My Favorite Classes at LDStorymakers 2014

InsecureWritersSupportGroup

Hey, look! It’s the first Wednesday of the month, which means, it’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group:

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

 

This was my second time at LDStorymakers and I loved it. I love knowing that everyone there is a writer trying to get better, just like me. And especially love knowing I can talk about anything related to writing and everyone understands it. There were a lot of great classes, and the book signing is always one of my favorite parts of the conference. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos, but I did take my autograph book with me and was able to add more awesome signatures to it.

I took a lot of classes at LDStorymakers but there were a few that really impressed me. Some I knew they would, either because of the presenter or the theme. Others were a total surprise. Either way, these classes helped me see a lot of the mistakes that I’ve done, and inspired me to do much needed changes in specific parts of my stories.

One of the ‘pleasantly surprised’ classes was Tess Hilmo’s class on Beginnings Matter. To have a great beginning that compels the reader to move forward there needs to be an assertion that the reader knows will be overturned. This is what engages the reader. Beautiful stories are not enough. If the reader doesn’t care for the characters, or is given a reason to care, then the rest is irrelevant. This needs to be established early on, for obvious reasons.

I took two of Sarah Eden’s classes, and loved them both. One was called ‘The Cure for Your Sagging Middle’, in which she talked about several ways to improve the middle of a novel—establishing the character goals (long term, short term, and extremely short term goals), raising the stakes for the characters, utilizing the timeline through scene and chapter breaks, taking plot risks (when to break the rules and how to break them), and using the protagonist vs. antagonist dynamic to further the story.

Lisa Mangum gave an excellent class on Voice- Making your manuscript SING: be Selective, be Intense, be Notorious, and be Genuine. Voice is not style. Voice is what you have to say, and style is how you choose to say it. She went further by saying that voice is the quality that makes your writing unique, and it conveys the writer’s personality and attitude. It also shows the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a narrator.  While voice and style are different, they are more powerful when used together.

Another great class was by Kathy Gordon on Bad Writing Habits- Six Mistakes You Should Ban Forever from your Writing: too much irrelevant detail and too much backstory; too much wordiness; too many adjectives and adverbs; bad analogies; weak and soft dialogue, and outlandish names. She also said that reading a lot is the best way to learn to write.

[Insecure Writer #213]

Have you been to a writing conference or workshop recently? What was your favorite class?

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