RWA 2013
Because of the two hour difference in time between Saskatchewan and Atlanta I wasn’t sure I would make the 8:30 am (which was 6:30 am in Saskatchewan) scheduled workshops, but I did, grabbing a scone and coffee from the continental breakfast on the run. I have to commend the staff at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, they made sure I had enough coffee in my room to help me get a move on.
I have a room on the 36th floor.
My first workshop of the day was Freud Knows Romance (Research) by Sandy James, “a psychology professor discusses the defense mechanisms, subliminal traits, projection, rationalization and more that form a realistic personality.” (from conference description.) And here you thought we just made it all up. Remember yesterday when I said we had to research even if we wrote contemporary?
You don’t have to kill off the parents.
Part of the workshop illustrated how important parents are in forming a person. Many authors make the parents the most important or kill them off early. She suggested an article by Diana Baumrind describing three parenting styles. http://www.devpsy.org/teaching/parent/baumrind_styles.html I just downloaded this article to provide research for my character building for my next novel.
There are so many choices for each time slot. For example from 9:45 – 10:45 an attendee could attend nine different workshops or chats or even have an Editor/Agent Appointment.
I went to another Marketing Your Self-Published Book: Tips to Being a Bestseller (Self-Publishing) by S.R. Johannes, http://www.srjohannes.com/
This is a very successful self-published author who created enough buzz to find an agent and now has contracts. Her best suggestion is a marketing plan which contains 3-5 target audiences and make them as specific as possible.
The next workshop was: Using POV to create Emotionally Powerful Scenes by Opal Carew. http://www.amazon.com/Opal-Carew/e/B001JSEDX2 Opal suggested that a scene is a series of actions by non-POV characters creating emotions in POV characters. We must answer the questions about how the character reacts to an emotional trigger, physiologically, emotionally and cognitively. Then a decision must be made by the character on what to do with the emotion.
Finally lunch with the Key Note Speaker Kristan Higgins. http://www.kristanhiggins.com/ When it is said that an author’s voice shows in their writing, it is true of Kristan. She had us laughing and crying throughout her speech.
My last workshop of the day was by Michael Hauge: http://www.storymastery.com/ From Identity to Essence: Love Stories and Transformation. This was also a Craft workshop. It was two hours long and packed with information. Michael states that every story’s goal must be to illicit emotion in the reader with the use of character, desire and conflict. Just like the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Character: L.R.R. 2. Desire to take basket to grandma. 3. Conflict is the wolf.
Sounds so very easy.
So now you can see why I was ready for this.
Good night sweet Atlanta