Tag Archives: David Farland

When I went to the first Superstars Writing Seminar in Pasadena back in March of 2010, I thought I was going to get some sound business advice from successful writers – and I did. In spades. I had many expectations which were all exceeded by lengths of football fields. I also thought I’d meet people and make some nice acquaintances – wrong. So very wrong. I made friends. Lifelong friends and writing peers and a writing family we now call The Fictorians.

I remember clearly one night in Pasadena, we were walking back to the hotel after a night of food and beer at a local pub. I was talking with Kevin J. Anderson and I was saying that the group of him, Rebecca Moesta, Dave Farland/Wolverton, Brandon Sanderson and Eric Flint reminded me of the Oxford group that met regularly to talk writing which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I asked how a group like that formed because it seemed to enhance everyone’s writing and careers.

Kevin said, “Look around.”

I did and what I saw were all the people who I’d been hanging with at every break and meal. The ones who’d gravitated together and felt a connection. I saw people I liked, respected and thought had awesome ideas they were working on in their writing. I saw people like me. People who wanted to be writers, took their writing seriously and were taking steps to succeed in this cool and difficult profession.

When I looked back at him, he said (and I paraphrase), “You’re doing it. Right now. With these people. This is how groups like that are formed.”

We left that seminar, with emails in hand and a goal to stay connected. We live all over the world. We write in different genres. Some of us have met in person again in Las Vegas for one of ours to renew her vows to her lovely husband. We’ve seen each other at other Superstar Seminars since the first one. We have conference calls and stay connected via email and social media. We have areas of expertise that the others can tap into with a simple request. We’re friends and peers.

I have one other writing group that I feel this way about, and I value those friends as well.

So, when someone asks me what is a moment that makes me love being a writer, I think of my friends and fellow writers. The people who support me and keep me motivated. Who inspire me. Who share a dream with me. These are people who keep me going when times are hard.

Because I’m a romance writer, I use the ‘L’ word a lot and I’m going to use it now. These are people I love for all they give me and pull out of me and share with me.

It’s four years later, and Kevin was right. We’ve become one of those groups. We’ve been through bumps and growing pains. People leave the core but remain on the peripheral, some return, some never left, but we’re still together, doing what we love and supporting each other. We are the Fictorians. And I think we’re Fictorious!

Recalibration

June 19, 2014

Jace Killan

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They say there are no new stories. I didn’t really know what that meant, other than there are common themes through some stories, similar character arcs and that sort of thing, but Twilight and Hunger Games were both very popular “new” stories, right?

I’ve been cranking along on a novel that I’ve now been writing for about two years. It’s a YA fantasy, so word count isn’t the reason for its slow development. I’m a discovery writer and I’m learning, feeling the downsides to this writer type. I started the novel as an exercise, trying to implement point of view and showing versus telling. Fifteen thousand words in and the story began to take shape. Then I learned about pacing and yes my craft was full of pacing problems so I rewrote the story. Then I learned about strong character development and so I rewrote the then twenty thousand words to develop stronger characters.

A year into the novel and a quarter of the way through, after several reworks, I got bored of the piece and went on to write a few short stories, my novel calling out continually to my subconscious, letting me know that I have yet to compete a story of length. So at the beginning of the year I recommitted to writing, adding 5000 words to my story each month. Well, had I done so, I’d be completed with the writing phase of my novel.

Earlier this year (not long after my recommitment to this story) I watched the Lego Movie. I love legos, always have. The start was entertaining. Then as the story developed, I saw my story, the one I’ve been writing, developing for the past two years, come together on the silver screen. Well it was much better than my story and it was completed, but the underlying morals, messages, the character development, all of that was my story, just with legos in a lego world versus some magical realm I had concocted.

This killed my buzz, my energy and momentum. Why bother writing a story that is already told so beautifully?

My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was fourteen. He showed me four chords, C, Am, F, and G. It took awhile to build the muscles so I could play the sequence without pausing. My dad showed me that those four chords in that sequence were the base of La Bamba, Can’t Help Falling in Love, Sherrybaby, Hang on Sloopy, Mr. Bojangles, and just about every Peter, Paul, and Mary song.

All these songs have different words, different rhythms, different tunes, but underneath, they’re all the same. La Bamba evokes a different emotion than Mr. Bojangles. And I like them both.

So while my story might have been told, it wasn’t told by me, with my characters, in my style of writing, in my world, from my character’s point of view.

I bucked up and recommitted.

I knew I needed to deal with this discovery writing problem. I wanted to finish the book, not spend the rest of the decade rewriting it. I decided to buy Million Dollar Outlines.

After describing me to a T, David Farland suggests that if authors are set on being discovery writers, they shouldn’t bother purchasing his book. Well I do love discovery writing, but it’s not entirely working for me, so I kept reading, after all I had already paid for it. He later suggests that many writers take a hybrid approach, using outlining methods but leaving themselves room so they can still discover the rest of the story.

That’s what I needed to hear. The book is a tremendous help and has great stuff for any type of writer. After reading through it, I was able to outline the rest of the story, and it gave me some great ideas on my already written part, so yes, I’ve rewritten the completed section once again, aligning it with my outlined plot and am currently 32,000 words into the novel. I’m back on track and recalibrated. My new goal is to turn the novel over to beta readers by the end of the year. To steal a line from the movie, “Everything is awesome.”

Never Stop Learning

January 30, 2014

Leigh Galbreath

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I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve heard people say that some aspect of writing couldn’t be taught. My personal favorite is that you can learn all the technique you want, but you’re either born with the ability to tell a good story, or you’re not. That you can’t learn how to tell a good story.

I personally think that the people who espouse these ideas have either spent entirely too much time dealing with writers who aren’t willing to put the work in, or we’re all a little confused on what, if any, difference there is between technique and telling a good story.

Writing is a craft, after all, and no one’s born a master of any craft.

Of course, we will probably never be utterly fantastic at every aspect of the writing craft. Some have fantastic world-building but a slow plot. Others great characters but not enough setting. Stephanie Meyer, for instance, has long been derided on her writing style, and has even admitted herself that she’s not the best writer, but she’s does a hell of a job weaving emotion into every scene and tugging the heart strings of her readers—which is exactly what her readers want.

The point being, just because you’re not the greatest at something doesn’t mean you’re not a good enough writer to be published. At the same time, ignoring your weaknesses because “it can’t be taught” is a total cop-out, in my opinion.

Like most everyone here, I dream for that day when I’m going about my usual day, doing something boring and what-not, only to happen upon someone reading a book with my name on it. I feel the despair that I’m not quite there yet and hear the clock ticking away the time that means there’s one more day I haven’t achieved my dream. And yes, I’m a realist. I know a good portion of that is fear of putting my work out there, but I also know I’ve still got some serious weaknesses that I need to address.

When I was a teenager, I had a choir instructor who explained that he taught people who were tone-deaf how to sing. It’s in understanding the real root of the problem that allows something like that to happen. With the tone-deaf people, they had to learn how the notes related to each other to be able to figure out how to go from one correct note to another correct note without wandering off, so to speak.

With writing, I think, it’s much the same. If you understand what the real problem is, you can fix it. You just might have to look a bit harder and be a little more creative to get the results you’re looking for.

My personal demon at the moment is plot structure. Something’s always escaped me about how to put one event before another and have it work to engage the reader, move the story forward, and still service the characters.

As a discovery writer, I lean toward minimal effort spent on deep planning before writing. Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling with a few stories that I have come to realize really need to be plotted before I start writing in earnest. So, recently I decided to dedicate a good portion of this year in workshops and classes specifically geared toward pre-writing. Currently, I’m doing David Farland’s online prewriting class at mystorydoctor.com, and while it has done a fantastic job in helping me learn how to plan a novel before I write it, it incidentally opened my eyes as why plot structure has always eluded me.

For me, there was one exercise in particular that helped me figure out what the real problem was. The idea was to establish circularity between characters in opposition to each other, by writing out how each character reacts to the actions of the other. This forced me to find the cause and effect of the conflict…and suddenly I know how my plot is supposed to work and how the sub-plots interact with it. Suddenly, I get it.

So, that’s my goal for this year, to focus on becoming a better writer by taking my weakness and working to learn how to get better at it.

I refuse to believe that there are things I can’t learn. The only thing I was born with was a love of stories. The writing portion is a work in progress.

Superstars Writing Seminar – worth attending again

January 29, 2014

Frank Morin

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Superstars Writing Seminar will be held February 6–8 in Colorado Springs, CO. It is the premier seminar on the business of writing, period. I attended the first seminar, held in 2010 in Pasadena, CA, and I’m eagerly anticipating attending again this year.

I’m not the only alumni of the seminar to sign up for another year, and honestly I would have loved to have gone last year. This Fictorians group was formed from alumni of the Superstars seminar, and members have begun publishing and making their mark as writers. In the near future, we’ll only see that trend increasing, thanks in part to knowledge gained through Superstars.

You may ask yourself why we’re so eager to spend the hundreds of dollars required to invest in another seminar when we learned so much the last time we went.

It’s precisely because we learned so much last time.

This seminar is different than any other writer’s seminar I know of. It’s taught by bestselling authors, top editors, and publishers, but more than that what makes this seminar stand apart is the content. This is a crash course in the business of writing, where successful writing professionals share what they do and how they manage their career. For writers who are serious about their writing career, be they newbie authors who have yet to complete their first novel, or published writers looking to reach the next level, this seminar imparts a wealth of information that I have not found anywhere else.

You can view a high level description of the curriculum here which includes contracts, agents, indie publishing, traditional publishing, intellectual properties, and much more.

The seminar in 2010 was a career-changing experience for me. I arrived as an eager, wannabe writer with lots of enthusiasm and one manuscript completed. I left even more energized and armed with the knowledge I needed to move into the next stage of my career as a writer. Given the constantly moving target which is publishing these days, the specifics of what is taught each year is adjusted accordingly, so I expect this year’s content to be different from what I saw just four years ago.

What I learned four years ago is still fresh in my mind. Some favorite memories include Brandon Sanderson relating how he landed his first agent; Kevin J. Anderson’s popcorn theory; Eric Flint’s detailed discussion of contracts; and the discussion of how prolific an author really needs to be to succeed.

On top of the top-rate content, this seminar provides other fantastic benefits. Not only did we form the Fictorians from alumni of the seminars, but the instructors have remained available and engaged with the group. We have a private Facebook group where we can all post questions and comments and get advice or feedback from each other and from the instructors. The networking benefits of the seminar are proving an invaluable long-term benefit.

This year I approach the seminar from a slightly different point. I have four novels completed, with four more in various stages of outlining, one novel e-published and an agent working on deals with others. This time I have different needs, and I fully expect to gain the knowledge I need to make even greater strides forward in my career.

So is Superstars worth attending again?

Absolutely.

If you’ve never heard of Superstars, check it out. I guarantee it’s worth the investment.