Writing Wednesday - Tucson Festival of Books - History Meets Fantasy

First, my weekly writing update. I actually still need to do a lot of typing on my snowflake, but I'm basically working on Step 4 now (and actually enjoying coming up with some new threads!). But I have a lot of work ahead of me. It's a bit depressing that the author of the snowflake method says that it may have taken as long as a week to get to this step...I need to work harder.

So as I think I promised, I'm going to share with you everything I heard at the Tucson Festival of Books! Preface: I attended most panels because of an interest in the TOPICS, not the speakers. So some of the people you may see referenced may not write things that are in line with my beliefs, and me mentioning an author here isn't any sort of endorsement at all unless I state otherwise. OK?

I roughly outlined the festival earlier. There are tons of "workshops" and "panels." Most look something like this one.

So I was tempted to go to the panel that author Dave Cullen commented on my blog was on at 10 AM Saturday. But I thought that would be a good compromise on something that would kind of interest my mom and kind of interest me. Except she wasn't interested! So with the fear of potential crowds I ended up at Yvonne Navarro and Janni Lee Simner's "History Meets Fantasy - When to Research and When to Make It Up" panel. (They're both TusCon regulars so I've certainly heard them both speak quite a bit.)

Yvonne Navarro said that you have to take what's real and twist it to fit your purposes.

Janni noted that Thief Eyes was well-researched (at one point she noted that she had to run it by an Icelandic reader to make sure it rang true!). She said that sometimes you start writing a story and realize it takes a lot more research than you thought. She also noted that you have to set up reader expectations. There are lots of different kinds of fairies and vampires, and these portrayals are influenced by legends, by the conversations authors have with each other on the page, and what you bring to them. Overall, you have to know your canon, whether you're writing history or a licensed property.

Janni also noted that it can be easier to have a character who doesn't know everything, so that things can be explained. ((Aside: I do that myself but I wonder if that's something more acceptable in children's and YA novels; I know in adult fantasy it's considered a cliche to have the farm boy who doesn't know anything come onto the scene.... Cliche or not, though, it does seem to work.))

On the topic of vampires, Yvonne noted that not all vampires drink blood (they may take life force, memories, youth--"anything that you, as a writer, could want them to take.") But you have to use the right words, whether or not they are historically accurate (some words that are accurate might not feel right.)

As far as writing goes, Janni said, "You can't write for every reader."

Yvonne replied, "You try, but there are just too many people." She noted that genres cycle through, so what you love may be popular in a few years. Right now zombies are popular, although they have changed quite a bit from their earlier portrayals (namely, they have gotten faster).

Janni and Yvonne joked that the zombies would pick off the smokers. Janni added that it could make a good ad campaign: "I gave up smoking and I survived the zombie apocalypse."

Again, back to writing, Janni said that it's very hard to figure out what people want. Write what you love. It's not a guarantee, but you'll have a better chance of selling, and you get the experience of writing it. (She noted this came from experience, where she tried to write what would sell, and couldn't sell it.)

Yvonne added, write what you love; tell the story you want to tell. "If you don't like what you're doing, if you're not enjoying what you're writing, you might as well work at an office somewhere ... you have to write what you want to write." She said you have to grab readers in the first paragraph. She also suggests new writers read their work all out loud, like it's happening, to help catch typos.

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I'm actually kind of remiss in not having read anything by Janni Lee Simner in particular. I've been to a couple of her readings at TusCon and they're always excellent. I need to remedy that deficiency fairly soon. She's always been very friendly to me. Actually, at her last reading I attended, she did a drawing and I won a journal she made herself!

My concern with journals is the pressure of finding something worthwhile with which to fill them, though...someday!

And I think I'll make a trip to my library soon.

Collaborative Writing - The Long Awaited Part 2

So updates on my own writing...I had a vague hope of finishing Flight from Endwood before the new year. That didn't happen, but now I'm cheering for the end of January. So I am buckling down and trying! I'd love to start a new collaborative project, too, but we'll see....

Speaking of collaboration! So a few weeks ago I said I'd share some things I heard at a panel on collaborative writing. Never mind the timeline I said I'd get that information out to you. Here it is now!

In November 2010 at the (secular) Tuscon Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror convention, there was a panel on co-authoring with Michelle M. Welch, John Vornholt, and Jeff Mariotte. Some collaborated while under contract; I'm not sure any of them necessarily wrote a novel with someone quite how we did, without even having it sold yet. (Note that these writers are not necessarily--I'd go so far as to say not likely--Christians, but that doesn't mean they don't know some good techniques.)

A couple reasons for collaboration might be to have fun with a friend, and sometimes utilize different points of expertise. Overall, as I may have already mentioned, the goal of collaboration is for the finished product to be better than you could do yourself.

Random points they offered:

*Get a detailed outline first so that you know where it's going (this is beyond important if you're collaborating with one person writing some chapters and some people writing other chapters, etc.)

*Collaboration is very good for comedy--if you find something funny, someone else may not find it funny. But if TWO people think something is funny, then maybe other people will find it funny too!

*Distance is no longer an issue in collaboration, as it comes down to words on a page. You used to have to mail floppy disks (!) back in forth, but now you can collaborate in essentially, or even literally, real-time (see Google Docs etc.).

*Collaborating can be easier with a tight deadline (I think the logic there was that with a tight deadline, you both have to work, and you won't quibble about the small stuff).

*If an argument arises between the authors, try just scrapping the scene and writing something else.

*MAKE SURE WHOEVER SENDS TO THE EDITOR SENDS THE RIGHT VERSION! (One of the panelists had been working on a collaboration and the partner who sent the final copy out sent a previous draft. Since I can see myself doing that, I thought that was a good thing to note.)

They vaguely mentioned you need to agree who gets the final draft, etc., which I already knew from reading up on collaboration before we started.

And that...was about it. I thought I had more info, but sometimes short and sweet is best!