Writers' Conferences --Tips and Tricks

by Jamie Freveletti

I’ve been asked to comment on writers’ conferences. I’ll be attending a few conferences and I always enjoy them. I began attending as an unpublished writer and now attend as part of the industry, but I still enjoy just listening to the panels and talking books. Writing conferences are the something I didn’t attend as a reader. I would attend signings periodically, but had no idea that entire conferences existed until one year after I had completed a manuscript and was surfing the web for industry information.

Once I began attending I realized that I had been missing out. Conferences immerse you in fiction, provide a great weekend of interesting things to do, and let you rub shoulders with authors that you would have never met otherwise. Bouchercon  was in Chicago that year and Love Is Murder (also Chicago) popped up. It was a week before Bouchercon and I plunked down my Visa card and signed up. I arranged for childcare--the conferences generally run over a weekend so no depending on school to keep them busy-- and rode my bicycle down Lake Shore Drive to the hotel and….

Entered a wonderful world.

I remember reading the bulletin and circling the different panels that I wanted to attend. I listened to authors I had read tell about their books and writing process and what they love. I was enchanted. (The next is set for Cleveland in October and I’m registered to attend, but just haven’t added it to the website just yet).

By the time Love Is Murder rolled around I was on a serious mission to get some input on a new manuscript. I paid for a manuscript review and was assigned to the now New York Times bestselling author Julie Hyzy. She was just starting her career then and she was wonderful to me. Love Is Murder is a smaller, but very congenial conference that I adored and I have tried to attend every one since that first. It’s an excellent way to meet authors and industry professionals because it’s so intimate. I’d hit this one now or in the next few years because I suspect attendance will grow. (And this year Julie is a guest of honor!).

Sleuthfest  was the fourth conference that I ever attended. Generally set in Florida, this year it’s in Orlando! I’m really excited to go, because not only will the weather be superb but this industry-minded and fan conference usually provides something for everyone. I listened to my first forensic pathologist give a particularly fascinating lecture there and still use some of what I learned in my writing. This year Jeffrey Deaver and Charlaine Harris will be among the attendees and I look forward to hearing them speak. You really can’t beat the location and many people will tie it into a trip to Disney, I’m sure.

Thrillerfest  is the newcomer on the block. It started a few years ago and has grown steadily since then. I was present for the first and what a blast that was! It was located in Arizona and has since moved to New York City. This conference has really moved forward as an industry conference by virtue of its NYC connection. Heavy hitters in the thriller writer world are here: Tess Gerritsen, Ken Follett, Lee Child, John Sandford, Lisa Gardner and Jeffrey Deaver have all attended, to name just a few and this year Catherine Coulter and Karin Slaughter will be there as well.

There are definite tips to attending a conference. Here are some of mine:

1.       Book the hotel early. The conference rate is the best and goes quickly. BUT, if you miss out (as I have) sometimes you can score a room a couple of days before. Inevitably things pop up and some attendees will cancel and you can scoop up their slot.

2.       Check out the panel list and plan accordingly. There is a lot to do and you don’t want to miss out on something or someone you’ve always wanted to hear speak.

3.       Hit the hotel bar afterhours: You’ll see a lot of authors wander in and out there. In the early years I was too intimidated to speak to them, but it was really cool just to author watch. It still is.

4.       Buy the books you want with abandon and ship them home. I still look at my bookshelves and see the books that I bought at the conferences and they always make me smile. They’re all signed and they bring back great memories.  

Enjoy!

Ad copy

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

I spend a shameful amount of time watching commercials. My favorites are the “priceless” Master Card ads, especially the one with the elephant, and the Verizon wireless network come-ons with the “Can-you-hear-me-now?” guy leading his minions. Capital One had a good thing going with the pillagers, and the Frog Prince take-offs were cute the first dozen repeats, but their family-on-a-hobo-vacation campaign was pretty lame. Volkswagen’s circa 1070 campaign—“Ever wonder what the guy who drives the snow plow drives...?”—is still in my head. And their more recent “Round for a reason” series was entertaining.

What ads have to do with writing fiction—beyond the fact that most are entirely fictitious—is that the best commercials are short stories, thirty or sixty second movies aimed at holding your attention—or at least keeping you from hitting the remote--and at getting you to buy something. (And I did, recently, purchase a VW.) Writing good short stories is hard. (Not that great writers don’t make them read as if they’ve fallen from the lips of God.)

In his educational and extremely entertaining book, Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet deconstructed Jack in the Beanstalk with a five step outline for screenwriters that could as easily be used as a guide for writing short stories, even novels:

“ONCE UPON A TIME....

AND THEN ONE DAY...

AND JUST WHEN EVERYTHING WAS GOING SO WELL...

WHEN JUST AT THE LAST MINUTE...

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”

Filling in between the headers is the trick. In a short story, every detail is crucial. Even in novels the trick is deciding which details to include. To quote Edmund White: “Because a novel—these words—is shared experience, a clumsy but sometimes funny conversation between two people in which one of them is doing all the talking, it will always be tighter and more luminous than that object called living.... Living is all those days and years, the rushes; memory edits them; this page is the final print, music added.” (The Beautiful Room is Empty)

I was asked to write catalog copy for my next novel (currently without a title as my editor dislikes MIA). What is catalog copy but advertising—a story told in service of seduction? Being better able to appreciate ads than write them, I’ve used Mamet’s outline as my guide. See what you think.

“ONCE UPON A TIME” there was a happy family, the Faheys—Mickey, his wife Rhiann, and stepson, Jimmy.

“AND THEN ONE DAY” Mickey died. Rhiann was nearly paralyzed by grief. Jimmy started cutting school and drinking.

“AND JUST WHEN EVERYTHING WAS GOING SO WELL” Deputy Sinter, an old friend of Mickey’s, showed up and tried to hit on Rhiann. John, a mysterious stranger, moved in next door, offering Rhiann beer and sympathy, giving Jimmy help with his car and an after school job.

Jimmy decided to dig around the roots of his family tree. While visiting estranged relatives, he ran into Steve, a high school friend of Jimmy’s mother and birth father. Jimmy also met a cute girl and got in over his head with her.

Jimmy’s involvement with his relatives led Rhiann to revisit relationships from long ago and wonder what became of old friends and lovers.

Jimmy crashed his car and ended up in intensive care.

John donated blood. He gave Rhiann rides, help around the house, comfort.

Creepy deputy Sinter tried to discredit John, then tried to beat him to death. Rhiann came to John’s rescue with her dead husband’s gun. She discovered John was not what he’d seemed.

Which led her to investigate him. And see him in a different light altogether.

Which led Sinter to try to kill them both, ending up in jail.

Jimmy came home from the hospital. He tried to elope with his girlfriend, was nearly beaten to death by her father, then rescued by Rhiann and John. Their lives all seemed to be changing for the better.

“WHEN JUST AT THE LAST MINUTE,” creepy deputy Sinter, out on bail, went after Rhiann again...

This is a novel, not a fairy tale. I’ll leave it to you to read the book (spring 2008, Title TBA) and decide whether I followed the outline to an end where “THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”

So what do you think? Would you buy this book? Or should I give up advertising and stick to novels?