Richard Lee Byers's Blog, page 42

The Sundering begins today

The Sundering is the epic event that will move the Forgotten Realms into an exciting new era. It begins today with the release of THE COMPANIONS by R. A. Salvatore, the first novel in a six-volume series that will also include books by Erin M. Evans, Paul S. Kemp, Troy Denning, Ed Greenwood, and me.

You can order THE COMPANIONS by using the link below. And if you fish around on Amazon a little, you can pre-order later books in the series while you're there. I'm pretty sure i speak for my fellow writers when I say that wouldn't hurt our feelings any.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Companions-Sundering-Book/dp/0786963719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375795286&sr=8-1&keywords=the+companions

My tentative Dragon Con schedule

Here is my tentative programming schedule for Dragon Con. (Odds are, it won't change, but you never know until they send out the final schedules.)

The below information is the TENTATIVE program schedule for Richard Lee Byers.
Convention Dates are Fri(8/30/13), Sat(8/31/13), Sun(9/1/13), and Mon(9/2/13)
Richard Lee Byers

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Title: Writing Non-Fiction for Fun and Profit
Time: Fri 04:00 pm Location: Embassy D-F - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Okay, You Sold It. Now What?
Description: For writers who've sold their first novels and/or short stories. What should you expect next?
Time: Sun 01:00 pm Location: Embassy D-F - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Jeepers Creepers--WTF is Lurking Out There?
Description: Vampires, zombies, goblins, werewolves, demons...where are they all coming from? Where are they going? Am I too late to catch that market?
Time: Mon 11:30 am Location: Embassy D-F - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

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Title: Writers Roundtable
Description: Now is the time to get all your questions answered. This panel is open for all writing questions.
Time: Mon 02:30 pm Location: Embassy D-F - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

Fiendish but Wacky

"Fiendish but Wacky," a critique of the master plans of the villains in this season's SF movies, is my new column on Airlock Alpha:

http://airlockalpha.com/node/9764/astrojive-fiendish-but-wacky.html

My complete Gen Con schedule

For anyone who might be interested, here is my complete Gen Con schedule. All events are one hour unless indicated otherwise.

Thursday

10 AM: What should I write? (Writer’s Symposium programming track) ICC 245

11 AM: Heroes and Villains (Writer’s Symposium) ICC 245

1 PM: Signing (Wizards of the Coast programming track) ICC Hall D

7 PM: A Night with Dungeons and Dragons (Wizards of the Coast) - 4 hours - Indiana Roof Ballroom

Friday

8 AM: Worldbuilding 101 for Writers (Writer’s Symposium) (moderator) ICC 244

10 AM: Signing (Paizo programming track) Paizo booth, Dealer’s Room

Noon: Wordlbuilding: Government and the Rule of Law (Writer’s Symposium) (moderator) ICC 244

2 PM Signing (Wizards of the Coast) ICC Hall D

Saturday

8 AM: Exploring Genres: Shared Worlds (Writer’s Symposium) ICC 245

10 AM: Exploring Genres: Horror (Writer’s Symposium) (moderator) ICC 245

11 AM: Exploring Genres: Urban fantasy (Writer’s Symposium) (moderator) ICC 245

2 PM Signing (Wizards of the Coast) ICC Hall D

4 PM: The Fate of the Forgotten Realms (Wizards of the Coast) - 2 hours - ICC 120

6 PM: Candlekeep presents: The Harpers at Twilight (candlekeep.com programming track) - 4 hours - Crowne Plaza: Victoria Station A/B (I can’t do the whole 4 hours but will be there for a while sometime between 6 and 9.)

Sunday

10 AM: Signing (Paizo) Paizo booth, Dealer’s Room

3 PM: Pathfinder Tales Reading and Q&A (Paizo) ICC 231

I will be at Metrocon Saturday 7/27

I will be a program participant at Metrocon on Saturday, 7/27. My panels:6 PM: What Do You Read"8 PM: Marvel Movieverse10 PM: CW - Still Awesome After All These YearsBetween panels, of course, I'll be happy to sign books or shoot the breeze about my own work, the Forgotten Realms, or whatever.You can get info on Metrocon here: http://www.metroconventions.com

Gina X. Grant reviews Blind God's Bluff

The talented urban fantasy writer and all-around cool person Gina X. Grant has written a very kind review of my urban fantasy Blind God's Bluff. You can read it here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/546893277

I will be at Southern Media Con on Saturday, July 13th

#SFWApro

I will be at Southern Media Con in St. Petersburg on Saturday, July 13th.

I'll be appearing on panels in the Brit Track giving my opinions on British SF, fantasy, horror, mysteries, and thrillers. Of course, if you catch me between panels, I'll be happy to sign books or shoot the breeze about my own work.

You can find more info on SoMeCon here:

http://southernmediacon.org

Which DC Heroes Belong in the Justice League Movie?

#SFWApro

In my new Airlock Alpha column, I consider which DC heroes belong in the Justice League movie:http://airlockalpha.com/node/9717/astrojive-a-justice-league-movie-which-justice-league.html

What I Learned Scripting My First Graphic Novel

#SFWApro

Scott McCloud is a gifted comic book creator and arguably the field’s foremost theorist. Peter David and Alan Moore are acclaimed comic book writers. All three have authored insightful, accessible books full of advice invaluable to anyone who aspires to script a comic. (McCloud’s book is Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, David’s is Writing for Comics with Peter David, and Moore’s is Writing for Comics Volume 1.) If you’re such an aspirant, I recommend you read them.

Now me, I’m a novice who just finished his very first graphic novel script. My advice is less likely to prove essential. Still, I thought I’d share a couple things I learned in the process.

1. Writing to an exact page count is tricky. For this reason, I recommend creating a detailed outline even if you’ve never needed one when writing prose fiction.

My outline broke my 120-page story down into three acts, the first and third 30 pages and the middle one 60 pages. (I was following the template for a screenplay I found in a couple books on how to write those.) It also listed the specific scenes that made up each act. Once I worked out that much, simple arithmetic revealed how long, on average, each scene ought to be.

They weren’t all exactly that long, nor should they have been. Some contained more information, drama, or spectacle than others. But if I’d been writing consistently short or long, the outline would have made it easy to spot the problem early on.

2. The writer can only use a relatively small number of words per panel because he can’t bury the art under masses of text. I more or less knew this before I started, but I didn’t realize what a technical challenge it poses.

You cope partly by making sure you never say anything in words that the artist can convey visually.

You also keep dialogue spare and to the point while nonetheless using it to establish and reinforce characterization as in any piece of fiction. Lines that simultaneously handle exposition, problem solving, or similar plot issues and convey a sense of the speaker’s personality are not just optimal but virtually required.

3. Some action is too complicated for the reader to understand it if the script limits it to the one static image of a single panel. Yet it’s not sufficiently important to merit multiple panels.

When you realize you’ve depicted something like that, the solution is to substitute simpler action. The tough part is the realizing. You accomplish that by visualizing every panel you’re asking the artist to draw, but even that doesn’t always make it easy. My original script contained a couple confusing panels that I didn’t identify until I’d gone over it several times.

4. Spectacular moments deserve bigger panels. This results in fewer panels on a particular page.

5. A scene needs a certain number of panels to convey all the information required to propel the story forward.

6. It can be confusing to end a scene in the middle of a page.

7. Every page should end in a way that makes the reader eager to find out what happens next.

8. Now, here’s the catch to the above: Points 4-7 can all get in the way of one another. Opting for fewer panels, for example, can cause a page to end at a problematic point in the action. Conversely, making sure the scene ends where the page ends can shrink an important, dramatic moment down to just one panel among five or six.

I never found the magic answer to this problem, and I doubt there is one. I juggled and rearranged as best I could, and I can only recommend that others do the same. If you understand the underlying principles, you can at least make an intelligent decision as to which should take precedence at any given point in the story.

And those are my tips. My graphic novel should be out next year, at which point you can check it out and see how well I managed to follow my own advice. Meanwhile, if you’re curious about Basil and Moebius, the characters I wrote about, you can find more information here:

http://www.whoisthecollector.com

And here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Handshake-Ryan-Schifrin/dp/1932386769/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1372356641&sr=8-5&keywords=ryan+schifrin

THE REAVER: THE SUNDERING BOOK IV now available for pre-order on Barnes & Noble

#SFWApro

I previously noted that THE REAVER: THE SUNDERING BOOK IV is available for pre-order on Amazon. Let me also note that it's available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble. Not because I'm relentlessly trying to pimp it, you understand. Perish the thought. I simply think it would be unfair of me to favor one bookseller over the other.http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-reaver-richard-lee-byers/1115479179?ean=9780786964581