I'm attending the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference (WIFYR) here in Sandy, Utah. The Salt Lake Valley is beautiful, surrounded by the Wasatch mountains, close enough to touch (almost). Close enough you can see individual trees, anyway, not just a mass of green. It's beautiful, the weather has been perfect, but best of all, I get a whole week to focus on my writing.
In the mornings we attend a class led by a qualified instructor--mine is Louise Plummer, retired professor of creative writing and author of at least six published books. She tells you like it is, but she's funny, so it softens the blow. This morning she even told one girl that she hated a sentence in her manuscript. She said it with a smile, but I still noticed the looks of shocked horror on some of the students' faces. I could only laugh. It's what we're here for, right? To find out what sucks, and what works, and to try to make it better. No sense in getting bent out of shape by a little bit of honest criticism. But ask me how I feel about that after the next class. It's my turn tomorrow.
In the afternoon we attend breakout sessions led by various writers, agents and editors. Today I listened to Brandon Mull, author of the Fablehaven series and the Beyonders series--both critically acclaimed. He just found out today that his first book in the series made the NYT bestseller list. This guy knows his stuff, but he's also the nicest guy you'll ever listen to.
He was a bit scattered, but I found his talk immensely helpful. I took about three pages of type-written notes, single-spaced. I'll spare you all of that (no one would understand it but me anyway) and give you a few of the highlights.
He talked about writing your novel in scenes. Instead of thinking about writing a great novel (daunting to say the least) he said he focuses on writing great scenes. A great novel is made up of a bunch of great scenes, after all.
What's a great scene? Well, for starters it has it's own question, or problem. Just like the whole novel has a large, over-arching problem, a scene has a smaller micro-problem. But it must move the whole plot forward, be related to the entire plot. So a scene with a problem that has nothing to do with the overall plot shouldn't be there. A scene that doesn't have a problem but gives information to the plot shouldn't be there either. It's important to weave information into the conflicts, instead.
How do you know when the scene is over? Just like how you know when the whole book is over--when the problem has reached a resolution. When the question is answered.
Sounds pretty simple, right? Probably not quite as easy as it sounds, and I've yet to put it into practice, but I will. Practice it, that is.
One last word from Mr. Mull that I loved. It's earth-shattering. Ground-breaking. Why didn't any of us think of it before? Are you ready?
He said to be nice. Work harder than anybody else, write cooler books than anybody else, and be nicer than anybody else. Your editor is your employer. You want them to want to work with you because you're a pleasure to work with. If they want to work with you because you work hard and you're a good writer, they'll keep publishing your books.
A sage piece of advice, indeed.
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