South Carolina Book Festival 2015

In the Lerner and Lowe musical Camelot, Guenevere and the ensemble sing about “The Lusty Month of May.”

Julie Andrews in Camelot

In my book, May has become “the literary month” with Malice Domestic at the beginning, the South Carolina Book Festival in the middle, and Charleston, S.C.’s Spoleto Festival at the end.

John Betancourt, PGB, and Carla Coupe

Much has already been written about this year’s Malice including the WWK report (expertly compiled by Gloria Alden), but I would be remiss not to mention one additional Malice moment that had special significance for me. Wildside Press debuted the third Guppy anthology with twenty-two stories, including mine. I happened to be the only Fish or Cut Bait author at Malice. Publishers John Betancourt and Carla Coupe treated me royally, posing with me for a picture in the dealers’ room. Lovely Dorothy Cannell, author of the Thin Woman series, saw us and asked about the volume. She requested that a copy be held for her until she could return from her panel. She promised to read it and then donate it to her library, to introduce the anthology’s authors to more readers. What an absolutely thrilling moment!

This past Friday at the South Carolina Book Festival, I conducted a dialogue workshop, based on the principles I’d learned in preparing to teach a Guppy online course and make a presentation to my local SinC Palmetto Chapter. The class was enthusiastic and we had a great exchange of ideas. I also attended my friend James O. Born’s class on the Basics of Writing a Novel.

Saturday at the Festival was a whirlwind. I started the day moderating back-to-back programs.

 

Jamie Mason, Jenny Milchman, PGB, Lori Rader-Day, James O. Born

The KILLER THRILLERS featured James O. Born (who has recently co-authored Border War with Lou Dobbs and was debuting a new series with Scent of Murder, which provides a realistic view of police K-9s), Jamie Mason (whose first novel Three Graves Full has been called “ripping good” and whose second, Monday’s Lie, is characterized as delivering more of the “Hitchcockian menace”), Jenny Milchman (who won the prestigious Mary Higgins Clark award for her first novel Cover of Snow) and Lori Rader-Day (whose first novel, The Black Hour, has been nominated for an Anthony award).

 

Reba White Williams, Sandra Brannan, PGB, C.J. Lyons, and Amanda Kyle Williams

The CRIME AND PUZZLEMENT panel had Sandra Brannan (whose brilliant Liv Bergen mystery thrillers have been described by Library Journal as “good and scary”), C.J. Lyons (the NY Times and USA Today best-selling author of 29 novels, including one co-authored with Erin Brokovich), Amanda Kyle Williams (whose Keye Street has been called “the best fictional female PI since Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone”), and Reba White Williams (whose protagonist in Bloody Royal Prints finds that a fellowship at the Art Museum of Great Britain leads to royal intrigue when a friend is accused of murder).

What an incredible privilege it was to listen to these giant talents discuss their work and creative drive.

Jenny Milchman, Sasscer Hill, and Suze Maze

Cathy Pickens, Raegan Teller, and C. Hope Clark

Midday on Saturday, the new Palmetto Chapter of SinC gathered at a restaurant across from the convention center and had a leisurely meet-and-greet with the authors from the two panels. Jenny Milchman was kind enough to let us give away an ARC of her latest novel, which went to Maxine Henry, writer and librarian, who was celebrating her first submitted short story. Also attending the chapter meeting was former SinC National President Cathy Pickens.

Palmetto Chapter Meet-and-Greet the Authors Lunch

Cathy Pickens' 9 to 99 Panel

On Sunday, Cathy Pickens moderated two fascinating panels, one with authors Jaye Robin Brown, Catherine McKenzie, and husband and wife writing team John Parke Davis and Carrie Ryan whose work would satisfy readers from 9 to 99, and the other featuring humorous Southern writers Olivia deBelle Byrd, Jeremy Hawkins, and Harrison Scott Key.

Each year, I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity to meet new authors and become reacquainted with writer friends. What conferences and festivals have you attended? In which month(s) do they occur?

A Report from the South Carolina Book Festival

Convention Center

The 18th annual South Carolina Book Festival took place last weekend, Friday, May 16 through Sunday, May 18, at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. Each year, I think the Festival improves, and this year is no exception.

On Friday, three writing workshops offered information about: (1) writing and submitting short stories; (2) publishing in the children’s fiction market; and (3) the art of making comics. I truly enjoyed teaching my thirty students in the short story workshop and passed along much of the advice you gave me in your comments to my previous blog. In the workshop, my students had the opportunity to write two short stories, one using just six words (like Hemingway’s “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn”) and one with six sentences (a technique recommended by Art Taylor, where each sentence describes: (1) character, (2) desire, (3) action, (4) conflict, (5) climax, and (6) resolution). I attended the children’s fiction workshop. Instructor Kami Kinard, who writes humorous novels for tweens and teens, provided excellent practical advice for writers interested in that market.

Christopher Buckley

Christopher Buckley, novelist, political satirist, speech-writer for President George H. W. Bush, editor of Esquire, and son of William F. Buckley, presented the keynote address on Friday night in the USC Law School Auditorium. He spoke about authors’ trials in selecting book titles, mentioning that editor Maxwell Perkins convinced F. Scott Fitzgerald to change Trimalchio in East Egg to The Great Gatsby, and that Joseph Heller planned to call his novel Catch-18 until he learned Leon Uris’s Mila 18 was due for release at the same time. In addition, Buckley noted that title translations have been hazardous. For example, The Grapes of Wrath in Japanese became The Angry Raisins.

On Saturday, I moderated the “Sassy Southern Suspense” panel featuring Susan M. Boyer (Agatha award winner for Best First Novel), Kendel Lynn (Agatha award nominee for Best First Novel and Managing Editor of Henery Press), and Cathy Pickens (St. Martin’s Malice Domestic award winner), three of the funniest and most delightful mystery writers you would ever want to meet.

Susan M. Boyer, Kendel Lynn, Cathy Pickens

Susan’s Liz Talbot and Kendel’s Elliott Lisbon series are set in the lowcountry, on islands off the coast, while Cathy’s Avery Andrews operates mostly in the upstate. The discussion became quite spirited when I asked which part of South Carolina was more humorous, and Cathy mentioned a certain contentious rivalry between USC and Clemson. We got a little more audience participation than anticipated! We also received some lovely compliments from folks who attended.

Conroy Siblings

Pat Conroy took the stage with three brothers and a sister to discuss their family life, which has been explored in Pat’s books. They said they had MLD contests to determine who acted “Most Like Dad” (known to readers as The Great Santini). They also spoke of a very poignant time at the funeral of their brother Tom, who committed suicide. At the funeral mass, the priest kept referring to the deceased as  “Tim” instead of “Tom.” Pat turned to his youngest brother Tim, who was sitting behind him at the service, and said he was so sorry to learn of his demise. Later, they discovered that the name had been misprinted in the program.

Friends and readers, Lynn Pixley and Anne Woodman, with Cathy Pickens

Sunday, I attended two terrific panels Cathy Pickens moderated. The first featured authors whose works included a paranormal element: Sonja Condit (her debut novel Starter House has a young couple expecting a baby moving into a home with a disruptive ghostly child), Nina de Gramont (who writes young adult novels with gothic elements), and Jason Mott (whose first novel The Returned is the inspiration for the TV series Resurrection).

Amy Carol Reeves, Cathy Pickens, Megan Shepherd, Bruce Holsinger

In the second, three historical novelists, Bruce Holsinger (a professor of English and Medieval Studies at the University of Virginia has written A Burnable Book about the relationship between Chaucer and John Gower), Amy Carol Reeves (a professor of nineteenth-century British literature pens a series of young adult novels based on Jack the Ripper), and Megan Shepherd (the daughter of independent bookstore owners crafts gothic young adult novels that stem from The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), spoke about the inspiration for their books and how they strived to be historically accurate while providing entertaining stories.

Dorothy McFalls, Nina Bruhns

A wonderful aspect of the Book Festival is that it gives you a chance to reunite with friends and fellow authors and book enthusiasts. This year, I spent time in the exhibit hall with two groups of authors, the Lowcountry Romance Writers and the Palmetto Christian Writers Network.

Also, I had the chance to reconnect with fabulous independent bookstore owners from Windsor (near Aiken), SC, Fran and Don Bush.

Deena Bouknight, Sharon Leaf, Fran Bush, Susan Craft, Don Bush, PGB, Buffy MacDonald Crabtree, Linnette Mullin

One special moment occurred that I’ll long remember. As I was entering the room to moderate my panel, a student from my workshop gave me what looked like a large card to thank me for the class. I didn’t have the opportunity to open it until later. Inside, I found that she had bound and illustrated her six sentence story into a small book. It is a keepsake from the Festival that I will always treasure.

Strategizing Story

This Friday, I am looking forward to teaching a 90-minute workshop about writing and submitting short stories (concentrating on mystery, fantasy, romance, and other genres) at the South Carolina Book Festival. I plan to start out by focusing on craft, then provide attendees with marketing information and strategies.

In preparation, I’ve been thinking about the short story writing process. What organization is required before you write? Where do you physically write? How do you begin a story? Who do you write about? When do you know you are finished? Why should you submit a short story to a publisher for consideration?

What do you need to begin? Paper, writing instrument, computer, idea? You definitely want to have the tools and the writing space that make you feel comfortable and ready to write. But, you must start with the desire to tell a story.

You may or may not know the story itself, but you have certainty that you want to convey a story to others. This is your motivator, or why you keep returning to write. The reason may be as simple as “because I want to and it needs to be told.” It may be to preserve history; help your child get to sleep; explain something important to the world; respond to a call for submissions; or prove after having read so many [mysteries, romances, fantasies — you fill in the blank] that you can write one, too. The motive or justification is important because it keeps you writing. Some day you may share it with your readers or literary biographer, but that’s a different story from the one you want to tell.

What is your purpose for telling a particular story? What “spark” convinces you that a story must be told? Maybe it’s an idea, a character, a situation, or a place. Perhaps it starts with means (a way to hurt someone) or motive (an emotion such as greed or revenge).

Columbia Pictures, City Slickers, 1991

Like Curly explains the secret of life Mitch in City Slickers, “It’s one thing, and you have to figure out what it is.”

I’ve heard writers discuss whether they start with character or plot. Both are important, but after much consideration, I decided that in my own writing I needed to answer the “when” and “where” questions in order to figure out the “who” (character) and “why” (plot).

Think about it: knowing the time period and setting in which a story takes place are crucial components for determining the characters’ backgrounds and the challenges they will face. Whether it’s “once upon a time in a dark forest” or “on December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,” the time and setting give a writer the conventions and limitations he must follow in developing a character who can live in, or a plot that can occur during, that period in that location.

When you know the spark of what the story is about, how do you organize what happens? Some people (“plotters”) require an outline or a basic idea of the beginning, middle, and end to begin the writing process. Others (“pantsers”) say that the action flows naturally from the characters’ inclinations and the author simply chronicles the characters’ journey as it happens.

In either process, a writer needs a strategy in order to encourage writing momentum. By definition, to “strategize” is to work out, devise, or chart a course of action to achieve a specific goal.

What is that goal? To produce a story, or a short factual or fictional narrative that has a plot. Plot involves a storyline, sequence, pattern, or series of related incidents that explain why a character starts out in one place and ends in another. Some writers contend that a plot works best if it reflects certain images throughout the story and has an unexpected twist at the end.

Art Taylor (Photo by Catriona McPherson)

My friend, award winning short story writer and Assistant Professor at George Mason University, Art Taylor told me that he had his students write a story in five sentences based on story structure. Each sentence described the following: (1) a character, (2) who wants something desperately, (3) but faces an obstacle in obtaining it, (4) and struggles to overcome the challenge, (5) then finally either succeeds or fails.

Ursula K. Le Guin says what makes a story is wanting “to find out what happens next.” See: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/WhatMakesAStory.html. She compares constructing a story with taking a tour through a house. The entrance should be inviting. The reader must be lured inside and shown a unique environment. Because it’s just a visit, the reader can’t stay forever, so the writer must provide an exit. A beginning, middle, and end — each significant and none more important than the others. What is necessary is that the overall experience be memorable.

Ursula K. Le Guin (Photo by Marion Wood Kolisch)

Why should a writer submit a story for publication? Finding the appropriate home for a story is as much a part of the strategy as writing the story. To become a published author, you need to understand not only story craft, but also the expectations and requirements of the market, an editor, and your audience. By completing and submitting a short story, you have: (1) accomplished a valuable personal achievement, and (2) learned something about what it takes to be a professional writer.

And, if the story is accepted, you have a writing credit.

Have I covered everything I should teach my students? What would you tell them, and what information and advice would you want to hear if you took the workshop?

Many thanks!