Norwescon 2

OK, my evening violence panel was really a panel on the Rhythm, Meter, and the Use of Language. A great panel with Andrew Dolbeck, poet, actor, and writer, and Jenna Pitman, a fantasy writer. We talked a lot about why rhythm is important in drawing a reader through the story, as well as revealing character and world. Great audience, too. The evening party was noisy and hot - what else is new - but lots of nice people. I left early in hopes of saving my voice.

Day 2 began with a writers workshop session. Fairwood Writers run a writers workshop in conjunction with Norwescon and it is excellent. One writer sits with 3-4 pros to who have read about 10K words of his or her submitted work. The pros are kind, but thorough. Really valuable for an aspiring writer, especially someone who is coming to feel the work is submission worthy, but hasn’t gotten it in front of anyone as yet. I’m doing three of these this weekend.




Later in the day, I sat on a panel about point-of view, a little different spin, as we were talking about how to choose the POV character. Talked a lot about advantages and disadvantages of first vs third, as well. Greg Cox, a contributing editor at Tor and writer of media tie-ins, said that for a third person story with multiple points of view, he used the rule of “who has the most stake in the events of the scene.” Sometimes, though, it’s important to have a secondary character be the witness to a “big entrance” like when Batman arrives on the scene. Lots of good things to talk about.

After a leisurely, writerly dinner with Mike Moscoe and brother Bruce, Greg Cox, and my writer friend Brenda, it was time for my violence panel. Yes really. I shared the table with Josh Palmetier, and Michael Erhart. We mostly agreed on everything about the necessity of using violence as aspects of character, whether exposing or developing or pushing characters into “change” and not putting it in because “you need to have some heavy action by chapter 5.” Talked about what puts it over the edge into gratuitous mayhem (I like the term “violence porn”). And also our shared belief that the most effective techniques for writing violent scenes is similar to that of writing good sex - show it through the eyes and reactions of the characters, rather than just the grisly anatomical details.

Another hot, noisy party, and lots of people had left by the time I got out of the panel at 11pm. But I ran into a great con friend, Gigi Gridley, a walking party. We were both surprised. (I love this!)