Writing Conference

I know, I know - I'm falling behind on my blog already. Well, I'm going to use what I will probably always use as my excuse for not posting a little more frequently. I was writing. In this case, I was working on my YA mystery novel.

On 13 June I got back from a writing conference in Provo, Utah. It was BYU's Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers and it was great. This was my second year at the conference and I was able to be in Alane Ferguson's (author of The Christopher Killer: A Forensic Mystery) morning session - now let me tell you, that was awesome! Her session was intense, hard work, funny, enjoyable, and unbelievably inspiring.

I think she must be the queen of plot and structure. Last year when I attended I got 20 plus pages critiqued, this year it was only five, but WOW what a critique. Ferguson looked at the first five pages of every manuscript in the class specifically for qualities that would make it publishable. She let you know what was done well and what needed work or was missing completely.

She emphasized some stylistic components to writing such as rhythm in sentence structure and using plot, characterization, and dialogue in equal measure. To illustrate her point Ferguson used the example of a braid. When the three elements of story were woven together they created a single braid that looked as though all three strands were natural companions and fit together in a way that the reader would find the story rich and uninterrupted. It's just too bad that I'm horrible at braiding hair. I don’t think I’ve ever made a nice looking braid – ever.

I really enjoyed Martine Leavitt's afternoon session on plotting as well. She focused on the object of desire (OOD) for each character in the story - particularly the main characters. She referenced Dwight Swain's (author of Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, c1990) questions for story. It included the situation of the character, the name of the character, the objective of that character (i.e. their OOD), the opponent to the character achieving the stated objective, and the disaster that could befall the character if they are not able to reach their OOD.

Leavitt suggested going through and this list of questions with each of characters in the book, whether the character is major or minor. The main character's story sketch should end something like a two sentence summary of the book. I thought it was a great exercise and have used it during the past week. It really makes you think about your characters and the plot (including both the internal and external conflicts) and helps you to find out just how strong - or weak - the story's conflict is.

I lucked out again on the group I was with too. Last year I had a really good group of fellow writers and critiquers and I felt the same this year. That's always a huge gamble when you go to a conference like this - you never know who you'll end up with or what they or their writing will be like. There were some pretty amazing plots that people brought with them and I hope to see them in print sometime so I can finish reading their stories.

I'm hoping to go again next year - it's all just hanging on the dates. That's probably the biggest thing that frustrates me about this conference; they don't announce the dates for the next year's conference a full year in advance. Picky, I know. But I have heard, from Alane Ferguson, that she's been invited back for next year's conference. So I'm hoping to get in her session again.