SCBWI FL Conference Part 3 and one day left for the GIVEAWAY!

I hope I can do this post justice, as I'm running out of computer time...

I left off right before the Editor Panel about Fantasy (Fantasy Isn't Just For Wizards).  The editors (Kate Jacobs, Krista Marino, and Arianne Lewin) talked about what fantasy is (worlds not bound by our laws, fiction of the impossible) and about how there is a spectrum with realistic and fantasy on opposite ends.  They handed out a list of different fantasy genres and examples of each.  If you are curious about their examples for any category, let me know.  The panel also emphasized how much personal taste comes into publishing.  For example, Krista said she is pretty much over dystopian, but Arianne said she loves it. :)

The last presentation on Saturday was Robin Wasserman.  Her talk was called Two Truths and a Lie, and it was about using reality/truth to make your story believable.  She said all good fiction is realistic, and that the stories we love are ones we believe in.  She said when writing, bring in two truths: factual/concrete truth (can be from research) and emotional truth.  Then when you add the made up stuff, it feels real.  She also gave two resources to Google: "Slanguage: Teen Voices and Teen Vernaculars" by Scott Westerfeld and "Patricia Wrede Worldbuilding" (an exhaustive list of worldbuilding questions to ask yourself).

After that, it was time for critiques and then the Dragonslayers Ball!  Here are a few pictures from the Dragonslayers Ball.

This is me (as Toothless the dragon from How To Train Your Dragon), Christy Farley, and Jessica Souders

Karen Strong rocking the Viking look.

Christy taking a picture of me taking a picture--lol.  But look!  It's Harley May! :)

So, in other words, the Dragonslayers Ball was great fun. 

On Sunday, we had small workshops before the end of the conference.  My first workshop was with Arianne Lewin (Executive Editor at Putnam).  It was about self-revising, and it was fantastic!  First, she talked about how she revises with authors:
-She usually does at least three revisions before the book goes to copy-editing.
-She thinks pretty extensively about revisions before acquiring the novel.
-She said don't do revisions for someone, do them for the book.
-Her average editorial letter is 6-7 pages.
-And she said not to work on the book if you are waiting on an editorial letter.
Then she had us go through some of our own writing looking for things like exposition, non-said dialogue tags, etc.  She was using the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers for examples and such, and highly recommended it.  Since I have had others recommend it to me, I actually stopped on the way home and bought it.  LOL.

Overall, it was an amazing conference.  I obviously can't share everything with you, but I hope you picked up a helpful nugget or two, and I hope I've encouraged you to consider attending a local conference of your own!

Don't forget, my giveaway ends tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon EST, so make sure you've entered!

Larissa :)