Miscellaneous notes about things that I found interesting/useful from the "Syncretism, Real and Fantastic," "Journey's End," and "But That's a Different Panel: Swearing" panels at the 4th St Fantasy convention. Also a few thoughts inspired by them.

SYNCRETISM, REAL AND FANTASTICBeware the "science and magic both exist and have to fight" trope ( Read more... )

Miscellaneous notes about things that I found interesting/useful from the "Narrative Conventions," "Fantasy of Discovery," and "Tell, Don't Show" panels at the 4th St Fantasy convention, and perhaps a few thoughts inspired by them. Also a few unrelated 4th St photos.

NARRATIVE CONVENTIONSIf you're going to play games with narrative conventions, ( Read more... )

Miscellaneous notes about things that I found interesting/useful from the "Idiom, Character, and Worldbuilding," "Building the Spear," "Short Fiction," and "Heroine's Journey" panels at the 4th St Fantasy convention, and perhaps a few thoughts inspired by them (and I can't remember which are thoughts and which are notes!).

IDIOM, CHARACTER, AND ( Read more... )

One of the things I learned this year about sitting on panels at conventions is that preparation helps me a lot, if only psychologically. I think the 4th Street panel followed the topic of discussion most closely and most (though certainly not all) of the examples and points I'd thought of became relevant. For the CONvergence panels, this certainly ( Read more... )

These are some miscellaneous bits that I found interesting/useful from the writer's seminar portion of the 4th St Fantasy convention, and perhaps a few thoughts inspired by it.

Random word definition: sitzfleisch ( Read more... )

This was the year that 4th Street Fantasy became the premier dark fantasy convention in the Midwest. ...That would be because all the lights went out, and power wasn't restored at the hotel for a couple (?) of days. The summer solstice storm of 2013 hit the Twin Cities area hard, leaving 500,000 households without power, uprooting trees, flooding ( Read more... )