I’m sad
to say that the three days I wait for each year has come and gone. I’m talking about the WV Writers Conference
held each year at Cedar Lakes, West Virginia.
This year the conference had approximately 45 workshops to pick from and
tons of items in the book store. I was
also lucky enough to outbid others on some really great books that I can’t wait
to start reading in the silent auction.
I will say that I was so excited after hearing the buzz about Flowertown
by S.G. Redling that I skipped the nightly entertainment after the awards
banquet and dived right into starting it.
I will let you know what I think in a later post.
For all
that do not know, WV Writers has been around since February 1977. The first conference was held in June 1978 at
the Charleston Culture Center and housed close to 200 state wide writers. I discovered this organization when I moved
back to WV in 2010. My first conference
was in 2011 and I look forward to it every year. It has been a wonderful place to meet others
who love to write and to learn the trick of the trade in the business.
I’ve
been writing for more years then I care to say.
I started in high school as a reporter and by my senior years, was made
editor-in-chief. Since then I have been
hooked and have wrote on and off since then.
The conference has helped me get the juices flowing again and opened my
mind to allow my characters to find their voices and tell their stories. I hope to have something to submit for next
years conference. Wish me luck!
The
conference offers many opportunities to writers to get their work noticed. You can submit your work before the conference
to be judged for a small fee. There is
also several chances at the Conference to win an award if you missed the mailed
in submission deadline. One would be The
Writer’s Wall which allows you to post your work on boards for all to read and
vote on. Another is to read your work to
a group and let others vote for the People’s Choice Award.
I saved
the best for last. The conference offers
pitch sessions for you to speak to an agent about your book. Why not skip sending out another batch of
query letters and take a chance to meet an agent to pitch your book face to
face. Best part….no waiting months for
rejection!
There were so many workshops that
I can’t list them all. Below I have
giving you a brief Review of some of the workshops I did attend this year:
“Every Novel is a Mystery and the Devil IS in
the Details” by Marie Manilla.
This was a really great workshop to start off the
weekend. I learned that you need to
leave clues throughout your novel that leads up to the big reveal at the
end. Manilla gave us a really great exercise
in which we pictured two different people going into any place you want them
to. We were asked to list everything
that the characters see from their point of views. I picked a woman in her early twenties who was
raised to be tough and her grandmother who sees everyone through rose colored
glasses. They are on a road trip and
stop at a gas station. The younger woman
sees all the exits, video cameras, how many people in the store, every
potential hiding spot and any items that could be used for a weapon. The grandmother sees what snacks she wants
for the trip, bathroom door, and the college shirt the cashier is wearing
happens to be the place her brother went to.
I was also asked to share my thoughts with the class and I learned that
I’m very shy speaking to a group of people.
That is something I need to work on.
“Marketing To Your Target Audience” by Christine
Witthohn
This workshop was huge source of wonderful knowledge for
anyone wanting to publish their books.
It was really nice to speak to agents and authors about the process. I really had no idea that before you want to
publish your book, you should start marketing it 9-6 months before the book is
released. Places like twitter, facebook,
writers groups and conferences are a great place to start. Plus, it’s FREE! You must know WHO your target market is. Who is your completion? What is your books
hook? Even simple things like book
titles and cover art can make or break your book. I also learned that swag doesn’t really help
you sale your book. A simple thing like business
cards work better to get your name out there and cause the buzz to start about
your book. Websites are awesome if you
spend the time to make it good. Agents
normally will google your name to see what is out there if they are interested
in you. Your score on Amazon does make a
difference. If you have a book for sale
there then you need to create an author page to start building your score. Sad to say but thing like this, my blog, are
old school. I also learned in the agent
world, 25 lines on a page is equal to 250 words per page. It’s a good rule of thumb for publishers to
quickly figure out the word count.
"How to Pitch Your Book" by Christine Witthohn
Who doesn’t want to know
this? In a nut shell, work on telling
your complete story in three sentences. When
you think about a pitch, think about TV Guide and the short summary they give
of TV shows and movies that will hook you to watching. Your pitch should be no more than 3 minutes
and included; word count, genre, your stories hook and summary of story.
"Social Media for Writers" by Heather Isaacs
If you haven’t, open your world to
social media. Follow agents and people
that you know that write. Agents will
sometime let everyone know that they are on a hut for a certain book. If you just happen to have that certain book
then it could be as easy as submitting your work to them.
“My Evil Plan is Working! by Sheila Redling
I loved this workshop and it was
so full of writers that people were seating on the floor.
In one of Redling’s handouts, she had three
tables with the titles of each being; Quality, Villain and Hero.
She also made great points when writing about
the relationship between Hero and Villain.
You need to ask yourself basic questions like;
Why would your hero fight the villain?
How does the villain justify his acts?
What does the villain have to gain?
Why are they against each other?
I have also learned of the Mary Sue Litmus
Test (see the link below).
This little
test is a good way to find out if your characters are too good to be true.
Meaning, does the world fall at their feet?
Does your characters touch seem to turn
everything nice and rosy.
I have never
heard of this before and was excited.
http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm
“Introduction to Writing Graphic Narratives by
Robert Tinnell
I have never thought of doing a
comic strip but since there was not another workshop that I wanted to attend in
this hour slot, I took a chance and went.
I was presently surprised to learn about the amount of work that goes into
one comic. Each page of script equals
about two pages of comics. One should
never use more than 7 panels to a page.
Bookstores are looking for comics that are around 106 pages or 53 pages
of script.
