RWA 2015 and My Workshops

As part of my ongoing attempts to screw up every aspect of my life, I have managed to stumble on my RWA national stuff, too. Entirely my fault. I’ll only be there one day, and RWA has very graciously, without once saying, “Crusie, you moron,” rescheduled my Metaphor talk for Friday at 11AM. Character and Turning Points is at 3:30 the same day. I mention this only because some of you have said you might do both, and I’m trying to minimize the screw-ups my screw-up will cause. I’ll post PDFs of the handouts and some notes for both of these here on Argh next Friday, too, since I actually have both presentations done. They’re works of genius, of course. Well, they’re educational. I think.

Speaking of education, Mollie just sent me a link to James Patterson’s Masterclass on writing. Twenty-two lessons including his thoughts on, well, everything. Two classes on outlining alone, but only one on plot and one on character. Also an entire class on his experience with Hollywood. (I can do my experience with Hollywood in one sentence: “They gave me money, they didn’t make the picture, I cashed the checks.”) Of course, his books do get made, but since getting a movie made from your book is the literary equivalent of getting hit by lightning, I’m not sure a whole class on that is educationally sound.

Shut up, Jenny.

So back to RWA. The morning class is on the use of motif and metaphor to strengthen subtext. That sounds awful, but it’s actually not that hard, and you don’t do it until the last rewrites anyway. The afternoon class is on using turning points to arc character, which is kind of obvious but really important. After I finish a lecture, I always look at it and think, “Well, duh, that’s obvious,” so I’m hoping I’m just jaded and these will be Useful and Informative. I’m putting on underwear and getting my hair cut for this, so I figure with that and the slides I’ve made, I’ve done my bit. Also, for the first time, I’ve told them they can tape the talks. It’s the least I can do after I’ve screwed up their schedule.

You know, after I read Patterson’s syllabus, I went back and looked at the first McDaniel lecture on Writing Basics. It’s brilliant. I feel much better.