This week I had the opportunity to attend this free little festival near home and it sure made some great memories. More importantly, though, were the panels I attended where various aspects of the writing and publishing industry were discussed. The following is a compilation of notes I took as I sat through four of the many panels they had. They are useful for all authors, but I do feel fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal authors may benefit more from most of what is below.
“Creep” panel: A discussion on atmospheric stories that give you chills and thrills. Holly Black, Natalie C. Parker, and Lisa Maxwell.
- The easiest way to approach what is creepy or terrifying is to identify what creeps out or terrifies you and ask why do they incite these feelings.
- There is a difference between ‘creepy’ and ‘horror.’
- ‘Creepy’ is when it is more connected to reality (reminds me of Freud’s unheimlich concept).
- To be able to sustain a creepy story, the unheimlich needs to be established early on and defined for the remainder of the novel.
- Incremental/small changes are not what you want—they need to be big deviations from reality for the story to maintain a pulse.
- With YA, a lot of the time you are dealing with the fight between conformity/normality and specialness/individuality.
- Memory issues within stories: Why is its loss so unnerving? A loss of identity, certainty, direction. Always a question of what is missing and why it is missing. Is there something to gain/lose with regaining the memory? Is the memory lost forever?
- For the creepiness to stick, there needs to be a community that backs up its existence. (Example given by Parker from her books: Girl goes into swamp with her brother. She loses him and returns home to find a girl instead. The town claims the girl is her sister and no one remembers her brother. The creepiness was reinforced with the insistence of the town that the girl has only ever had a sister.)
- Black discussed changelings and how they have become even more terrifying since she adopted her son.
“A Sorta Fairytale” panel: A conversation with Holly Black about writing, magic, and everything in between.
- For Black, writing most often starts with an image and a feeling, and it is from there she begins to shape her characters and the setting in which they live.
- “It is terrible news to be a protagonist. Who would want to live in my worlds?”
- She isn’t a fan of drafting and prefers revising, going so far as to compare it to cleaning a bathroom—you can’t make it worse than it already is, so it is all tidying and wiping down from here.
- There is a huge difference between folkloric magic and magic systems (did not go into explanation), but it is a NECESSITY that there be a regiment of some sort for you to follow with your story. It needs to make sense and attainable to the reader.
- Writing retreats are helpful. The face-to-face criticism and workshop are very productive and productivity inducing. She highly recommends going on them.
“History Has Its Eyes On You” panel: Wherever or whenever you are, you can’t escape the weight of history—or how it’s interpreted and recorded. Jennifer Donnelly, Janet B. Taylor, Kelly Zekas, Eleanor Herman, and Kathy MacMillan.
- As an author dealing with history, whether it is time-traveling, period fictional writing, or something contemporary/fantasy/sci-fi, you need to juggle the novelist hat and the historian hat and have a fair balance between the two.
- Part of developing the backstory within a novel is a history of some sort. You can’t have a long story without one. Make sure to spend a good amount of time developing it, because it can be a catalyst for the future events. At the same time though, be careful with balancing it. Don’t let it overtake the story and divert from the main points. It is good to have subplots, but don’t let them overwhelm the main plot.
- Most of the time the point of history, whether large scheme or personal, is to give the author an opportunity to have their characters break the continuance and deviate from the norm, causing the tension that keeps the story moving. You have to build up something to break it down with progress.
“I Write The Book” panel: A discussion about various avenues in publishing, from small press to large press—including the crowd-sourced Swoon Reads imprint—featuring Randy Ribay, Lisa Maxwell, and Kelly Zekas.
- Zekas submitted her co-authored manuscript to Swoon Reads. Through crowd-sourcing, she and her co-author were able to gain valuable criticism from readers, as well as encouragement. Their novel was one selected by Swoon Reads for publication. They do not have an agent as a result and aren’t in the market for one. They only have one published novel. To submit to Swoon Reads, your novel must be a YA romance; they do open edits at the end where they give general advice on how to improve the manuscripts en masse, since they do review the majority of them. (Mind you, this is an explanation from Zekas, so it may be a tad different.)
- Ribay had three completed manuscripts and had submitted them again and again to agents with only rejection as the result. He then focused on fixing one manuscripts over the span of a year, and then started the querying process. With the additional hard work on revision, and utilizing critique partners and beta readers, he was able to gather the feedback needed to improve his writing and get an agent as a result. He has one published novel.
- There is a huge difference between critique partner and beta reader. The former is a symbiotic relationship where you work closely with each other on all stages of the writing process (a writing partner, a soundboard). The latter is someone you send your work to for occasional feedback, but they are not involved in many aspects of the writing process; you can beta for each other, but it isn’t as close a relationship as a critique partnership. However, it was emphasized that both are important. You need second eyes and opinions to improve and keep you on track. Build yourself a network of reliable people to turn to, a group of honest and direct people.
- Lisa Maxwell has three published novels. She explained that when you send out your manuscript with a query letter to agents, it must be the most complete you can make it. She also emphasized the importance of having a well-written and revised query letter. It is the manuscript’s cover letter, just like a cover letter to go with your resume. You have to sell it, and that is how.
- What to look into for querying: querytracker.net, queryshark and Janet Reid (look into her backlogs for information), simply searching “How to get an agent” and “How to query.” Take the query letter very seriously. Very. Seriously.
- Self-publication was not discussed.
Holly Black's Keynote Address "Why Magic?"