10/28/00 -- World Fantasy Con, Day 3

Another haze of panels and "What did I do at the con besides go to panels?"

So Jennfire and I talked last night before we went to sleep.  Sounds familiar, huh.

We got up and went downstairs and grabbed breakfast at the coffee stand again.  I didn't call into work.  *grin*  I did have s'more coffee and another muffin.  Another breakfast of champions.

And then back into panel-land.  I think I hit fewer panels today than I did yesterday.  And I wandered the artshow a bunch of times.  And the dealer's room again.  At dinner last night, Katharine had on this really cool spider earring that I was admiring.  She mentioned that she'd got it from the dealer's room so I had to look.  I looked.  I was tempted.   I asked how much.  It hurt.  I was still tempted.  I went away.  I was going to be good. I swear I was going to be good.  I went back later and bought it.  I also bought the most recent Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.  The one with Trey's story in it.  They had playing cards on the covers.  I got a red one because I wanted to be Mafia and I didn't get to be Mafia when we played last night. *grin*  I kept ducking back into the dealer's room to chat with Gavin and Kelly.  And after the historical fiction panel, a handful of my Clarion classmates and I wound up talking with Tim Powers who had been on the Clarion selection committee for 2000 and had read our stories.  Wow.  He's a really nice guy.  Wound up chatting with  him a little bit more later in the dealer's room over by Gavin and Kelly's table, a table they were sharing, in part, with Dave Hartwell who was the editor at Clarion West this summer, who Gavin introduced me to, as well at some point during the con.

Mostly, today was panels.  And lunch at the diner.  And panels.  And dinner at the diner.  And I think Jennfire and I did some freewriting this evening.  And then wandered looking for parties.

I wasn't feeling much a party person.  We went to the pink fuzzy bunny party.  We went to the scorpion party.  It was all rather, mmm, crowded.  I wasn't in the mood for crowds.  After MileHiCon last weekend, and work out of town, and not enough sleep and lots of people, I just couldn't deal.  So Jennfire and I escaped the over-crowded parties, checked the consuite, didn't see anyone or anything exciting (no Mafia in progress), and went back up to our room and talked

Anyway, here are some of my thoughts and scribbles from the panels I went to today:

10am  - Instilling a Sense of Wonder

Walter Jon Williams started off the panel by saying that to create a sense of wonder all you have to do is think of something completely new that's never been done before, describe it exquisitely with perfect attention to the use of the English language.  What could be more simple than that?

Right.

So then the panelists went on to discuss sense of wonder and how it's more difficult to create a sense of wonder in people as they get older because they've been there, done that.  As people get older, they'll have seen more things, have read more fantasy, have become jaded by exposure to it.  They can appreciate good writing, but not enough to kick in their sense of wonder.  Sense of wonder sort of becomes like a drug, it takes more and better to get the same sense of wonder they had when they were younger, when they hadn't been exposed to it as much.

De Lint felt that creating a sense of wonder involved little touches of magic, of the unreal, amidst lots of reality.  He said that the subtle differences between what is real and what is supernatural help instill a sense of wonder for him.

Crowley said he couldn't define a sense of wonder or what instills a sense of wonder because there are things that can instill a sense of wonder even when they're familiar.  It's easy to be moved by a sunset or another sunset.  But to be moved by another description of another sunset is hard.  Describing yet another sunset isn't likely to have the power of seeing one.

Seeing the commonplace through new eyes can help instill a sense of wonder.  Someone suggested that doing this is like looking at old photographs, especially of places you're familiar with now.  You know the place, but it isn't the same place.  Additionally, a sense of wonder is created both by what is done and what is left undone.

You want to give the reader just enough to make the movie in their head, to fill in what you haven't said with their own details and back-story.  Walter Jon Williams said that the power of suggestion trumps the power of description any day.

How the characters work also played in the discussion of creating a sense of wonder.  While characters can have a sense of wonder about what is happening, they don't have to.  And creating too much of a sense of wonder in the characters can be a problem, as well.  If their reactions go overboard, it's like screaming at the readers that they should feel a sense of wonder or amazement about what is happening.  Overreaction by the characters can lose the engagement of the reader.

While characters don't have to have a sense of wonder, they have to have human reactions to things.  Additionally, consider that when someone shows you something that you've never seen before, it isn't always something you want to see.

Noon - World Building

I'm not entirely certain what I was expecting from this panel so it's hard to say why I didn't get it.  But I didn't.

I did scribble down a few random story ideas and a few references, however, so here are the references/suggestions:

* Stephen King's writing book.
* On Fairy Stories, an essay by Tolkien
* The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler
* How to tell a Story (and, after checking Amazon, I'm guessing it's the one by Peter Rubie and Gary Provost)
* English Through the Ages by William Brohaugh
* Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

2pm - Historical Fantasy

We start out with this little warning, Never underestimate the fan's ability to obsess.

The panelists went on to talk about historical fiction and details.  Is it worth it to get every detail specific and perfect?  Is doing it going overboard, or just good juju?  Tim Powers thinks that researching for historical fiction is a lot like doing the perfect card trick in a completely dark room: how good is it if no one can see it?

Sometimes getting the details as perfect as you can get them saves you grief from the handful of rabid/obsessive fans who are experts, say the panelists.  So I'm starting to think about the 80/20 rule (since I've just done a FastStart at a client site and they're supposed to concentrate on how 80% of their business is run and leave the 20% exceptions for later while they consider software setup) and wondering, why write for that 20% who are rabid and obsessive and are going to give you grief?

Anyway... When you're writing historical fiction, you want to recognize where you've got gaps and where you'll have problems, then figure out how to hang the lights and turn on the smoke and mirrors in order to hide the gaps.

Powers likes to do research because reading about a time or place or event gives him ideas for characters and setting and even plot, ready-made.  He would do historical research even if no one in the world was an expert on that time or place.  Things that happen in history are so bizarre that you don't have to make anything up.

You have to get technical details, the technology level, right in a story, however.  For example, you can't have brandy without some chemical knowledge. You can't have ships that stray too far from sight of land without good steel and steel technology.  There are too many generic fantasy novels with taverns and hearty beer and people waiting for the Dark Lord and his minions.  Powers mentioned that he sees way too many of those in Clarion submissions and I felt a momentary flash of relief that I hadn't even considered sending one of my sword and sorcery stories.

Panelists talked about using court records as a basis for speech patterns and dialog, also, rather than relying on period fiction or, worse, movies.  Someone recommended Language Through the Ages, a Writer's Digest book, as a source for dialog.   Additionally, someone pointed out that slang may date a book and make it difficult to work effectively through time without footnotes.

Ultimately, however, there was no "one size fits all" answer to research and historical fiction.  It all boils down to whether or not you've made a good story.

5pm - Critical versus Commercial Success

I'm really not sure what I was expecting from this panel, but what I got wasn't what I was expecting.  The one thing I took away from the panel, however, was Ed Bryant's response to whether he would give up his awards for double the money.  He said, There's no reason on God's green earth why you can't have it all. Just work for it.

8pm - Myth as the Basis for Novels

The panelists talked about different mythologies, mythologies that haven't been used very often.  They talked about Native American mythologies, and how to talk about a single Native American Mythology is actually erroneous, because there are so many different flavors of Native American mythology; there are as many mythologies as there are tribes. 

There are typical archetypes across mythologies in general, though specifics are different.  Nature, gods, and goddesses are all tied together. 

Mythologies/ religions aren't static.  Mythologies change to meet the needs of the people.  You can combine mythologies and create stories around them, have them compliment each other to create a new mythology that meets the needs of the characters.

The panelists also talked about the story needing to have dominance over the mythology unless you're retelling a myth that might otherwise be lost.  You have to choose what you want to use from your paint box, don't let your paint box dribble all over everything. 

Then Graham Joyce talked about the mythos of the tooth fairy and where the tooth fairy came from in mythology.  Wow.  That was phenomenal.  Amazing.  I think my head was broken for a while after that panel.