Surrey: Day 3
Well, that was certainly interesting.
Due to my wardrobe choice and a fortunate door-prize win last night that sent me to the stage in front of the crowd, I am now recognized around the conference as "the girl in purple". Definitely a step up from not being known at all.
I did a much better job picking workshops today. I attended a workshop on "Sizzling Sex Scenes" in the hopes of writing good sex scenes that won't see me lynched by my readers' parents. It was quite a fun workshop, in which surprisingly many people were eager to read aloud after we wrote our exercise (an afterglow scene from the point of view of someone of the opposite sex).
After that came the big one. Each year at Surrey, they have SiWC Idol. You throw your first two pages into a pile and a few are read aloud anonymously by Jack Whyte. A panel of four agents put up their hands when they would stop reading. After two hands are up, Jack stops reading and comments are provided.
For the first time, my story was pulled out of the pile. (I nearly had a heart attack from anxiety.) While they didn't stop Jack in the first sentence or paragraph as happened to several others (we got about a page and a half in) the comments at the end were a wee bit disconcerting. They were confused as to what was happening and wondered a bit about the tension. They did concede, as they had with several others, that with a full query they might turn to the synopsis for elucidation. Sadly, I was too far back see who had put up their hands. One agent did say she would have kept reading for a bit more, but she unfortunately was not the agent I saw yesterday or will be seeing tomorrow. (She was on my list of people I was interested in, so I think if I can't pitch to her by the end of the conference, I'll send her a query when I'm home and have maybe tweaked the opening.)
And at least they didn't say it was clichéd, which was a common complaint.
(Jack also went on a rant about why fantasy authors seem to need outlandish names for their characters instead of common ones like John and Tom. I found that kind of annoying from an author with a protagonist named Publius Varrus -- but then he had no way of knowing about the Danish component of the story or that they were relatively common Danish names. Dorthe is Dorothy and Ghita is a diminutive of Margaret.)
Anyway, after my heart slowed a bit, I slipped into Joanna Bourne class on plotting. I got to have a bit of a chat with her as she overheard my talking with someone about the Idol experience. She liked the opening, but admitted that she tended to agree with the agents. She also liked the Andersen aspect, but her first comment was that it takes us immediately out of that underwater world. While that's not true (the first third of the book is underwater and the sea plays a huge role in the rest) it might be an assumption that I should know to field in advance.
Jo's workshop on plot was lots of fun too. As with a lot of her theory, she funnelled it through the lens of point of view and characterization. A lot of the material was covered in the point-of-view master class, but there was also some new information (and it didn't hurt to hear the old stuff a second time). I ended up buying all three of Jo's books. I've read The Spymaster's Lady and loved it, so now I'm thinking of going back with more of an eye to examining the technique, especially now that I know a bit about her process.
Making lots of great friends. Wish me luck with my other pitch appointment tomorrow. At least I can't do a worse job than I did with the first one. Things can only move up!
Cate
Due to my wardrobe choice and a fortunate door-prize win last night that sent me to the stage in front of the crowd, I am now recognized around the conference as "the girl in purple". Definitely a step up from not being known at all.
I did a much better job picking workshops today. I attended a workshop on "Sizzling Sex Scenes" in the hopes of writing good sex scenes that won't see me lynched by my readers' parents. It was quite a fun workshop, in which surprisingly many people were eager to read aloud after we wrote our exercise (an afterglow scene from the point of view of someone of the opposite sex).
After that came the big one. Each year at Surrey, they have SiWC Idol. You throw your first two pages into a pile and a few are read aloud anonymously by Jack Whyte. A panel of four agents put up their hands when they would stop reading. After two hands are up, Jack stops reading and comments are provided.
For the first time, my story was pulled out of the pile. (I nearly had a heart attack from anxiety.) While they didn't stop Jack in the first sentence or paragraph as happened to several others (we got about a page and a half in) the comments at the end were a wee bit disconcerting. They were confused as to what was happening and wondered a bit about the tension. They did concede, as they had with several others, that with a full query they might turn to the synopsis for elucidation. Sadly, I was too far back see who had put up their hands. One agent did say she would have kept reading for a bit more, but she unfortunately was not the agent I saw yesterday or will be seeing tomorrow. (She was on my list of people I was interested in, so I think if I can't pitch to her by the end of the conference, I'll send her a query when I'm home and have maybe tweaked the opening.)
And at least they didn't say it was clichéd, which was a common complaint.
(Jack also went on a rant about why fantasy authors seem to need outlandish names for their characters instead of common ones like John and Tom. I found that kind of annoying from an author with a protagonist named Publius Varrus -- but then he had no way of knowing about the Danish component of the story or that they were relatively common Danish names. Dorthe is Dorothy and Ghita is a diminutive of Margaret.)
Anyway, after my heart slowed a bit, I slipped into Joanna Bourne class on plotting. I got to have a bit of a chat with her as she overheard my talking with someone about the Idol experience. She liked the opening, but admitted that she tended to agree with the agents. She also liked the Andersen aspect, but her first comment was that it takes us immediately out of that underwater world. While that's not true (the first third of the book is underwater and the sea plays a huge role in the rest) it might be an assumption that I should know to field in advance.
Jo's workshop on plot was lots of fun too. As with a lot of her theory, she funnelled it through the lens of point of view and characterization. A lot of the material was covered in the point-of-view master class, but there was also some new information (and it didn't hurt to hear the old stuff a second time). I ended up buying all three of Jo's books. I've read The Spymaster's Lady and loved it, so now I'm thinking of going back with more of an eye to examining the technique, especially now that I know a bit about her process.
Making lots of great friends. Wish me luck with my other pitch appointment tomorrow. At least I can't do a worse job than I did with the first one. Things can only move up!
Cate