Conventions Worth Going To: RT Booklovers Convention

As an author, aspiring author, or a reader, there's so many conventions out there that it can be hard to decide which ones to go to.  I have two small children, so I decided a few years ago that I would choose one non-local convention a year to attend, and after asking around, I picked RT.

Lydia Kang and me at the YA authors social at RT.

The RT Booklovers Convention is more or less a hybrid genre convention, in that it's ostensibly a romance con, but it has a massive Young Adult contingent, from the YA Alley at the Giant Book Fair, to multiple panels on writing craft, business, publishing, and fun meet-the-author style events.

The Long Game in Publishing panel with (from left to right) Julie Murphy, Sophie Jordan, Molly Jaffa, Rachel Caine, Tessa Gratton, and Whitney Ross.

But RT is a hybrid convention in more ways that one.  While a lot of conventions for writers are typically writer/industry only, like RWA or BEA, RT is a writer and reader convention.  Which means you have a chance to interact with your readers more than you ever would anywhere else, which to me, makes it the convention worth going to.  You get to network, promote and geek out all at the same place.  And did I mention all the books?  THERE'S A LOT OF BOOKS INVOLVED.

I mean, like a LOT.

So, if you're shopping around for conventions, I highly, highly recommend RT.  (And next year it's in Vegas.  So you know.  VEGAS.)

Committing to the Shiny New Idea

Shiny new ideas can come at you with all sorts of speeds. There are the ones that slap you upside the head so fast, you twirl and forget your surroundings ("Groceries? Who cares! MUST WRITE NOW.") There are the slow brewing ones that squat like a frog in the corner of your brain, begging to be turned into something more majestic.

Either way, at some point, writers must commit to their new idea. Here are some of the steps I go through when deciding to spend the next months (or year? Years, even?) with the next novel.

What else is already out there?

Source: Giphy

Every story you write is uniquely yours. If you ask two people to write a story about paisley-patterned pixies that live in Greenland, they will still be different. But--I know that personally I don't like to write a novel if that type of story is already glutting the market. I want to write something that truly feels unique to me. How will I know readers will find it different? What can I add to the already plentiful number of beautifully written books out there? So I always take that into consideration.

What is my main character's journey going to be like?

Source: Giphy

So. The journey. There are lots of classic journeys that main characters go through. Will it be a classic hero's journey? How will the MC change and grow? What are the stakes? Are they important enough? When I ask these questions, I try to feel if this is a story I actually care to create, watch unfold, and be involved in.

How familiar am I with this genre?

Source: Giphy

I am a genre-hopping writer. CONTROL and CATALYST are firmly in the realm of science fiction, defined by the genetic manipulation and near future realities within it, but I've also written historical, urban fantasy, and have high fantasy and even more historical on my list of things to write. I've lived in YA but also dabble in MG. I always try to read lots of books when I'm entering into new territory, so I can get a feel for how other authors tackle them (also known as the most fun homework, EVER.) I know we hear the common phrase "Write what you know," but part of writing is about using our imaginations to expand into what we're unfamiliar with. However--if it's so unfamiliar that you're deeply uncomfortable in that territory, well. That's telling.

Can I speak the language?

Source: Giphy

This is really a research/brainstorming question. Before I can write a single word, I have to know what my characters are going to sound like, what they wear. I have to know what the buildings look like, if the food is spicy. I have to know about the politics of the time and the historical background--and I'm not just talking about writing historical novels. This is true for epic fantasy, and futuristic thrillers, and contemporary. If you can sit inside your world and really see it--you're ready to live there a while.

Who else lives here?

Source: Giphy

World building is one thing, but who else lives there? These are the people and animals and creatures that can really bring vibrancy to your world. A main character is nothing without the supporting cast. So I have to meet them and be just as entranced with them as the MC and world.

Am I in love with it?

Source: Giphy

This is the biggest question of all. After all this work, am I still in love with it? Because to tell you the truth, I've never written a novel where my heart didn't flutter at the very concept of it. I can't explain why, but the spark sometimes disappears after fleshing it all out. Those books have never been written. However, if I'm still swooning over the idea, then Spock isn't allowed to destroy it all. I open up my Scrivener program and start writing page one. :)

Who Are You? On Finding Your Writer Identity.

I recently started the Writing For Children and Young Adults Masters Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, with my first residency completed in July and my first packet due to my advisor in ten days.

Already, I have found it to be a transformative experience.

During my ten days in Vermont, I made more realizations about who I am as a writer than I had in the past ten years of going through the process of becoming a published author.

That’s not to say that I learned more, it just means that I was able to step back from the process and ask questions that got to the core of who I am.

In the workshops, lectures, and conversations with faculty and classmates, one idea kept coming up, over and over: the idea of self-awareness and it being the cornerstone that everything else is built upon. As writers, we run into a lot of prescriptive advice (don’t do this, do this!), and more often than not, it overwhelms us, even stagnates us.

This is because writing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. What we need most is to explore our writer identity and then arm ourselves with the tools that will help us, as individuals, to develop our craft and to protect what is important to us.

So how does one go about exploring one’s identity as a writer? Ask lots of questions and be open to the answers. Experiment. Understand that it’s not going to happen overnight and that each day brings new challenges and new opportunities. Never stop striving to be better.

Who are you?

Handling the Baggage

But that’s the way it works. That’s how it would happen.

We’ve all said that at one time or another as writers. An editor or critique reads our carefully researched darling of an idea or scene and tells us that it’s not believable. Or it didn’t happen that way. And we want to drag out our piles of research and rub their noses in it. Or we just want to write the naysayers off as being too thick to get it and go on our merry way.

But we can’t do that. Our job as fiction writers isn’t telling the truth. Our job is creating the appearance of truth, aka verisimilitude. If the readers don’t get it, then we’re the ones being thick.

So, how do we get them to get it?

Readers of any age come into a story with some baggage, some preconceptions about how the world works. Readers of science fiction and dystopia already have ideas—from movies, TV, and other books—of what, for instance, a post-plague world might look like. They’re generally willing to suspend disbelief—until they encounter something that doesn’t jive with their preconceptions, until they run over the baggage-shaped speed bump in the road through your story.

What do we do? We writers either have to cleverly convince the readers the story could happen that way or remove the speed bumps that jostle them out of the story.

I know of two strategies to do this:

(1) Take it out. Do you really need the detail? Although you did the research, you don’t need to include everything. Don’t fall in love with a detail or even an idea. (I do this all the time.) Is it critical to the story? If not, maybe you don’t need it. If this one thing that’s not critical to the story trips up your readers, then axe it.

(2) Debunk the popular wisdom. Use the truth to give the story even more authenticity. The best example I’ve heard to explain this strategy is from another genre—mystery. (And I’m going to steal shamelessly from a class I took from Michaela Roesner years ago.)

Let’s say you’re writing a scene where your protagonist has to identify a body at a small town morgue. Being a stickler for authenticity, you visit your local medical examiner, and she tells you no one ever identifies the body by actually looking at it. They use dental records, finger prints, and DNA testing. As a last resort, they might show a photo of the deceased to his or her family. And you find out most morgues are like that. So you write your scene in which the hero is shown a photo, but your editor later says it’s not believable. On TV or in movies, they always get to see the body.

But that's the way it works, you want to tell her.

Now what? Let's say the scene is crucial to your story, so you keep it. How do you make the truth believable? You could have your protagonist storming in, demanding to see the body. Then the disgruntled medical examiner could quip something like “What do you think this is? CSI: Miami? Those TV guys have ruined this profession.” In a few lines, you’ve turned the reader’s preconception on its ear--plus you've given them the feeling that now they're going to hear how it really works.

Can you guys think of other strategies you’ve used or read to create the appearance of truth? Also, what particular "baggage" do young adults (and adults) bring into dystopian fiction? Do teens bring fewer preconceptions just because they're younger? Or do they just have a different set of luggage than we adults?