Write-On-Con

What is Write-On-Con? I'm sure most of you have seen this floating around the blogosphere. Well, let me tell you. It's an online writers conference. And it's free! The dates are August 16-18. And they're already asking for submissions on a few things, today! If you haven't registered for Write-On-Con, hurry on over there! It's seriously worth it. Trust me.

I "attended" Write-On-Con last year. I didn't enter anything, since my book wasn't ready then, but I learned so much from all the editors and agents that participated. Their advice and expertise was invaluable. So get on over there and register. :)

Are you attending this year? Are you going to enter some of your work to get critiqued? Or pitch your work?

Conference Update #2: Writing Dialogue

I have been a huge fan of Melanie Jacobson's blog Write Stuff for probably a year or more. She is so down to earth, has great advice, and is freaking hilarious.
Anyway, the next class I'm spotlighting, was her class called Say What? Using Dialogue to Reveal Character. She started out the class with this quote:

"Dialogue's purpose, and there is no exception to this, is to create tension in the present and create suspense for what's to come." Gloria Kempton

This is true, regardless of genre.

Purpose of dialogue:

*Establish of sense of place: You could have two characters talking and have no clue where they are at. Example. If someone says, "I'm hungry." Where are they? Are they teenagers in a car who want to stop and grab a hamburger? Or are they lost on a desert island and starving to death? Adding scenery to a scene helps the reader identify more with the character. Don't overdue it and name every single thing about the scenery, but use it sparingly and let the reader know where your characters are.

*Advance the conflict in a story: Dialogue intensifies the conflict between the protagonist and the goal. Example. If someone is being held hostage and tortured for information, the dialogue will definitely intensify the scene. In other words, the dialogue must move the story forward. If you use too much dialogue, it slows the story down. If your characters don't talk about anything relevant to the story, and it doesn't do anything for the reader, then you should cut it, or have a reason they are talking about that certain thing.
I have a problem with this. I'm pretty good at writing dialogue, but sometimes I write too much. I think some things are funny that I write, but then I realize it doesn't have anything to do with the story. It slows it down and people get bored.

*Reveal elements of character: Dialogue says a TON about a character. Is he/she funny? Are they serious? Do they create conflict with everything they say to other characters?
I love this part of dialogue. It's so fun to see what your character has to say to everyone. How they interact with people. It's one of my favorite parts of writing. :)

Mechanics of Dialogue:
*Melanie also warned about "talking heads" If you have two characters talking to each other for basically a whole page and don't use dialogue tags, or beats, it gets boring. (Beats are an action the character does while talking. Example: Sally frowned. "You just don't get it do you?" So, "Sally frowned" would be a beat for that dialogue scene.
*Don't use crazy dialogue tags either. He said/she said should be used 90 percent of the time.
*Don't have your characters yell at each other all the time. Keep shouting to a minimum.
*Make sure each character has his/her own unique voice.
I think that last one is HUGE. Every character must sound different. If they all sounded the same, how boring would that be?

Anyway, I thought her class was fantastic. If you ever see her at a conference, go to her class! She is awesome! :)

How to Scare People.

Yes, I realize I've already posted today, but I had a few minutes of free time and a whole bunch of classes to spotlight, so I'm starting today. :) The first class I'm going to spotlight is the one I never thought I'd ever attend! LOL. So, I'm going to take a second to say that I am NOT the biggest fan of horror or scary or anything that goes bump in the night. BUT, I did want to know how to write a chilling scene. So... I went to Dan Wells class "There's a Bomb Under the Table: How to Write Thrills, Chills, and Suspense". He is the author of the I am Not a Serial Killer series. (I haven't read them yet. I'm trying to get the courage to do so. I've heard the books are amazing.)

The first thing I want to say, is that I loved Dan's voice. He could totally be a voice for a cartoon or something. And he was hilarious! The minute he started talking, I knew it was going to be a great class. He broke his presentation down into a few different sections. The first:

Establish normal and then break it.

Dan used a scene from Scream to make his first point. At the beginning of the movie (I think), Drew Barrymore gets a phone call. Some guy starts talking to her, and it's a perfectly normal situation. Then the guy asks what her name is. She asks why. He tells her that he wants to know who he is looking at. Suddenly the normal is broken and she realizes he is watching her from either in the house or through a window. I don't know about you, but that is NOT normal!

Dan also showed a clip of the George C. Scott movie The Changeling. I've actually seen that movie, but forgot how creepy it is! The main character is standing at the bottom of the stairs in a creepy old house, and a ball bounces down the stairs. The main character is fine and picks it up. He drives to a bridge and drops it into the river below. He drives back home, and goes in his house, shutting the door behind him. All of a sudden another ball bounces down the stairs. The main character takes a step forward and is shocked to see that the ball is the exact same one he just threw into the river. He is scared, backs up against the wall, and doesn't go near the ball.

So, establish a normal scene. A ball is normal. A phone call is normal. But when you have it do an unnatural thing, it breaks the normal and scares the crap out of you. :)

The familiar becomes unfamiliar.

Dan made us watch a clip of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Okay. When I see a child in a scary movie, I get freaked out immediately. Not cool, Dan. Not cool. It showed a clip when aliens are trying to get into this house, and the mom is freaking out. The child and the house are familiar before this starts happening, and all of the sudden the kid goes nuts and is trying desperately to get out of the house. The house goes crazy and starts coming alive. Hence, the unfamiliar. Through the whole scene I was seriously trying not to watch, but I couldn't look away. At the end, the child crawls through the doggy door, and the mom is hanging onto his legs and then lets go of him. Yep. Never watching that.

Dan then put a clip of Jaws on. It showed 2 men on the dock hooking a roast to a rope and dropping it in the water to catch a shark. They then tied the rope to the dock so the shark won't get away. Dan said that the story is so well set up because everything is normal. The familiar dock. The calm water.

And then ... the shark gets the roast. Pulls on the rope and breaks the whole dock in half. One of the men falls into the water, and watches as the piece of floating dock that is now hooked to the shark, turns around and heads back toward him. I'm sure no amount of swear words would be enough, knowing a huge shark is now coming to eat you.

Delay the other shoe.

Next, Dan told us about a movie or something that a guy lived in an apartment, and every night, the person above him would take his shoes off and drop them on the floor, one by one. One night, the guy came home, rolled his eyes when he heard his upstairs neighbor getting ready for bed. He heard one shoe drop, and then waited for the other one to do the same. It didn't happen. The guy downstairs then knew that something was wrong upstairs. With just that little thing. One shoe not dropping, he knew there was trouble.

He then showed the clip from Jaws where the main character is stressing because he knows there's a shark out in the water, but the mayor won't close the beaches and no one else believes him. He shows several scenes of people just playing on the beach and doing normal things, but all the main character sees is dangers everywhere. A kid screaming, but then you realize he's just having fun. Lot's of examples like that as the movie keeps rolling and the main character keeps freaking out. As viewers we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it doesn't, and doesn't again, and then finally the shark comes when you least expect it and a life is lost. He keeps us in suspense so long, that we are on the edge of our seat the whole time, and are surprised when it finally does happen.

Pushing fear buttons.

Dan thought it would be brilliant to show Silence of the Lambs for this example. And can I just say, I'll never ever be watching this movie. Just this scene scared the crap out of me!

Anyway, it's the end of the film. The main character, Jodi Foster, has gone into the building where the kidnap victim is trapped in a hole. Dan explained how brilliant is was, that the camera's kept showing things people were scared of. (There was a barking dog, so Jodi Foster couldn't hear well, a screaming girl calling for help, a lot of closed doors, which she had to open and had no idea what would be on the other side, rooms full of creepy stuff, the lights go out, etc.) We have the character's obvious fear. Her breathing, her wide eyes and you can see her shaking almost the whole time. And honestly, if an armed FBI agent is freaked out, why the heck wouldn't I be? Anyway, near the climax of the film, the lights go out and we get to see the murderer looking at her through his night-vision glasses. It was so freaky. Yeah. Never watching that show.
His point was, you can make every day things appear creepier. You can write the book through the villain's eyes, or preferably the victim. What are they thinking? Feeling? What is making them so scared that they can't think straight?

Show the monster when the time is right.

I wish we could have heard more about this one, but the time ran out. Dan was trying to say make the monster believable. Don't make it ridiculous or a waste of the reader's time. Make him/her scary. Make them have nothing to lose. Those kind of "monsters" are the scariest, in my opinion. ;)

So, all in all, this class was fantastic. He had some brilliant ideas, and it really got me thinking about writing horror! He he. Not really, but I do have some great ideas for making my scenes more intense.

Help!

I have a writing conference coming up in a few weeks, and I have NO idea what to do to get ready for it.

So, I'm asking you guys for advice.

1. What the heck do I wear?

2. Do I carry my laptop around? Or just a notebook?

3. How do I talk to real authors without passing out?

4. Can I take books from home to get signed by my favorite authors? (They do have a book signing during the conference...)

5. Do you have name tags?

6. Will I know where the heck I'm supposed to go?

7. Will people like me?

Yeah ... pretty sure I'm freaking out a little...

Don't get me wrong, I'm SO excited, I just have a hard time not knowing what it's going to be like.

Oh, and it's the first time ever that I'll be leaving my kids with just my hubby overnight. Mixed emotions about that! :) He'll be fine, I'm just not sure if I'll be fine!

How did you do at your first conference?