A con is only as good as what you take away from it. When Words Collide 2015 had a fantastic line up of guests and panels to serve it’s 600 attendees. The 2015 guests included Diana Gabaldon (historical), Daniel Abraham (fantasy), C.J. Carmichael (romance), Faith Hunter/Gwen Hunter (urban fantasy/thriller) and Brandon Mull (young adult) as well as literary agents and small/medium press publishers.

Between the workshops and the panels, it was a great weekend to boost the little grey cells. Here are six things I found interesting:

1) On using pen names
Writing is about meeting reader expectations and as a writer you need to be transparent when you set those expectations. So if you use your real name when you write urban romance, it’s best if you use a different name when you write in a different genre like science fiction. Why? Because each name tells the reader what to expect. If they buy a book expecting to read a romance and it’s science fiction, you’ll have one angry fan and you don’t want that. However, each name you use doesn’t need a separate website. Your readers will accept that you have different lines under different names. Beware though, that if you’re writing for vastly different genres, like children’s picture books and erotica, not only are different names appropriate but a different website would be too!

2) Subtext provides depth and foreshadowing
The best foreshadowing is done through subtext. Done well, subtext makes future events more believable, creates mood and adds resonance. Subtext is implied, not said or told. It is the implicit undertone that reinforces an unspoken idea. This whisper campaign plants the seeds of underlying emotions, plots, and things to come in the subconscious mind and gives us deeper levels of hidden meanings within a story. Objects, symbols, actions and character traits are a few ways in which to create subtext.

3) Agents are human!
Whether you’ve got five minutes or two to make your pitch, you still need to start with pleasantries and not simply barrel into the pitch. Make sure you’ve done your research on the agent or publisher you’re pitching to so you can say what’s special about that agency or publishing house and why you think you’d be a good fit with them. Above all, be aware that it’s not just the book they’re assessing, but also if you’d make an adequate partner. The book industry is a team sport but always, the writing has to be great.

4) The business of being published
There are three main areas: Writer (product creation); Marketing (distribution, sales, promotion, platform); and Business (financial, legal, taxes). The key being successful is to know who you are as an individual and to understand how much time you want to spend on each of the three areas. For example, how much strength does your personality have to market? Understand your weaknesses and get help in those areas. Neglect any one and your business suffers BUT above all else, your product is the priority because without a good product, the rest won’t work.

5) Tricks for a successful mystery
This list was long, but here are a few of my favorites: Limit the sleuth’s options by giving him a weaknesses such as emotional, relationship, or physical impairment; tighten the pace with imposed deadlines; raise the stakes, threaten characters; allow characters to make mistakes; understand that the victim is the key catalyst for the story happens because of that person and he is the solution to the crime; readers want to solve the crime with the sleuth so have fun placing and revealing those secrets, clues and red herrings to make the investigation interesting.

6) Those critical first pages
Whether the first page uses the dialogue, narrative style or action, every good opening must contain: an event that will prove pivotal later but isn’t finished; characters in conflict; a writing style that sets the tone of the story; strong, active verbs and words; immediacy or the tension of knowing that something is about to happen; and the bait of a great opening line. In the first five pages, start an event and then don’t finish it – that creates a story within a story such as an internal conflict hinted at and an external conflict implied. Offer a thread of information or evidence to the reader and force the reader to deduce its relevance. Above all else, you will never go wrong by opening with conflict.

Check this con out at: http://www.whenwordscollide.org/

When Words Collide

Confessions of a Con Novice

September 24, 2015

Jace Killan

Conventions Jace Killan The Writing Life World Fantasy Con WorldCon 1 Comment

A few years ago at a writing seminar I was asked if I’d be attending a local upcoming “Con.” I wasn’t exactly sure what a Con was. My friend clarified that she was referring to “Comicon.”

This may come as a surprise to some, but I hadn’t ever heard of Comicon. Or Dragon Con or Worldcon except that it sounded like Worldcom. (No I promise that isn’t a knock at the Hugos. I really was this ignorant).

But I didn’t want to flaunt my ignorance so I googled, Comicon and sure enough there was one in Phoenix that summer.

Have you ever learned an exotic word that you could swear you’ve never heard before, but once you learn it, you hear it everywhere? All of the sudden, everyone I knew was talking about Comicon.

So I gathered the family and we ventured to the conference center. I was blown away at how popular it was. There were crowds upon crowds of people, most dressed up like it was Halloween. Someone asked me if I was into Cosplay. This was also a new word for me and it sounded, well, kinky, so I shook my head and ran away.

As far as the Con, My kids loved it. I loved it. My wife would have preferred about anything else but she obliged, allowing me to be amongst “my people” as she lovingly called the attendees.

So, I’m still a Con novice, but I’m gaining experience. I have attended a smaller con in Arizona and last year I went to Salt Lake Comic Con as a volunteer in the Word Fire Press exhibitor booth.

And today, I have returned one year later to that same Con of Cons to be amongst my Word Fire friends but this time I brought my son and I might even let him Cosplay. Because I’ve made it my mission as a dad to help my children have a better childhood than I had. That’s how we make the world a better place. My son knows what a Con is. He also knows that Salt Lake Comic Con is different (though it is of similar pronunciation) than Phoenix Comicon or San Diego Comic-Con. And there are a good many more Cons of comics and other great things.

Here’s a helpful list and for the sake of humanity, please take your children; after all they are our future.

Salt Lake Comic Con – August 31 – September 3, 2016

San Diego Comic-Con – July 21 – 24, 2016

Phoenix Comicon – June 2 – 5, 2016

Phoenix Comicon – Fan Fest Dec 4 – 6, 2015

Dragon Con (Atlanta) – September 2 – 5, 2016

2016 Worldcon hosted by MidAmeriCon II (Kansas City, MO) – August 17 – 21, 2016

Rose City Comic Con (Oregon) – September 10 – 11, 2016

World Fantasy Con 2015 (Saratoga Springs, NY) – November 5 – 8

World Fantasy Con 2016 (Columbus, OH) – October 27 – 30

Click here to see a bunch more

I live in Arizona with my family, wife and five kids and a little dog. I write fiction, thrillers and soft sci-fi with a little short horror on the side. I’ve got an MBA and work in finance for a biotechnology firm.

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.

You can visit my author website at www.jacekillan.com, and you can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page.

Ad Astra and Can Con

September 23, 2015

mary

Conventions Professional Behavior No Comments

As a Canadian, travelling out of the country to attend cons involves a big trip with advance saving and planning, and most years it’s just not affordable for me to travel internationally. Fortunately, there’s some great cons in Ontario that have offered me some opportunities closer to home.

Ad Astra is held in April each year in Toronto. Can-Con is an autumn convention that’s taking place this year in Ottawa from October 30 – November 1. It’s my pleasure to be a panelist at Can-Con 2016 and for anyone reading who’s going to be with us in Ottawa this fall, I look forward to seeing you then!

Ad Astra is Toronto’s sci fi and fantasy convention with a focus on authors and other creative professionals. Can Con, the Conference for Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature, invites writers, editors, and academic professionals in fields that range from physics and astronomy to Renaissance Studies to speak in their areas of expertise.

Both of these conventions are different from the typical Comic-Con in that they put a special focus on writers and creators. While these cons are still fandom-friendly, their focus isn’t on TV actors, cult film or licensed merchandise. Both conventions offer a good variety of panels that include how-tos for hopeful authors, advice for new authors, discussion of issues of interest to or affecting the speculative fiction community, book launches, and more.

Since the focus of these conventions isn’t on commerce, I find the dealer’s rooms to be significantly smaller than at conventions such as Ottawa Comic-Con, GAnime, or HalCon. However, the people who do go to those dealer’s rooms are going to be specifically interested in buying books (as opposed to licensed merchandise). Getting a table is something I’ll be looking at doing in future when I have full-length novels to sell (right now, my stock consists of anthologies in which I am one of many contributors).

The last time I was at Ad Astra, I volunteered to sit at the Dragon Moon Press table with copies of When the Hero Comes Home 2, the anthology that published my first professionally-sold story. Helping out was important to me for several reasons. Because the publisher had paid for the table, there was no financial cost for me to meet people and help sell books. I was able to watch and learn from my fellow contributors who’d worked at con tables before. While I was sitting there, I got to form friendships with my fellow authors. And as a matter of professionalism, in the future, I know the editors and publishers would rather work with someone who’s ready and willing to lend a hand, rather than someone who prefers to avoid work and responsibility. It was easy to approach and talk to fans with a shared interest in speculative literature.

The down side of this arrangement was that since it was a specific publisher’s table, we couldn’t use the table to sell books or anthologies by other publishers. Trying to sneak other books onto a table someone else had paid for would have been extremely disrespectful; we didn’t, and I don’t recommend it to anyone. One of my fellow authors got around this restriction by volunteering to cover another author’s table while he was at lunch, panels, etc.; in exchange, the other author agreed to host her books at his table. Another author held a book launch event at a restaurant off-site. For my part, I talked about the different things I’d written and had a few interested buyers asking to purchase my other anthologies, which I was able to direct them to online.

Ad Astra was a valuable experience for me because I was able to meet my first publisher and editors face-to-face, and also network with my fellow authors. The writing community is a relatively small one, which can be both to your advantage and your disadvantage. Advantage, in that this little bit of networking has already opened up some excellent opportunities (more on those later, when I’m at liberty to discuss them!) Disadvantage, in that news of poor manners and bad behaviour will circulate quickly. Make sure the reputation that precedes you is a good one.

After only two years people are already beginning to recognize who I am and what I write. How often do you get to build your professional career and have fun doing it?

Tampa Bay Comic Con – If We Build It, They Will Come

September 21, 2015

Scott Eder

The Writing Life No Comments

Ahhh, Tampa in August. Where lightning-quick geckos scurry across the sun-baked pavement and the heat makes you wilt, there you will find this sparkling gem of a comic convention. Does it have media guests? Yes. Is the Vendor room chock full of sparklies representing most any branch of fandom? Yes. Are there panels? Yes. So, what makes it different?

Lemme ‘splain. No, wait, that would take too long. Lemme sum up.

In the grand scheme of growing Cons, TBCC is relatively young. It has grown from the back rooms of small hotels into taking over the Tampa Bay Convention Center. Overall attendance is nearing the 40k mark. The torrential storms kept some of the crowds away this year, but we still sold a ton of books at our table in the Vendor room. Excited murmurs from the other purveyors of cool goodies proved they had a successful weekend too.

What really excites me about this Con is the growing writers’ community. We saw that growth clearly from last year to this one. As a writer and panel attending/moderating/participating enthusiast, the sheer number of panel attendees increased dramatically. Last year, my author partners (Tracy Akers, Maria DeVivo, and Dora Machado) and I submitted the first writing panel topics ever to the TBCC organizers. They gave us a chance, allowing us to hold four panels in small rooms. All were well attended, maybe 50-60 folks in each, and the feedback was stellar.

Four more panels were approved this year, only this time they booked us in a room that seated 200 people. And we needed it. One panel, “So you want to be a writer?” was a standing-room only extravaganza of Awesome. Sweet! The questions ranged from craft, to how to get published, to various aspects of the business of being a professional writer. We ran out of time, but could have gone on for another hour or two. The atmosphere in that room crackled with creative power. Man, what a day, what a Con. I can’t wait for next year.

We noticed more writers with tables in the Vendor room and several new writing panels on the schedule. But there’s always room for more. Atlanta’s DragonCon has its writing track buried in the basement of one of its monstrous hotels. Orlando’s MegaCon sports several writing panels. And Tampa, well, let’s see how many we can get approved for next year. We are growing the writing community and want you to help us out.

So, to all my writer friends out there, come to Tampa Bay Comic Con. Get a table. Sell your books. Participate on panels. Soak up the creative atmosphere. And sweat. Yeah, it’s hot. The high-powered AC will keep you cool and comfy inside, but the summer swelter will mug you when you step outside. Still, what’s a little sweat when you get the chance to talk writing with thousands of your closest new friends?

Here are the deets for Tampa Bay Comic Con:

When: August 5-7

Where: Tampa Bay Convention Center

Cost: Attendee – 60$ for all three days

Not sure about the cost of a table in Artist Alley or a booth.

Link: Tampa Bay Comic Con