RNA Conference (Sat Only) Part 2

Here are a few pics of yet more books that I had to smuggle into R's suitcase. Don't forget I also had five/six books in my goodie bag that had to be accounted for (his hand luggage came in very useful too) not to mention my own notepads, and book that I took to read on the plane. I've started reading Julie Cohen's Honey Trap and like her other books, it's a thoroughly entertaining read. Every year I promise myself that I'll wait for paperback versions of the books that I want to read and every year I can't resist buying the hardback copies of Christina Jones, Jill Mansell and Katie Fforde's books as you can see from this pic of The Wedding Season that I bought from the conference bookstall (I've already bought and read Jill Mansell's An Offer You Can't Refuse and Christina Jones' Heaven Sent and can't wait until 7 August when Christina's new book, Happy Birthday will be released).
I love this title, Blue Remembered Heels, by Nell Dixon and would love to write for Little Black Dress. Their books are just the right size for a handbag, even one as packed full as mine always is and great reads.

Right, now for my notes on Part Two of my classes/workshops at the conference. I hope I do the speakers justice (both the ones I've posted below and those posted yesterday) and please bear in mind that the notes here are the ones that I took during the classes, so I apologise in advance if I've made any mistakes and despite taking copious notes (being an ex-PA) I naturally haven't been able to cover everything that was said at each class. Naturally you would have to attend the classes in person to gain the full extent of what each covered. So here's my version of events:

Anna Scamans, writing as Anna Louise Lucia, gave a great talk on "Sense of Place" - making your settings part of the story.

Anna told us that what we know is as important as what we see, it effects how we feel and as such, our relationship with our spaces makes us who we are. She said that a character has to have a relationship with where he/she is and gets a reaction from it too.

She advised not to give any generic settings as the setting must have a reality to it. We should use settings that mean something and are significant to the character. Try to remember past incidences/happy places/sad occurrences and ask yourself how they made you feel, what smells conjure up these memories for you. You have to make the reader feel and sense the place. Don't forget to use the five different senses. Let your setting set the mood and tell something about your characters.

Write about what you know, although if you research thoroughly Anna believes that you don't have to have visited the place that you're writing about. Research through travelogues/internet. I found this out when researching a place before going there and then once there felt exactly what the person writing the travelogue had described. Describing the mood or feel of a place can connect the reader to the character in the novel.

Anna suggested taking a character out of somewhere where he/she is physically/mentally comfortable and to think about using the setting. Have the character interracting with the place where they are.

Don't use large amounts of descriptive text as it will weigh down the narrative and slow the pace. Don't just describe the setting either, show how it affects your characters. Try moving a character around, even if he/she is in the same place, give it a different perspective.

Don't forget to give the story some weather. Is it raining/snowing/windy/sunny etc. Think about contrast. Instead of having it being a stormy night when the character is miserable, make the weather sunny.

Anna said not to forget that the first two readers you need to impress are the agent and the editor and above all use your setting as a tool to help you tell your story.

Beryl Kingston gave a fascinating workshop on "Let's Play Pygmalion" - creating characters. She asked us as a class to deside who we wanted to write about. We had to think of:
- The age, sex and class of the character at the start and then at the end of the story when he/she had been experienced what they would during the story.
- Geographical and social environment that the character had been born into and any events experienced from personal to more national, such as war, etc.
- What the character would have to face during the novel and how he/she would respond and how it would effect his/her life and attitudes.
- How the character was treated and where he stood both in his family and in society.
- How he looked/dressed and what he liked/disliked in all aspects of his life.
- How he/she speaks and thinks.

I would have loved to have spent more time with Beryl Kingston, she is entertaining, funny and very knowledgable, as are all of the speakers in the conference and in a class that was only one hour long, I was made to think far more deeply about my characters.

Sue Moorcroft: "What do you mean, you can't write short stories?"

Apart from novels, Sue has had many short stories published and certainly knows all about writing them. I find writing short stories incredibly difficult and couldn't wait for this class; I wasn't disappointed. Sue told us that writing a short story was like making a recipe where no two dishes are ever quite the same but each has their own ingredients. Short stories are written for magasines, anthologies, competitions etc.

She said that a short story is like a single episode. If you imagine a painting on a big plain wall with a bright light shining on it, you only see what is under that light.

The three main points in a commercial short story are:
- Problem/the pivotal moment/resolution
Or:
- Puzzle/Key/Revelation (this is used mainly for the mystery or twist in the tale stories).

There should be a point to your story and you should be able to identify what message in it. You need to know who's story it is and the right type of characters for the reader that you're aiming for.

You can then decide on the main character/setting and emotions in the story. There's generally only one point of view in a short story and the main character should be in view all the way through it.

You need to jump straight in to the story and use dialogue as it helps move the story forward and adds to the development of your characters. You must remember to show, not tell and therefore make sure that your characters act out the story and react to what happens to them. Don't forget your reader's emotions, they want to be shocked and thrilled by what they read but the strongest emotion to give them is hope.

Make sure you study your target magazine/competition etc and that you give the correct word count that is asked for.

Should you ever get the chance to take a class given by either Diane Pearson, Anna Jacobs, Anna Scamas, Beryl Kingston or Sue Moorcroft you'll come away having learned far more than you expect. I would like to say thank you to each one of them for the brilliant day at the Conference and hope that I haven't posted anything out of context as these notes are taken from my point of view and notepad, therefore any mistakes are definately my own and if I've missed anything out, I apologise. For further reports please see Ray-Anne's blog and Liz Fenwick's blog as they have wonderful reports on the conference and attended classes that I was unable to.

Thank you to the lovely and talented Lane for this beautiful award called the Arte Y Pico. The rules are that I have to pass it onto to five bloggers who are, "...deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and who contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language they are in". I would therefore like to give this to karen, tom foolery, dj kirkby, yvonne and helen (whose 100 words per day blog has helped me enormously).