Write Stuff Conference Recap
On a foggy morning at 7:30, I arrived at the Four Points Sheraton in Allentown for the Write Stuff writers conference organized by the
Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group
.
After collecting my registration materials and donating a signed copy of Testing the Prisoner as one of the door prizes, I set off to the main ballroom for the complimentary continental breakfast, saw some familiar faces (members of GLVWG) and then at 8:50AM, it was time to attend the first panel on my list, Gayle Roper's "Creating and Maintaining Tension in Your Fiction." Ms. Roper touched on five types of suspense including "people, process, time (ticking clock), anticipation, and emotional". She elucidated methods for creating suspense via your characters and POV and maintaing that through the story with actual manuscript examples.
The next session was James Scott Bell's "Power Revision" wherein he discussed his ideas for writing a first draft "hot" and coming back later to revise "cool". He presented various methods such as revising the previous day's work and the "20,000 word step back" to ensure that you are still on track with your story elements. Mr. Bell explained the idea of a "Rolling Outline" wherein you outline a few chapters at a time, write them, see where they take you, and contine to outline the next few chapters and repeat until finished. He also discussed using coincidences, raising the stakes for your characters, methods of developing characters, and much more.
The final session before lunch was Katherine Ramsland's "From Research to Results: Immersion, A-ha! Moments, and Best Narratives". Dr. Ramsland's insights into the value and types of research, the proper etiquette when reaching out to experts, and how our brains process it all and make sense of it without any effort on our part, was absolutely fascinating. Such concepts as Mental Maps, Observation Quotient, Perceptual Quickening, and others were truly eye-opening.
It was also at this session that I met Sara Hodon, president of the Black Diamond Writers Network. Sara had reached out to me back in October with an invitation to speak at the Write it Right writers conference next month at the Schuylkill County Chamber of Commerce.
We broke for lunch at this point and during dessert, keynote speaker James Scott Bell gave a humrous talk called "Storytellers Save the World", a general overview of why writers do what they do. I also met Anna Getz, another member of the Black Diamond Writers Network.
It was then time for the final two sessions. I was back with Gayle Roper again for "Building to Your Story's Emotional Peak". Ms. Roper shared nine ways to deliver the emotional heart to your story and used two film clips to illustrate her points, one from The Miracle Worker, the 1962 film about Helen Keller and starring Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft. The second clip was from Mel Gibson's The Patriot.
To round out the day, I remained seated for James Scott Bell and "Keep Them Turning Pages: Suspense Secrets of the Masters". Mr. Bell covered a variety of ways to ratchet up suspense from cliffhangers, twists and turns, the ticking clock, use of dialog, raising the stakes, and others.
At 3:30 it was time for the Book Fair. Although I did not sell any books (I'm a newbie so I did not expect to), I did swap a book with new fiction writer Pamela Hegarty who also agreed to an interview for my blog. I had a lot of people stop by to say that they recognized my name from the GLVWG forum. An aspiring writer who was also in the last James Scott Bell session, stopped by to talk about her project and asked me to read the first page of her short story. It was good; I offered a suggestion or two.
It was during the book fair that I met writer and editor Kathryn Craft . Also, Kathy Ruff, again of the Black Diamond Writers Group, stopped by to introduce herself. It was very nice to finally make personal connections with so many talented people!
I ended the day with a quick photo op with James Scott Bell. Me and my crooked baseball cap... :)
After collecting my registration materials and donating a signed copy of Testing the Prisoner as one of the door prizes, I set off to the main ballroom for the complimentary continental breakfast, saw some familiar faces (members of GLVWG) and then at 8:50AM, it was time to attend the first panel on my list, Gayle Roper's "Creating and Maintaining Tension in Your Fiction." Ms. Roper touched on five types of suspense including "people, process, time (ticking clock), anticipation, and emotional". She elucidated methods for creating suspense via your characters and POV and maintaing that through the story with actual manuscript examples.
The next session was James Scott Bell's "Power Revision" wherein he discussed his ideas for writing a first draft "hot" and coming back later to revise "cool". He presented various methods such as revising the previous day's work and the "20,000 word step back" to ensure that you are still on track with your story elements. Mr. Bell explained the idea of a "Rolling Outline" wherein you outline a few chapters at a time, write them, see where they take you, and contine to outline the next few chapters and repeat until finished. He also discussed using coincidences, raising the stakes for your characters, methods of developing characters, and much more.
The final session before lunch was Katherine Ramsland's "From Research to Results: Immersion, A-ha! Moments, and Best Narratives". Dr. Ramsland's insights into the value and types of research, the proper etiquette when reaching out to experts, and how our brains process it all and make sense of it without any effort on our part, was absolutely fascinating. Such concepts as Mental Maps, Observation Quotient, Perceptual Quickening, and others were truly eye-opening.
It was also at this session that I met Sara Hodon, president of the Black Diamond Writers Network. Sara had reached out to me back in October with an invitation to speak at the Write it Right writers conference next month at the Schuylkill County Chamber of Commerce.
We broke for lunch at this point and during dessert, keynote speaker James Scott Bell gave a humrous talk called "Storytellers Save the World", a general overview of why writers do what they do. I also met Anna Getz, another member of the Black Diamond Writers Network.
It was then time for the final two sessions. I was back with Gayle Roper again for "Building to Your Story's Emotional Peak". Ms. Roper shared nine ways to deliver the emotional heart to your story and used two film clips to illustrate her points, one from The Miracle Worker, the 1962 film about Helen Keller and starring Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft. The second clip was from Mel Gibson's The Patriot.
To round out the day, I remained seated for James Scott Bell and "Keep Them Turning Pages: Suspense Secrets of the Masters". Mr. Bell covered a variety of ways to ratchet up suspense from cliffhangers, twists and turns, the ticking clock, use of dialog, raising the stakes, and others.
At 3:30 it was time for the Book Fair. Although I did not sell any books (I'm a newbie so I did not expect to), I did swap a book with new fiction writer Pamela Hegarty who also agreed to an interview for my blog. I had a lot of people stop by to say that they recognized my name from the GLVWG forum. An aspiring writer who was also in the last James Scott Bell session, stopped by to talk about her project and asked me to read the first page of her short story. It was good; I offered a suggestion or two.
It was during the book fair that I met writer and editor Kathryn Craft . Also, Kathy Ruff, again of the Black Diamond Writers Group, stopped by to introduce herself. It was very nice to finally make personal connections with so many talented people!
I ended the day with a quick photo op with James Scott Bell. Me and my crooked baseball cap... :)
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