Conference Insights and My Fave New Releases

Hello again, fellow interwebbers! Can you believe summer is here already? Well...sort of. What have you been up to in recent weeks?

My YA steampunk is coming along nicely, and I had a chance to attend the Milwaukee Writing Workshop with Chuck Sambuchino and a panel of fantastic agents. (You can see who here).

One of the most interesting segments was the first-page panel, where Chuck read aloud a variety of first pages from the crowd, and the eight agents then raised their hands at the moment they'd personally stop reading.

We got through about 35 first pages, from a variety of genres, and got an inside glimpse of an agent's thought process while reading queries, feedback and reasons for stopping. I was impressed with the panel's professionalism, business savvy, and love for stories!

Chuck's final piece of advice for the day? "Put down the remote!" The room chuckled, but it's sadly true. Butt-in-chair time works for a reason, folks.

The conference netted lots of great take-aways, on everything from platform to publishing options. I captured some of the highlights for you below.

New Releases that Deserve a Place on Your Shelves!

In the last week, two books launched that should be on your radar and your TBR.

LION HEART, by A.C. Gaughen

The conclusion of Gaughen's Robin Hood trilogy, told from the colorful and delightful viewpoint of Scarlet/Marian. And if that's not enough convincing, read my reviews of SCARLET and LADY THIEF.

FLINTLOCK, by Ashley Nixon

I was lucky enough to read this one prior to publication, and I'm so excited it's out in the world for all of you now! I loved Ashley Nixon’s pirate fantasy, CUTLASS, and said I couldn’t wait to see where she took the series. Well, with the release of FLINTLOCK, the answer is: bigger, broader and even more fun! Catch my full review here.

What's on your summer reading list?

Writer Panels Galore

Gorgeous artwork from Charles Urbach!

I’m back from the festivities, where I stocked up on beautiful fantasy art and listened to incredible writer panels! We heard from Brandon Sanderson, Elizabeth Vaughn, James Sutter, Mike Stackpole, Matt Forbeck, Dave Gross, John Helfers, Mary Robinette Kowal and Howard Taylor.

Lots of great author brains all in one place!
 

Here are my favorite take-aways:

 

Worldbuilding

• Let idea seeds brew. When (if) they fuse, then you know it’s time to do an outline.
• A good story is about great characters. No matter how great your setting is, you can’t have awful characters and still have a great story.
• Leave doors open. Don’t fully explain every detail, leave it to the imagination and you can come back to it later in the series. Worldbuilding snafus can often turn into opportunities later.
• Two types of worldbuilding: physical and cultural. You can decide where to invest your time. If you’re not a scientist, strict physical worldbuilding can back you into a corner with details. Get 80% there, then ask an expert.
• Gardeners and architects: Gardeners grow the story as it goes. Architects build the story ahead of time. They might be susceptible to worldbuilding disease.
• Iceberg Theory: Readers should only see the tip. You, the author, know the rest, but it doesn’t show.
• Practical tips: Make sure water flows downhill, use real maps for inspiration on continent features, consider the influence of rain shadows, beware of medieval economics, consider sanitation needs.
• Be crazy! You don’t have to base your world on medieval Europe and, remember, the entire world doesn’t all need to advance at the same pace. Certain regions can rise and fall or be more advanced than others.
• Balance your readers’ learning curve by not introducing too much, too fast.

 

 

Plotting

• All plot stems from character growth.
• Character growth happens when the character reflects on his or her own change. This growth is permanent and leads to “wicked cool drama.”
• Always find room for romance.
• Any fact in the story needs to have a set-up.
• A new ending may emerge as you’re writing. Don’t immediately stop to rewrite. You can add plot hints in the second draft.
• If you’re either totally confused or totally bored as an author, you have too much or too little plot.
• Pacing is the “magic” of writing. It’s an instinctual feel.
• The difference between short stories and epic novels is where you begin.
• As you read a book, jot down what you like or don’t like about what the author did, then study how they accomplish it.
• Betrayal is huge as a plot device.

 

Oh, and we got to sit in on live tapings of the Writing Excuses podcast series, which was very fun!

 

Without doubt, my favorite part was meeting Brandon Sanderson and being able to hear his advice firsthand. Among living authors, he is the one whose craft I most deeply admire. He’s done so much to pass along his writing insights to others (In case you didn’t know, he shares his lectures here and his novel drafts here), and he’s finishing my most beloved series. I wanted to say "thanks!"

 

He and the others talked about believing in the power of writing and characters and stories for all the same reasons I do.

 

It definitely was a reaffirming experience!

 

How about you? If you could meet a living author, who would you want it to be?

 

Getting My Geek On!

I'm off to GenCon this weekend. It'll be my first time, so my friends are initiating me into the whole crazy fun experience!

Things I'm looking forward to most:

• Sessions with Brandon Sanderson - one of my all-time favorite authors
• The artists' avenue - I think I may do some damage to the cash fund with this one ;)

I'll be back next week with a full report and pictures. Maybe I'll even see a few of you there!

And if you're looking for my "What If" Blogfest entry, it's here!

Karen Returns!

Last week, I interviewed my good writing friend, Karen Philips. She's back today to talk a little more about writing conferences and the publishing world in the UK.

1. You went to last year's Swanwick Writer's Conference. Tell us about it!
Oh, yes. The Swanwick Writers’ Summer School is in Derbyshire, UK. The annual conference lasts a whole week in August. Over 600 writers, published and pre-published, plus agents, famous authors, (yes, I’ve stood in the bar with Iain Banks), all sharing meals, talks on the lawn and generally hanging out. Pretty mind-blowing if you’ve never been to anything like that. Jealous!

I didn’t know many writers beforehand and wrongly assumed the place would be full of introverts, who prefer reading to talking to people! Couldn’t have been more wrong. Which just shows what I know!

Everyone was very friendly. The excellent back-to-back lectures covered everything from self-editing to Sci Fi writing, and you could dip in and out as you wanted. I also had two agent one-to-one sessions. One with John Jarrold (Iain Banks’ top agent) and one with Benjamin Scott (a YA writer, teacher, SCBWI organiser-person). They both went through my chapter one and gave very insightful feedback. I think that was a turning point for me. Their positive encouragement, as professionals in the industry, made me realise that perhaps I could actually do this writing lark, and be good at it.

Of course you can, silly!

One of the best bits of the course was being immersed with other people like me! All talking about plotting, character development, book recommendations, and wanting to discuss the writing problems they needed to find solutions to. I loved it! Welcome to Planet Writer. It’s a blast.

Love the "Planet Writer" phrase. I need to use that one more often.

2. What differences have you noticed between the U.S. and U.K. publishing markets?
That’s a really good question. There are some big differences as far as I can see. And it’s swings and roundabouts for writers in either country.

My understanding of the U.S. market, especially in my genre, YA, is that it’s bigger and much more established. There are ten times as many agents representing YA, so you have more to submit to. Here in the U.K. there are perhaps twelve agencies that I can/want to query. Once I’ve gone through all twelve, I’m stuck. 

However, on the plus side for the U.K., we’re in an expanding market. YA is only just getting going, and all the U.K. agents are open for submissions from British writers. 

The other lucky thing about being a U.K. writer is that the submission process to agents is easier than in the U.S. We are required to send an email query letter, a one page synopsis and the first chapter/three chapters depending on the agency. So we get to send them our work, before being rejected! You guys sometimes only get to send the query letter without being able to send any of the actual work, until it’s requested. That’s tough.

But, hey, you guys have better weather and cool language. So you can’t complain. Meanwhile, it’s peeing down here in England.  It is June, after all. ;-))

Haha, noted.

Good luck with the writing!

Thanks again for the great insights, Karen, and for generally being all kinds of awesome.