past
several years.
Long discussion on word choice in
the narrative context. That is, you would use different language to describe a
fight scene – fast, exciting, sharp, brutal, strong, powerful – vs a love scene
– tender, romantic, steamy. Faith mentioned a very successful, pithy scene
written in the Stephanie Plum novels, which was not explicit, yet the word
choice was so well done that the effect was electrifyingly steamy!
This led to a discussion of the
absolute necessity to read! Read! Read! Find authors you like and study the
*way* they write to better understand how you can craft your own voice.
Read aloud—often when something
needs work, it simply does not sound right.
Have someone else read—with a
different voice, out of your head, you can hear how it will sound to a 1st-time
reader.
Print it out and read it on paper
(if you’ve written on the computer) – seeing it in a different medium can make a
big difference in how you “see” something.
David also suggested reading an
old work of yours. First, it will be better than you expect, but you’ll likely
recognize deep-rooted tendencies or flaws in your writing style that may appear
in current work and help you change them.
Funny discussion about
unintentional mistakes people make in word choice or pronunciation. Check your
words, including how to pronounce them. And I do wonder what “excruciating
potatoes” would taste like! An audience member noted a story with a strong narrative
voice in a dialect that grew “old” before the end of the story. If you’re going
to use incorrect grammar or speech, make sure it’s clearly the character’s
voice, not the author’s voice!
Quick discussion about word
choice for the YA market. One audience member said Lemony Snicket did a great
job of introducing higher level vocabulary and explaining it in context without
talking down to the readers. Faith said she knew editors often said that
writers needed to “dumb it down” for kids, but that kids don’t like it. They’re
not afraid to admit they don’t know a word or to look it up, while she thought
adults sometimes resisted doing so. Another audience member said R.L. Stein has
said he used big words for kids and little words for adults.
Final quick note about cursing,
not just for the YA audience, but in general, that the usage seems to have been
dropping in recent years. David pointed out that cursing well done can be
almost poetic in its delivery.
A “bottom line” point was made
that writers are market oriented and do/should write in the language that will
be most accessible to the broadest spectrum of their potential readers (and
buyers).
This point was central to the
tail end of the other seminar I attended, “Writing the Other”, which was largely
off=topic by the time I came in. But the point was made that bookstores were
marketing to customers in ways to get the product into their hands and the
money out of their wallets as quickly as possible.
I enjoyed some more hall conversations
and decided to turn in early tonight. Tomorrow will be a very long, fun, and
interesting day!
Music:
|
Rachel Portman, Chocolat
|
Time writing:
|
~45 minutes
|
May word
count:
|
20,219
|
You took such great notes!
ReplyDelete