Priceless experience of attending a writer's conference.

Today was an amazing day! I, along with my very dear friend Kali Rogers, attended a local writer's conference. Just a short trek into the mountains of North Georgia brought us to the beautiful town of Dahlonega. As this was the first writer's conference I had ever attended in any capacity, I wasn't sure what to expect. To be perfectly honest, I was more than a bit nervous.

Silly, right?

Still, it's the truth. I'm not typically a timid person, however, unfamiliar situations unsettle me regardless of my extroverted personality. But I must say, sitting in on the panels and listening to other authors discuss their processes on myriad aspects of writing brought a sense of belonging made me feel connected to something much bigger than myself. I've not been at this whole writing thing all that long, so making that connection to others, discovering that these authors struggle and move through many of the same things I find myself stumbling over was priceless.

I've heard it said many times that writing is a solitary act. I tend to agree with that sentiment. As authors, we (at least I know this to be true for myself) become involved with our characters, they become like family after all, we're immersed within whatever fantastical world it is we're building at the time and we bury our heads in the sand. Sometime days, weeks, months later, we emerge with, hopefully, at the least a completed  first draft. Attending the literary festival/writer's conference today reminded me that this isn't such a solitary act after all.

There are a few more of these small town festivals on the schedule for myself and Kali this summer. Next year, I plan to not only attend these conferences but to have a table or booth there as an author.

Can't wait!

In case you're interested here's a link to the conference I visited today:

http://dahlonegaliteraryfestival.wordpress.com/

Until next time ...

Savannah

Discussing the 'Information Dump'

When I first embarked on the journey to becoming a honest to goodness writer I had a big learning curve in discovering the difference between good narrative and an information dump. We all know the importance of having a strong first page, and hooking the reader from the get go. The following article by Chameleon Author on her blog The Write Place gives (in my humble opinion) a wonderful perspective on why the information dump, most especially on the first page of your novel, should be avoided at all cost. 

Page 1 - No Place to Take a Dump...

   Most commonly referred to as an "info dump", that is. You have three chances to get a 

reader to snatch up your book. The first comes when they see your cover. That will be 

the most immediate draw, and even the title won't be as persuasive as how enticing your

cover is. The second comes when they read your blurb. A lot  hinges on how well this is 

written, but the deal breaker comes as they take that little "Look Inside" Amazon provides.

   If the first thing they see are two huge paragraphs of block text, you've already made 

them weary, and the danger is that some will, at best, skim the text to see what on earth 

you're going on about. IF they turn the page and see more of the same, you've lost at least 

half your potential buyers, right there. For those that trudge through it, you had better hope

that 3rd page doesn't contain even one more block of text. Three pages is simply too long 

to wait for the action to get going.

   You can just about get away with this a little further into the book, after you have the reader 

hooked. Hooked readers are much more forgiving than ones wanting to be hooked. Master

storytellers are the ones that have found the balance of just enough back story, at just the right time. 

It's never necessary to lay out the entire reason for your books existence in one fell swoop- and most 

especially within the first 3 pages of your book.
   Even if you manage to hook your reader despite the dump, do you really want them telling their 

friends: "I liked it once it finally got going, but it was hard to get through at times.". Scary words, 

in my opinion, and not exactly a shining endorsement. Liked and hard should never be used in the 

same sentence to describe a product, even if they are separated by a comma.
   If you're not getting the sales you should be getting despite the data telling you people are looking, 

you should really try and find out why. If you've "taken a dump" on your first page, you just might 

want to clean it up. :)