Con report day 4: part 2

"Editing the novel" with Simon Spanton, Zoe Walton, Jean Johnson and Ginjer Buchanan.

Buchanan said that Jack [I'm thinking Dann, but it wasn't specified, or if so I didn't record it] once turned in an 800-page book, and she told him to cut it because it was 200 pages too long, which he did, but when he tells the story he says that she said there's no 800-page book that wouldn't be better as a 600-page book. She couldn't remember saying that, but it seemed she still agreed with it.

Spanton said he had one book he was editing that was too long and so he took two lines off every page and made further suggestions for cutting and returned it to the author, and the second draft came back 10,000 words longer than the first. [I'm glad I'm not the only writer who is capable of that!] He reminded us editors in the audience that he never has a better suggestion for fixing a problem than the author's -- that editors are not there to be creative alongside an author but to shift an author's creativity. I've never quite thought of it that way.

Johnson had a similar story of an author lengthening a book they were supposed to be cutting, whereas Walton said as a YA editor she was often looking for ways to make a book chunkier.

Buchanan talked about the other ways to finesse length: smaller typeface, adding lines to page lengths, running-in chapters etc. She has one author who always writes over but doesn't like rewriting, but rather than leaning on the author, she tells the agent that that's fine but the paperback will cost so much extra. The agent will then say they can't have that and will get the author to make the changes. Sneaky! But good.

Spanton talked about using big margins to make a book fatter. He said this can be advantageous because readers feel like they're getting through it more quickly, and therefore it must have flowed well and been a good read. [And I was sitting there thinking: and that may be so, but I always feel ripped off!] Buchanan added that editors aren't doing authors a favour in saying the book needs another 10,000 to 20,000 words if the story doesn't need it.

Spanton discussed how different parts of the market have different requirements -- he'd given a writer a brief for a book with economically drawn characters in a complex plot that really shifts, but some reviewers said not enough happened, there wasn't enough worldbuilding, so he let the writer fill out the later books, which didn't actually feel longer.

He also talked about there being no ideal book or style of writing and the need to wear different editing hats for different books in terms of what you're looking for. Buchanan commented on the advantages for continuity of having the same editor across a series, especially in terms of deciding what information needs to be imparted again: that not all readers will have read all books. [This is tricky, isn't it. It isn't something I've had to face as an editor, but I have had to face as a writer -- but I think there might be enough material in that for another post.]

Johnson said that as writers, you want five people to edit your books before you sent them out, and you should be specific about what you want them to look for.

There was some discussion about how people edit, and all do their editing onscreen, which surprised me. I have certainly done some of my editing wholly onscreen, sometimes using Track Changes, but when I did Cranium that was done in Filemaker Pro, and involved copying and pasting -- I was never allowed to touch the original text. I still prefer to edit on paper though, especially if I'm working on fiction. Johnson did add, however, that she edits short stories on paper, and that she does pick up more errors on paper than on screen. I second that. She also reminded everyone that editors need to read through for comprehension as well as errors. She has had authors who will just write "stet" against the whole manuscript, but the readership always complains.

Spanton, who is a structural editor, can't resist copyediting as he goes. Oh, I understand him completely! He uses a different method for each author: for some, all they need is a half-hour phone conversation; others need five to ten notes on every page. He does most of his editing at home because he doesn't have time at work. [Bit like all that workshopping and marking that we writing teachers do. But writers should take note of that -- imagine someone who puts in all this unpaid time trying to improve your manuscript: they've certainly earned the right to have every change considered. Not necessarily agreed with or accepted, but considered.]

He doesn't mind that he takes the extra time to copyedit, because it's hard to get good copyeditors and there's not enough time to spend on manuscripts anymore. [Or really enough money to pay someone to spend enough time to copyedit properly.] He said [and I like this] the copyeditor's job is to make the structural editor look stupid, and the proofreader's job is to make the copyeditor look stupid, but sometimes readers make them all look stupid. [Of course, I didn't like that end bit quite so much!]

Walton said she never wants authors to agree with all of her changes, but she hopes they will say we don't agree because ... and be able to suggest something else. Spanton also talked about how it is the author's work so although he may suggest strongly for changes it is the author's call, and everyone will live with the consequences. An unhappy author may hide resentment, but it if it's there it will come out.

Buchanan said that authors you've been working with for years need very little, and this gives you more time to work with other writers.

Johnson had three rules for writing:

(i) start your book

(ii) finish your book

(iii) know how much editing is enough and then let it go -- put it out there.

Another long report, so I'll leave it there for now.

Con report: day 4: part 1

I took in five panels on my final day of the con, so here's the rundown.

"The series question: big books chopped up or small books glued together" with Ian Irvine, David Cornish, Kate Forsyth, Lara Morgan and Mif Farquharson (although, looking at my notes, I haven't written down anything she said so it may be she was very quiet, or perhaps she wasn't there. I can't remember now.).

Cornish said the most disconcerting thing for a writer is to have readers not just waiting for the next book to come out but the next book with a better plotline. Hmm, we hear a lot about second-book syndrome, but this would really put the pressure on! In a discussion about the problems with continuity over such a large work, he said he leaves questions at the end of all his ideas so he has room to change things. And he said he couldn't tell whether an idea was a short story or seventeen volumes until he'd written it.

Irvine said his first book went through twenty-two drafts over twelve years, which gave him time to tweak the plot. His research and worldbuilding were so extensive he even had charts of moon phases. He talked about how many viewpoints were reasonable to handle (few can handle six to eight well [note to self ...] -- that each time you add a viewpoint character you dilute the reader's investment in the other characters.

For Forsyth, continuity is part of the enjoyment. She charts the time of year against the main character groups, what they are doing and where they are. She also writes timelines for each character and wrote an encyclopaedia of several hundred pages for Eileanan -- each country had an entry of eight to ten pages. Wow! I thought I had quite good worldbuilding, but mine looks paltry next to that. She constantly updated hers and kept it open on her screen as she was writing so she could constantly switch back and forward. With Gypsy Crown, she made sure she'd written all six books before it was published because she found with her first series there were things she would have liked to have changed when writing the latter books, but she couldn't because the first books were already published.

She said that every book in a series needs a sense of completion, resolution or something achieved, and that this along with paying attention to the structure of each story would help avoid sagging middles or the weak second book. Each book is part of an overriding arc and each book must increase in tension and importance -- something it is easy for writers to forget this as they could get bogged down in the subplots and characters. She added that she likes to make subsequent books bigger and brighter as a reward for readers for returning. Isn't that a nice idea!

She said her imagination had an epic grandeur about it [I like that!], so she couldn't write small and didn't like short stories, but she always knows exactly who she's writing for. She also talked about being completely absorbed in what she's currently writing, dreaming about it, thinking about it all the time, and so her favourite book is always her current one. Before cons, she always does a brief refresher course on her past books so she can answer reader questions.

Morgan, in her trilogy, gave each book one big event to keep them all exciting. She killed off characters because she realised she had too many and although she cried while writing these scenes [or this scene?], she said the book was better for it.

In fact, that was such a long report, I might just leave it at that.

Con report: day 3

Sometimes I feel like I live on a slightly different planet than anyone else -- it arises from that novelist's thing of spending too much time immersed in my own head. It hit home when I was a writing student in class years ago, when one student asked what a gantry was. Another student tried to explain it in terms of railways and railway lines, and I became frustrated with the explanation, which was taking too long, and said something along the lines of: "Oh, there's a far easier and more commonplace explanation than that: it's what an astronaut walks across to get into the spaceship." More commonplace? In my world, yeah, but maybe not in everyone else's. Clearly not judging by all the faces.

And so I was reminded again when I turned up at the double session workshop on "Write the fight right workshop" with Alan Baxter. I thought it would be sword-fighting. We're at a con, right? SF people. Fantasy people. It's got to be sword-fighting. Right? Wrong. It never even crossed my mind that it might be anything else, but when I got in there it was about boxing and brawling. Okay, I figured, that's relevant too -- and in fact a lot of what was said would be relevant to the sword-fight as well.

My least favourite part was when we had to get up and act things out -- but that doesn't mean it wasn't useful because it was. In fact, in retrospect, it probably should've been my favourite part. I learnt a lot in this workshop. An awful lot. [Note to self: go look over all fight scenes and rework!] Lots about techniques and the type of language to use when writing the fight scene (ie not the tech terms we were discussing). The main thing to remember is that no-one comes out of a fight unhurt. (Yep, I remember my father's story about hitting and flattening his brother, and when he went home his father demanding to know what he'd hit him with. And my dad showing off a very swollen hand.)

I liked that Baxter had prepared a handout for us -- handouts are always good -- and yet I still managed to take lots of notes. In between the acting out stuff. (There wasn't really too much of that.) Good movies to watch for realistic depiction of fighting: the Bourne movies. And, surprisingly, Bridget Jones's diary -- a great depiction of a fight where neither character knows what he's doing.

This was a fantastic workshop, and after that I should have had a break and some lunch, but I wanted to keep going. I did six panels in a row (counting this as two), but the rest of the day I felt tired and washed out, and everything else was an anticlimax.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Guest of Honour speech was next, which was interesting, but I wished it was more about writing. (Another friend later told me he wished it was more about mountaineering.) Robinson said the book he's most proud of is The years of rice and salt, which I have, so I'll have to read it now!

My next panel was an academic one: Laurie Ormond on "Studying fantasy fiction as genre: magic and violence and generic convention in Sara Douglass and Fiona McIntosh". Now, the first thing I noticed was that Fiona McIntosh was in the audience. I wondered whether the presenter realised this, and if she did the effect this had on her -- I imagine it would have really played on my nerves had I been her. It reminded me of that panel way back in Aussiecon 3 when J Michael Stracinzky destroyed two fans he was on a panel with because he totally disagreed with their views of his TV show ("Babylon 5"). It's something I never want to witness again. But this case was different: McIntosh was quiet and never drew attention to herself. Ormond made the point that fantasy fiction has taken up feminist concerns, but avoids showing characters exhibiting the disintegration of self. Okay, interesting. I wonder why not.

The second part of this panel was Narelle Campbell on "The sky and the cave: differing representations of the God and Goddess in Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry". Campbell talked about the long history of femme fatales dating back to Eve, Guinevere and La Belle Dame sans Merci. She mentioned how Kay's societies are definitely patriarchal, and that the imagery associated with the God (sky) and Goddess (cave) are very telling. She also said that Guy's females want to jump into bed with every man around, and that Kay says he hates books that give females broadswords because they're ahistorical, but that he's happy to ignore the lack of contraception . . .

Then I went to "Finding the right voice: accents and speech patterns" with Karen Miller, Jack Dann, Deborah Kalin and Kaaron Warren. Good examples to study: The road, Huck Finn, Kipling's short story "Gloriana", and Australian writer Andy McCrae's short stories. [Go, Andy!] Poor Andy looked suitably embarrassed at all the attention. Dann said conveying about one tenth of a dialect was about right. I've never heard anyone put a figure on it before. They talked about various things: techniques to tell whether it's working or not, eg having someone else read it aloud. I sometimes tell my students to do this, but it's particularly important in dialects because you can see where someone else stumbles over what you've written and more accurately judge whether it's awkward or not.

Con report: day 2, part 2

My third session was Shaun Tan's Guest of Honour speech. I'd pretty much heard this before at a SCWBI session a few years earlier, but it was well worth hearing and seeing it a second time. One of the things I found most interesting was that an earlier version of The arrival had a small amount of text, in terms of letters being written home. But Tan discussed how when there's words we read too quickly, that we rush on to the next set of words. Isn't that an arresting thought? He wanted to slow down the reader's experience so he took the words out. I would've thought that was the opposite to what would happen, but that was my thinking on a superficial level. If I put myself in the reader's shoes, I can see he is right. (He also said that the letters would have been in English, and that would have been too culturally specific for the effect he was trying to create.)

My fourth panel for the day was more of a chill-out-and-enjoy rather than you'd-better-concentrate-because-you-might-learn-something panel: "Eowyn and Sam: unappreciated heroes in LotR" with Laurice Mann, Helen Lowe, Rose-Marie Lillian and Alison Croggon. This panel covered some interesting ground with thoughts such as Aragorn had been feminised in the film. [What?] That Faramir is the character the film let down, that what they lost was the possibility of pure honour that Faramir embodied. He had to be far more human in the movie, but in the book he was both. So there was speculation that this was because Aragorn was humanised more in the film, and they had to differentiate him from Faramir so Faramir also had to be humanised more.

An audience member posed the theory that had Eowyn been male, she may have been cast as a traitor as she abrogated her responsibilities of looking after the people, but the panel thought perhaps not because a) she was royal and b) she was successful. One decided that in the military she mightn't be branded traitor but probably would have beeb court-martialed. Another said the book does make a point of it being wrong, but another panelist disagreed and said it was a very English attitude that you should do what you're told rather than take action, which brought in the audience member again with the rejoinder "But she abandoned her post!". So, even this left me with something to think about.

My final session was a double session -- a workshop on map-making with Russell Kirkpatrick. This was the session in the whole con that I most wanted to go to, but I did go in feeling guilty that I wasn't at the Clarion get-together, which I also wanted to attend.

Kirkpatrick had us looking at maps in new ways -- starting off with why we shouldn't put borders on our maps. (They constrain people, whereas he wants them thinking about what's beyond the border.) We looked at cadastral, thematic and topographic maps.

He talked about fantasy maps needing to include things that aren't in the story -- about the need to suggest a bigger world. And about whether maps need to be accurate or not. About how things are deliberately left off maps.

He said one of the main reasons for fantasy writers doing maps was not so much for the publishers as for the writer to feel like their world is real. And his advice on drawing maps: don't draw the coastlines first. [What? That's always where I start!] He said it's too constraining. He said and showed us a lot more of course, and it made me wish I could go and study cartography at university, so I was very glad I'd done the panel, despite what I'd missed out on at the same time. Oh, if only there weren't so many compromises.

Con report: day 2, part 1

First session I attended was "Keeping pace: maintaining momentum in fiction" with Peter Brett, Jay Lake, Howard Taylor and Carrie Vaughan. Taylor talked about how every character and setting has an arc. I always give my characters arcs, but I hadn't thought about settings and how they might be changing (well, beyond the obvious seasonal changes). But it hit home because my husband came home the other day after three days away, and one of the houses in our street was gone. I'd seen the bulldozers and cranes, but all he got to see was the vacant block, which rather startled him. Something more to think about. My characters go away on a journey, a quest, so what has changed when they return? I'll be certain to make sure some things have.

Taylor also talked about getting his readers to read and highlight places they think he has made a promise to the reader, and that sometimes they'll come up with something he thought was a throwaway line. I'd never thought about this -- but what he says is important, especially given that his readers had different ideas to him about what had been promised.

Taylor also talked about using chapter endings to control pacing -- that one friend has cliffhangers all the time to keep readers immersed, but another, who writes epic fantasy, designs his chapters so readers can come up for air.

And he talked about using POV to give further character penetration, for instance by comparing things to things in a character's past, but that this should still inform the story. It's like everything -- the more multifunctional it is the better.

I liked his analogy for remembering that we meet a character for just a small portion of their lives, that we have to remember they had a life before the story started and will have one after it ends: that a story is like looking through a keyhole at a character as he or she walks past. The character was doing something before and after they passed by, but we only got to see that brief fragment of time.

Vaughan talked about the list of questions she asks herself about her scenes. Many of them were ones I already thought about -- scene purpose, character goals etc. But one she asks that I hadn't thought about is what keeps readers invested in these characters? (So what keeps them turning the page?) Because, of course, readers must care about what happens to characters or the book won't move them, and we, as writers, need them to be moved. It's something I will take back to my scenes: I've set up reasons a reader should care, but what reinforces those? What will keep the reader caring?

She also talked about the counterintuitive effect of suspense -- that to increase suspense you slow down the pace, which you can do by layering in description. Ah yes -- just imagine how excruciating that can be for the reader who can't wait to find out what happens. Some may cheat, but that's their business; others will keep at it till the end. (And I've always loved Miss Snark's take on suspense, which was something along the lines of: want to know how suspense works? I'll tell you tomorrow.)

Lake talked about the difficulties associated with using multiple viewpoints, and then about how he got two characters into a difficult situation that he couldn't see a way out of, so he did it with a transition. Three days later, having fixed their insurmountable problem... (my words, not his). Wow, you wouldn't want to do that more than once in your career. It reminded me of a favourite author who did something similar and nearly lost my readership. He said that surprisingly he hadn't had one complaint about it, which surprised the other panelists.

Brett talked about how description can be a character, but that if two characters are sitting on a mountain enjoying a magnificent view and what's interesting is their dialogue then description of that view is just getting in the way of the story. Just so. I think those of us who love description can sometimes lose sight of that, and conversely those of us who eschew it can leave it out when it is crucial to the story. One of the best examples I've seen of setting being crucial to action is the accident at the beginning of Nicholas Evans's The horse whisperer.

Overall, a fantastic session -- one that I nearly didn't make, because I started in a different session and realised I'd completely misread the title. (And it was about the only panel in the program guide that didn't have a description.)

My next panel was "Foundlings and orphans" with Mur Lafferty, Sarah Parker, Delia Sherman, Gillian Polack and Mary Victoria.

One thing that came out of this panel was a discussion on the orphan state and how it is treated by many writers as a blank page when it shouldn't be. The prime example was how Harry Potter, given his upbringing, should have been a complete worm. This was not a criticism of the books per se (well, I suppose it was) but it was also put out there that they are amazing adventures, and I suppose would have been far less entertaining and completely different types of books had he not been the feisty character that he is. Although I hadn't thought of this before, I think it's true. One writer spoke about the subconscious effect of growing up without one of her parents and how this had coloured her fiction writing -- something someone else had pointed out to her.

Discussion revolved around how the central relationship -- the central romance -- in a children's story is with the family, and how kids with one or no parents feel adrift. The fantasists then use this to show kids that they too can go out and kill a dragon. This led to an appreciation of why the orphan story tends to be YA -- after this age, the protagonist isn't trying so hard to find out where they fit in to the world, and absence/presence of parents makes less of an impression. This led to a definition that a quest story is about finding out where you come from, and a non-quest story is about finding out who you are. The someone said that girl protagonists traditionally don't save the world -- that their problems are smaller-scaled and more domestic, but ultimately they end up saving their own world.

The final discussion rounded on a theory that cultural differences might explain the popularity of the orphan/foundling trope -- that Pokemon, which is of course hugely popular, is about a ten-year-old who goes out and fights monsters, but in Western society this wouldn't be allowed. Parents wouldn't let their children go and do this -- so it's a matter of how different cultures view the child alone.

Plenty to think about in this session too -- stuff that would make me approach this kind of story in quite a different way than I otherwise might have, which means it was worth every minute that I spent in there.

Con report: day 1

The first session I attended was in the academic stream -- a talk by Gillian Polack on Writers and their history: how writers use and view the historical aspects of their settings. Polack is a historian, and I've attended her sessions at other cons, and they're always well informed and interesting, so I knew I had to see this one.

Polack talked about why fantasy and historical writers draw on the Middle Ages, and then the different ways that fantasy and historical writers approach and use history. Of course the fantasy writers felt more free to take liberties than the historical writers, but even the fantasists said they would move the time period of their novels if the historical credibility of their stories would be challenged. It's interesting because to me the setting comes first -- I have to imagine the world and how the people fit into it, so I'm not sure I could just move time periods, which is not to say that any of these writers have ever actually done that. They were responding to questions in an interview situation. Perhaps if you imagine the time period first, really imagine it, and come up with a world that is internally logical and cohesive, you won't have this problem. (And maybe this is my way of thinking because my novel isn't set in the past but in the future, in a medieval-type society, which is to say a pre-industrialised society, but so I am free to move away from historical accuracy as long as I don't stretch the reader's disbelief. So I have still had to go and do research, and I'm resigned to the fact that I can never do enough -- if I did I'd be forever researching and never writing.)

I was so caught up in all of this that I was wishing I had sat in on Polack's interviews so I could hear the whole story and ask questions myself. But the other major point that Polack made was that all the writers agreed that modern perspectives had to be taken into account -- that in the end readers need a good story, and that's more important than anything else.

This point was reinforced by Alice Davies who presented the second half of this session: The stories we tell ourselves: myth and history in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Thermidox. The fascinating thing I took out of this paper was the point that historians use pattern recognition when deciding which facts to include and which to exclude, which sources to listen to and which to ignore. Now, that's an interesting idea -- and I wondered if I could extrapolate this to work with the few of my students who struggle with the idea of which details to put in and which to omit in their own writing. Pattern recognition -- I suppose that if you go and read the classics, the books that you really admire for whatever reason (page turners, well written etc) and study them, read them as a writer, then you are employing exactly that. I do tell my students to do that, but I've never called it pattern recognition before . . . I think it's worth a try -- sometimes it's that slight change in phrasing that can be the difference between someone getting an idea or not.

The second session I went to was called "Steal the past, build the future: new histories for fantasy", with Kate Elliott, Amanda Pillar, Catherynne Valente and Jonathan Walker. The most interesting aspect of this session for me was thinking about how we view past cultures -- that we view them through modern-day filters, interpreting how people behaved, using our modern-day sensibilities. Is there any way around this? Is there any need? After all, our readers have these same sensibilities and, as someone pointed out, we mightn't understand the behaviour of past people at all. (Makes me think of Annie Proulx's short story "People in Hell just want a drink of water", which has one of the most arresting beginnings of all times. It's set in the early twentieth century and the actions of the woman in the story would stretch credibility today, but her motivations are clear and understandable. Yes, it's not quite the same point, but makes me think of it anyway!) The bottom line, again, is that the needs of the story are paramount.

The panelists talked about the telling detail -- something I often discuss with my students -- but the fascinating thing was hearing Valente's story about 1816, the year without a summer, what the telling detail was for her, and how another friend wrote about the same time period but omitted the one thing that Valente thought was crucial to the time period. Writers -- we're all different!

Walker said the telling detail must have imaginative as well as conceptual power, that it must attract us to it, which was something I hadn't thought of before.

Pillar, who was an archaeologist, spoke about how Ramases perpetuated the myth of what had been a giant stalemate as a victory, and she raised the question of how he could have done this when all of his army knew it wasn't a victory. Really makes you think about the differences between then and now -- in the days of CNN that could never happen. Or could it?

I was then going to a session on creating zoological lifeforms, but the previous session was so interesting we needed to go and discuss it, so that was the end of panelling for day one. (The con only ran for half a day.) Already, I was fired up, ready to go home and write, which is the great thing that happens when you attend these sessions. And why I'd really really recommend attending cons to anyone who's working in the spec fic area. And they're a great way of meeting new people and networking too!

Worldcon report 1 overview

Well, Aussiecon 4 has been and gone, and though I only attended four of the five days (had to work the fifth), I'm left with nearly 110 pages of notes from the panels I attended, and more importantly a sense of fellowship with my fellow writers, a sense of belonging to a strong and vibrant writing community. Over the next few days or weeks (depending on how diligent I am), I'm going to try to summarise the sessions I went to. Not 110 pages worth, but the highlights, the lowlights (were there any?), my observations.

I didn't get to as many sessions as I marked. I never do. Things interfere at home, and I arrive later than I want. Happens every con. Or I get panel-exhaustion, and something that had seemed a must-see when I first sat with a highlighter and mapped out my con experience (or wish list) suddenly doesn't seem as enticing as spending time with friends over hot chocolate. Or should I call that networking? It's an essential part of the con experience. And in fact the only three sessions I didn't enjoy as much as others were three back-to-back sessions that were my fourth, fifth and sixth consecutive panels on one day. Sometimes that break is a freshener -- just the way a fast-paced novel needs occasional slower, reflective scenes so the reader can take a breather. In fact, I didn't go to one dud panel. Usually, at the smaller cons where there's not as much choice, I'll find that something I was really looking forward to isn't that great, and something else that I've gone along to without great expectations has been fantastic.

When you've been to lots of panels on writing, read lots of books on writing, attended lots of courses and masterclasses etc the way I have, you often hear the same things over and over, so if I go to a panel and get one really new insight or hear something couched in a way I never have before then I feel I'm doing well. But even if I don't, I'll usually enjoy myself because I love to hear other writers talk about their craft and what inspires them or troubles them or whatever.

And sometimes the really memorable panels aren't the ones on writing but the more atmospheric (in terms of my own novel) panels: some remarkable ones have been on sword fighting and weaponry, blacksmithing, medieval music, cartography and forced marches. Oh, and watching the final episode of "Babylon 5" on a big screen (just before it had been aired in Melbourne) after J Michael Straczynski spoke about it was amazing. This time it has again been mapping and one on writing fight scenes right.

What I missed this year was the night life. Where was that exactly? I didn't get to one room party. There just wasn't the same sense of where things were happening at night -- things were more spread out. I believe some things happened at Crown, though the only one over there I actually got to was the HarperCollins Voyager party, and that was half over when we arrived. I did get to the bar a few times and hung around with my SuperNOVA buddies, and I did get out to dinner with some of them and a couple of HarperCollins writers. Don't know what happened after the Hugos, as I didn't get to attend these, or the masquerade, or the nightmare ball. But, oh well. I had a blast, so I'm not complaining!

And the next thing will be finding out when the next con is -- local con as I don't have the funds for overseas travel, and am envious of my friends who are talking about attending the next World Fantasy con. The trick with cons is to book early because the price rises incrementally as the con date gets nearer and nearer. So, I must off and do some research!

MFW and Aussiecon 4

Almost every year for the last ten or more years, I've been attending the Melbourne Writers' Festival. I love going to sessions and listening to what the writers have to say -- especially when it's about writing. (Can't say I'm as enthralled with all the political-type ones that seem to have been increasing in favour over the last few years.)

This year, the MWF overlaps with Aussiecon 4, the world science fiction convention. My first ever convention was Aussiecon 3, and it was there I first met one of my best friends, Ellen. We were both in a writing workshop together on the first day, and I spent much of the rest of the con with Ellen and her friend Simon. Since then, I've been to at least one convention every year -- all of these, bar one, have been in Melbourne. Since that first one I've built up a reasonably large network of people I know in the SF community, some through conventions, some through attending Clarion, some through attending the MSFC (Melbourne Science Fiction Club) albeit briefly, and some through my writing group SuperNOVA. But I still spend most of my con time with Ellen as we share a lot of common interests and are both keen panel-goers. But this will be the biggest con for us both since that first one, so it will be interesting to see how it differs. I do remember being surprised at my second con at how small the program seemed in comparison (understandable, of course), and how intimate it all seemed. Now I'll be experiencing that in reverse.

So, consequently, it doesn't look like I'm going to make it to the MWF this year, which is one of the great shames that they overlap (although the MWF is on the weekend before too). On the positive side, they have been able to share some guests. (The con date was booked years ago -- at the time I think the MWF started a week earlier than it currently does, so there would have been no overlap.) If life at the moment weren't so chaotic, I could've made both -- I'm sure some of my friends will -- but I'm saving my energies. I'll need them: five days (well, four for me because I have to work Monday) of wall-to-wall panels -- writers talking about writing. Lots on fantasy writing. It's SF writers heaven!

The two panels I'm most looking forward to are both workshops: one on mapmaking and one on writing fight scenes right. Stay tuned for the con reports!

All good things come to an end

Well, the con is over and, as always, it's a bit of a letdown. Time now to start looking at next year's con and to book early. The thing with cons is the price goes up incrementally. For about a month after a con, the next year's is low price, but then it creeps up -- well, not so much creeps as goes up in leaps. I rarely get in on the lowest price tier, because it always seems to be a bad time financially for me. As it is now with the Gadget-Man being out of work. Ah, well. But I usually get in on the next tier, which last year meant a leap from $80 to $110. There were a few more increments after this, and I think by the time of the con itself a day-pass cost more than the whole con if you'd paid at the beginning. So now is the time to get on the wagon, people. And if you're worried that something might come up, and you'll have a ticket you can't use, you can always sell them. There are always people who are happy to snaffle up a ticket at rock bottom prices!

The other thing that's come to an end is the semester, though I still have some Editing tests to mark. End of semester always invokes mixed feelings because, on the one hand, I miss my students and classes but, on the other hand, I have more time to write. So I'm hunkering down to get through some serious words in my rewrite. And because between the con and the intense marking frenzy of the last few weeks, I haven't done much writing, I'm itching to be at it. The counterpoint to this is that it will take me a few hours to reabsorb myself in the story and till the words are really flowing again, but once I sink into it, I'll be off: fingers a blur of motion across the keys.

Last day of con

It's always a bit sad when a con ends. There's nothing like spending a few days hanging with your friends -- some of whom you don't see very often -- attending panels to hear how other writers approach the craft, or discussing other aspects of writing or something that might illuminate fantasy (such as sword fighting as previously mentioned or, today, blacksmithing). At the end of it you're exhausted but have come away after days of thinking, breathing and eating writing, feeling inspired and ready to go. Pity you have to come home and do class prep, really! Well, all right, most people don't, but I do. And finalise my marks, which is why I'm late to my blog again.

I was all set to be in at 10 for the panel on hooks, but sat for many minutes at Flinders St in a train that was supposed to be departing. Anyway, I was late, which led me to standing outside the panel door, thinking is it worse to be rude and go in, or to miss out? I'm really glad today (as I usually do) I decided to walk in, because today I had an epiphany of sorts. I always go to cons or writing sessions, hoping to hear something new, and once you've been around the traps (to use a cliche) awhile this doesn't happen very often. But today it did.

Anyway, I'll stick to the format I seem to have adopted and go panel by panel:

(i) Hooks -- Pamela Freeman and Isobelle Carmody were both talking about their being two kinds of short stories: those that have a hook and are usually science fiction (and often have a twist and a payoff) and those that don't, but focus on character and have an emotional payoff -- they give a deeper understanding of humanity and what it is to be alive. I've conflated what they were saying together here, but it seems to make a viable whole. Joel Shepherd talked about publishers looking for a universal hook that doesn't exist, but acknowledging that some hooks do hook more people than others. Lucy Sussex talked about how publishers talking about hooks are often really after a sound bite -- the type of thing politicians have to do when they have ten seconds to deliver a message. An audience member raised a question about how important it is to end a series with a hook to get the reader into the next book, and Pamela Freeman says she doesn't do this but rather leaves at a point where it's clear that more is going to happen. This is where I've left my first book too. I would hate to be a reader left with a giant hook and then having to wait twelve months to find out what happens. It was the same when I first saw Empire strikes back and, although it was my favourite of all the Star wars movies, I felt enormously frustrated by the ending. The film felt unfinished. I knew it was the middle of three, but I wanted some kind of closure, the way the first (fourth) movie had done.

Anyway, this, today, led to the moment of epiphany, because Pamela went on to talk about worldbuilding, and how she read a number of fantasy novels and found she often finished the first book and didn't want to read on, but rather to speak to others who had read the book. When she thought about why this was she realised that most fantasy writers do all their worldbuilding at the beginning of the first book and after that point there are no new revelations about the world. Being a fantasy reader, she says she reads as much for the world as the story, and one of the great pleasures is turning a corner. She wanted to offer the idea that this world (of hers) was full of infinite possibilities and so during the last quarter of the first book she puts in new information about the world. Wow! I had never thought of that before. When I caught up with Ellen after the session, she was as blown away as I was. So was her friend Simone. For me, that revelation made going to the whole con worthwhile. Even if everything else had been shitty (which it wasn't), it would've been worthwhile.

Isobelle continued on to say that each book must be as good as the others, and that if the story was going to take three books, there had better be good reason for this, which Pamela backed up by talking about the overall story arch. I think (missed this in my notes) she then talked about each book being part of a three-act structure, which again I'd never heard stated before, but I think I intrinsically knew -- especially from hearing George Lucas talk about his trilogies. He spoke about "middle films", and so I think I had made that leap, but still believe, as the panelists said, that each book should stand alone.

Joel Shepherd made an interesting point about following Tolkien's lead and setting different parts of his story in different places.

(ii) Blacksmithing -- Steve Gleeson. Now, Steve, fresh from his triumphant film debut (or at least debut at this con) was back in familiar territory. Ellen, Lita (fellow SuperNOVArian who's off doing the Inca Trail at the moment), Bren and I did a workshop with Steve in his forge last year, and it was excellent. Bren and I only made it there for half a day, but I loved every minute of it. Well, almost every minute. I do remember the heat getting to me and feeling faint towards the end. So it was really good to have the theoretical aspect to attach to the practical experience. Steve spoke of how he got started, how he acquired his tools, how blacksmiths served their apprenticeships, what attributes a smith needs -- really, all sorts of things. I was the magpie, picking up new terms. There were a few things I hadn't thought of before. Stuff I'll have to google, especially because one of my main characters is the son of a blacksmith. Now, I know why he didn't want his father's business (whereas before I thought he'd left for other reasons). It's lovely to be sitting there, and subconsciously working away on your novel in the background. I didn't think I needed another reason for this character to leave, but I love having more complex motivations because they more closely reflect real life. And I have to say I hadn't heard of a whitesmith before, but maybe that's just my naivete. I also hadn't thought of the beginnings of the phrases "strike while the iron is hot" and "too many nails in the fire". Come to think of it -- I hadn't even heard the second phrase before, so there you go. And now I know the difference between a striker (person) and flattener (implement).

(iii) Fantasy -- this one was about alternatives to European-based fantasy. Joel Shepherd said his fantasy is European-based because historical events drive it, but if doing something more epic, you can do whatever you want. There was some discussion on the difference between trying to subvert the paradigm and playing with the familiar fantasy tropes. There was some dispute about which authors actually did subvert the paradigm, because whenever someone suggested a particular author, someone else was able to give a good reason why they weren't subversive. Then Pamela Freeman, in the audience, raised the question of cultural appropriation. I'm always pleased to hear people talking about this, because I think that we white Australians, living among a people whom we have dispossessed, a people with a living culture who are still hurting from all that has been taken from them, need to be particularly sensitive about this. I've argued with writers who say we should be able to mine anything. But I acknowledge it's not always that simple. When do we cross lines? Is it writing from an indigenous perspective? Probably. (And I have written one story where I have done this -- because it was the only way to tell the story, and it is set in the future; however, because I have done this, I'm not sure I will ever be comfortable about sending it out for publication. I don't know. I really don't.) Is it when we write any indigenous characters into our stories? If so, if we never do this, doesn't that then make them invisible? It's very tricky stuff. And loaded.

Gilian Polack said she does cultural appropriation all the time because she's Jewish and writing stories with a Christian sensibility. She made some great points about learning your own cultural limitations and how it depends on which people you're writing about, how you write about them and how well you understand particular subcultures. Glenda Larke said that writing about Malaysia in a mainstream novel offended her Malaysian in-laws so she moved into SF. Joel Shepherd said that if you didn't know a culture well enough to know whether they'd be offended then you were in for trouble. He talked about Lian Hearn, and all she'd done to learn Japanese culture. Pamela Freeman, who seemed to be the person for me with the off-centre comments that kept striking a chord, talked about setting her novel in Aus but it not working, and she said it's because that was another form of cultural appropriation, and that certain landscapes have stories attached to them, and they're not our stories. I found this harder to accept, because that land is our land now tell, so there we are mired somewhere in the dichotomy of that little statement. She said certain landscapes evoke certain types of stories. Although I disagree (right now) with her take on this being cultural appropriation, I found her comments valid and woth thinking about.

On that, pretty much, the con ended. Ellen, Simone and Lucy Sussex and I wandered down to the bar for coffee, where we were joined by Bren and Claire. And then it was all over, and Bren and I were walking back to the railway station. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the con as a whole, but I'll do this when I'm a bit more awake.

Con day two (or three?)

Sir Talkalot came with me to the con today -- his first experience of a con, and mine of taking a kid to a con. He was given very strict instructions about how he could and could not behave, and behaved generally very well. Having him with me did affect some choices in panel a little. When we first arrived it was a choice between writing horror stories and cover art. I probably would've gone to the first, but knew he'd be more interested in the second, so took him to see that (although it was already halfway through). After the first panel, caught up with Ellen and Steve, and finally Bren, who we had somehow missed all day yesterday.

(i) I hate my cover -- Isobelle Carmody talked about the main function of a cover is to make you pick a book up, and then about the importance of a blurb, and the difference between writing your own and having the publisher get someone to write it for you. Her tip is that a mixture of both works best. An audience member talked about how publishers often designed covers based on demographics, so a white horse on a fantasy cover was often geared towards a younger audience, whereas a dapple grey horse was for an older audience. He had some really interesting things to say. Isobelle talked about how publishers like fat spines because they can put more on them, and those books elbow others out of the way, but as a counterpoint how much harder it was to get a fat book translated because of the cost. That was an interesting point I had never considered.

(ii) Science fiction and fantasy in the school curriculum -- panelists talked about what was on the curriculum and the difficulty in getting kids to read SF, that they're just not interested in it, which surprised me! But they also talked about the fact that the only books on the curriculum were old books or not Aussie writers (eg Frankenstein had made it on because if it was written in the nineteenth century then it must be good, right?), and the trouble being that to get more more-modern SF on the lists you have to convince people at the very top, and the teachers, because the teachers ultimately decided what gets taught. I was also amazed to learn that most teachers hate teaching creative writing (because they don't know how to mark it) and that teaching creative writing is no longer being taught during their teacher training years. Some audience members, however, felt that it was about to make a comeback, with the Victorian curriculum about to change.

(iii) How to promote your book -- Ian Irvine talked about all he has done and gave the rather depressing bookseller stats in the US. The most interesting thing he said (and he had a lot of interesting things to say) was that the most important bit of promotional work you can do is promoting yourself to your publisher. Yes, an interesting point, and one that was driven home to me recently by a friend's experience in trying to promote her book.

(iv) The swordfighting panel -- always a highlight for me. I go all gooey when I see men wielding big swords. My students laugh when I tell them this. Or how rockets make me go gooey too. We came in in the second half of this panel -- though I really, really wanted to see it, I thought that I should do the promotion panel, which was just a half hour one. Some interesting points were on why female fantasy sword wielders are often portrayed incorrectly, and how bendable Viking swords were, and the importance of wrestling in swordfighting. Chris Barnes, one of my Clarion buddies, is always great value -- entertaining and informative. Every con needs panels on swordfighting!

(v) Approaching the craft -- a number of writers talked about where their ideas come from and how they develop them. Isobelle Carmody made some interesting points about the difference between short stories, which she sees as being quite circular, and novels, which she sees as more linear, and how in the short story the situation is more important. If I recall correctly, because I missed this part in my notetaking, she also talked about how a story often is chosen to illustrate an aspect of a situation, and a light bulb came on for me because this is how a lot of my short stories come into being, I think. A few of the panel talked about how rigid they have to be in their working hours -- something that always bears thinking about because it can just be far too easy to let time go.

(vi) Interview with Isobelle Carmody -- I'm sure she had plenty of great stuff to say, because she has been really inspirational, but I had hit the wall. I looked across and Bren, Ellen and Steve all seemed to be fighting to stay awake, which is no reflection at all on Isobelle, but rather on the heat and the fact that we were all feeling panelled out. Every year I hit a wall on the afternoon of day two, when I just can't take any more in. And here I was facing it down. My mind was wandering. My eyes growing heavy. But Isobelle spiced things up with a reading from a cat's POV, and Richard Harland (her interviewer for this session) read the parts of a couple of dogs. Both were excellent. Isobelle had so perfectly captured the cat's disdain in both her words and in her mannerisms. Fantastic reading that woke me right up.

There was really only one more session (or a choice of a couple, really) but that was it for us. Bren, Ellen, Sir Talkalot and I hit the bar, and then caught up with Claire McKenna and her partner. We all went out for a quick dinner, with a couple of others who are in Claire's film, and then back for the launch of the new Orb and the launch of Liminal Claire's film. Steve has the lead role and was great. Sir Talkalot and Princess Sleepyhead were both in it as extras (they looked so young!) and I had a very fleeting role along with Adam Browne, who's another great friend of mine. The film is still a work in progress so there were a few minor problems like colour inconsistencies and sound problems, but it was so much fun to watch. Must say I'm a bit worried about the jars of body parts labelled "Bren" and "Tracey" -- and those of many of my other friends. And that I can't see myself in any serious acting career. Ever. But it was fun to be a part of it -- I was in it because I'd dropped my kids off, and Claire needed a few extra extras, so thought I could do that. But it was interesting seeing all these people I know but hadn't known were in the film. Other SuperNOVArians had major roles, which was brilliant and Choofa's daughter was great. Afterwards, we went off to the bar to celebrate, and caught up with lots of people who I hadn't seen in a while, which is one of the brilliant parts of being at a con. And I must say I'm not a great fan of the maskobolo (or masked ball) that usually occupies one of the night, so having the film to watch instead was much more fun for me. Sir Talkalot and I caught the train home with Adam -- so that rounded off the night beautifully. Still didn't talk to as many people as I would've liked, but you can't do everything, and I feel like we did plenty today. One more day to go, so better get off to bed!

Con day one (or two?)

Day 2 of the con, but my day 1.

Hmm, saw lots of good panels today, so might just list what they were and anything that came out of them that I found really inspiring.

(i) Where are the new dangerous visions -- interesting because there seemed to be some disagreement among the panel members (Jack Dann, Gillian Polack and Dina Taylor (hope I've got her name right)) adout where the new dangerous visions lay. Dina thought they were in gender, sexuality and race; Gilian thought in religion. Jack talked about magic realism and how it seems to have infiltrated other fiction -- which corresponds to my wonder about how MR is accepted in lit, whereas the rest of SF is frowned upon. Bizarre. Doesn't make any sense.

(ii) Isobelle Carmody's Guest of Honour speech -- very entertaining and with great sound effects. But she talked about how fantasy tries to name the unnameable, and how she thinks it's popular because it embodies that yearning that many of us have for something more in life. Interesting and reassuring to here her talk about not using lists of details. Although I do have a lot of worldbuilding stuff and character profiles, I sometimes feel I don't look at them as often as I should. But she married the whole idea of continuity with the push for publishers not spending enough time on the editing process. She thought they viewed it as part of the technical process rather than creative, and that this was part of the problem. I liked the way she talked about finding that not writing books in series one after the other keeps her fresh.

(iii) Worldbuilding 101. Ellen and I divided for this one as we also wanted to see the panel on good versus evil in fantasy, so Ellen did that one and I went along to worldbuilding with Ian Irvine, Gilian Polack and Keith Stevenson. Gilian thought that for good worldbuilding you need an addictive personality. Should suit me, I thought, as I am known to become rather obsessive about things. Ian Irvine talked about not getting too lost in the details -- something all panelists agreed on. Ultimately the worldbuilding has to serve the story, not the other way around. Some things of particular interest here were Ian's comment that if you try to create a world where everything is different, you'll end up having to spend half your novel explaining things, and will end up with a xenobiology text. He said lots of readers don't like his stories because they have only a touch of alienness, but that's why. Must say I agree with that. An audience member said he'd been to something where an editor said that to become a hotshot writer you should build a world, write six or so stories in it and then sell them to Asimov's. Ian said that that might be true of science fiction but that he would be astonished if it were true in fantasy because hardly any successful fantasy writers were writing short stories. I kept thinking of the SuperNOVA boys who would like to see me write more short stories. It's just not the genre or form I'm most comfortable in. I mention genre because I don't think fantasy lends itself particularly well to short stories. He also said that to do great worldbuilding, you don't need a PhD but a keen interest. Keith asked the others what the biggest pitfalls were. Gilian thought Mary-Sue. Ian thought putting too much thought into the worldbuilding and not enough into telling the story. He reminded us that every page has to have something interesting, exciting or curiosity-arousing to maintain tension.

(iv) Eating ancient food -- with Gilian Polack. She said that we focus obsessively on food in real life, but we hardly mention it in our writing. I found this interesting because one criticism I read levelled at fantasy quite often is that writers mention food too much. But perhaps it's just that thing about not being able to please all the people... She said a lot of writers get food right, but a lot more get it wrong, and that anyone who thinks people ate rotten food all the time in the Middle Ages is a zombie. She said spices were more expensive that fresh meat, and anyway rotten food disguised with spices will still give you food poisoning. Touche. I did get to try some Grains of Paradise -- a medieval aphrodisiac. Mmm, quite nice, too.

After this panel Ellen and I checked out the dealers' room, and then swapped notes about the panels we'd missed. Then we rehit the panel trail, marvelling about how some people like us go to cons for the panels, whereas another group rarely go on them.

(v) Teen angst -- Kate Forsyth said that someone said (Susan Cooper, I think, but I wasn't sure) that children are people without the coats of time. Interesting. Pamela Freeman said that she thought fantasy was popular with teens because it has an intensity of experience and element of idealism. Kate Forsyth thought it was because it often has a theme about empowerment. Lucy Sussex talked about the trouble she sometimes has telling whether a review book is meant for YA or adult audiences, and that sometimes price is the best guide. That was quite interesting. Pamela talked about how some people don't have a fictional imagination and are better suited to nonfic.

(vi) I wish I'd thought of that -- Keith Stevenson's talk about his theories of how people get down to write -- ie the pinball theory of creativity, plus some stuff to consider for worldbuilding.

Ellen and I had lunch out, and went out with Steve Gleeson for dinner, which was interesting as he's just come back from Vietnam so had lots to tell us. Anyway, we were late for the Ditmars, and as Ellen and I were on public transport, decided to come home and be very decadent and write. So I'd better heave-to!

Convergence

This weekend I'm spending time -- a lot of time -- at Convergence 2, the National Science Fiction Convention (or natcon as it's known for short). Every year for the past several years I've attended at least one convention. The media portray such cons as strange events filled with even stranger people who are all dressed up like Mr Spock or the alien from Alien. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cons are filled with writers and editors and fans. Lots of panels are scheduled -- some of my favourites over the years have been ones on swordfighting, medieval music and maps. Seeing someone exude passion is always so inspiring. This con I'm looking forward to Steve Gleeson's blacksmithing workshop. I've done a half a day in his forge with Ellen, Lita and Bren -- fellow SuperNOVArians (as is Steve) and it was fantastic. The panels I love best are the ones where I get inspiration for my novel, where I glean some new slant or fact or something that will help me flesh out the world more.

Much of the action seems to happen in the bar or at room parties. I do remember a particularly memorable game of charades at a room party with my Clarion buddies, and Zara doing Maria from the Sound of Music. A con is a great chance to catch up with my Clarion buddies and fellow writing group members whom I don't see all the time. It's a chance to sit around and talk writing, find out who's publishing what and with whom. And it's lots of fun.

I should be there now but am hamstrung marking late assignments, even though I told my students that if they handed them in late that there was no guarantee I'd get them back to them this semester. I just can't help myself. But if they're done, then I can go enjoy the con with a clear conscience, and not have them hanging over my head. And tonight there was only one session on, and a more lightweight one for me in terms of how it might "impact" (oh, I hate that kind of corporate speak) on my writing. But tomorrow, I'll be hanging out with Ellen and Bren mainly, taking notes and getting as much info as I can. The con's one of the highlights of my writing social calendar.