The Weekend Writer: WriteOnCon On Voice

So did we all get a chance to stop by WriteOnCon this past week? Hmm? No? Well, I did, and I have my eye on a few events there that I still want to take a look at.

However, today I'm going to point you to something I've already seen at  WriteOnCon, What y'all saying, Bubba?--Creating Voice in Fiction by Joy Preble. We covered using voice to find story here in June. But you can never know too much, and Preble has some interesting things to say on this subject.

Voice And Worldview

Take a look at her third paragraph, for instance, which begins "What makes voice?" Everything she gives for an answer is correct, but I agree with her when she says that "Understanding and sticking to the character's worldview" is particularly important. She makes a good point later with “It doesn’t matter what typical sixteen year olds would say or not. The only thing that matters is what this particular sixteen-year-old character would say."

Writers only know characters well enough to create a way of speaking for them if they have created a worldview for them, if they know how characters understand and see the world. It becomes a circle, really. Characters speak a certain way because of their understanding of their world and their place in it. Their world and their place in it has an impact on them, and that's why they speak the way they do.

At some point in your writing, character and world become knitted together, everything becomes part of the whole.

Yeah. I know. Ommm.

The Weekend Writer: WriteOnCon And Writers' Conferences

I'm going to take a little break from writing about finding our stories with plot, so I can talk about writing conferences and their value to very new writers.

When To Consider Attending A Writers' Conference

When I was a young whipperwriter, just starting out, my sole experience with writers' conferences was working in the kitchen at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Conferences didn't litter the landscape back then the way they do now, so attending them wasn't something I gave a lot of thought to. Things are different now. Conferences are everywhere.

Conferences could very well be a good next step for an unpublished writer who has put in some time writing, studying, and maybe with a writers' group. I wouldn't advise it as the first thing someone considering getting started writing should do. You will get more out of a conference, if you have some kind of knowledge base to begin with.

Many people will tell you that the big benefit of conferences is networking and making connections that will help you professionally. Cannot say that has ever happened with me. I still think conferences are beneficial if there are workshops being offered that specifically deal with the kind of writing you do or with writing problems you have. That increases the probability of you getting something from the experience. That's another reason to wait to attend until you have some knowledge of writing. Without that, you won't even know what conference options are best for you.

Going to a writers' conference and sitting in the same room with other writers can make you feel like a writer. It's good to be with your own kind every now and then.

What To Look For In A Conference And What To Expect

Conferences are iffy things, though. Anyone can rent some space, higher a few people to speak, and call it a conference. Look for conferences run by organizations that have been around for a while, like the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and its regional branches or Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America or established colleges, like Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Even then, not all conference workshops/panels/lectures are created equal. Many are taught/given by writers who have different amounts of experience both as writers and as speakers. Publishing one book doesn't make anyone an authority on anything, no matter how successful it was. Publishing a dozen books doesn't mean someone can speak well and explain what s/he does. You have to go into these things thinking of them the way you would a book of essays or short stories. Some essays/short stories in an anthology are mind boggling. Some you don't know what they're doing there. You're going to come away with some transforming moments from some conference workshops, you're going to have wasted your time in others. That's just the way it is.

Which Brings Us To WriteOnCon 

 

Are you all excited now about attending a writers' conference? You want to go to one very, very soon? You can get a little exposure to one, cheaply and easily, by attending WriteOnCom, a free, online, children's writers' conference being held August 13th and 14th. "...keynote addresses, agent panels, and lectures are presented as blogs, vlogs, moderated chats, webinars, podcasts, and livestreaming." If you can't be in front of your computer one of the days of the conference, you can check out most of this online material at your leisure. I "attended" last year's WriteOnCon about two weeks after it was over.

I hope to go closer to the actual dates this year, and will, no doubt, be blogging about some of what I see there.

A Change Of Schedule 

 

Some of my faithful readers may have noticed that I'm having difficulty blogging on weekends this summer. To deal with the reality of this situation, I am going to cut back to blogging just once a weekend. I'll be alternating The Weekend Writer with Weekend Links.

So you shouldn't expect to see The Weekend Writer again for two weeks.