It’s almost time for the conference to wrap up. Again it has been an incredible experience. I intend to add to this, but for now, I’ll talk about an experience from yesterday. I had my craftlab with Alan Clark. It was fabulous. I have started working on the suggestion. I have no doubt about the dimension that will be added to the story and mostly to the character. I have started up the conversation again with Xandra (the main character of my book), but will need to continue this after I get back home. For now I am going to prepare for the final workshop and wrap up. As I said more later.
It’s now later, the day after the conference has come to it’s conclusion. Last night I worked on the suggestions Alan Clark gave me at my craftlab. I think it’s given me a closer relationship with Xandra. That was the greatest thrill of the conference for me. After attending writers’ conferences since 2006, you would have thought that I wouldn’t continue to have experiences like this. To me it proves the value of each conference I have attended and will attend.
And so I continue the days following Wordcrafters Conference. I look forward to next year, but first I need to gather some of my thoughts and experiences from this one.
One of my strongest beliefs in writing fiction is the need to know your character, the second is to understand them. Something I hadn’t given much thought to before, is that writers create characters the reader can judge. Notice I said characters. In another workshop the importance of supporting/secondary characters was brought to the fore. Nobody wants to go through their lives alone, characters are no exceptions. Some want to be involved, some to control, some to serve. All this and more adds dimension to the story.
In a few of the workshops, the presenters had attendees write. I look back on some of what I wrote during these, and am surprised at what I put on the page. In one workshop I realized the ending for book 2 in my Naldo series. In another I realized a talisman Finny would need in Misty’s Magical Shed. I haven’t worked out how he will get it or how he’ll use it yet, but my brain is playing with it. I’ll find out in time.
Goals, characters need goals for their lives. This was pointed out to me more than once during the conference. Once when I was asked what my character’s goal was, I couldn’t answer. This only proved a weakness in my thought process at that time. Since then I have come to understand the answer better. Now I can put it into words for the character I was talking about. More important I have a stronger connection with that character.
There was so much more. and I will work with it over the coming weeks and months. For now I have work to do to incorporate some of this into my writing.