Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Writing 101 Panels

General Writing Discussion
#1

So Fangs and Fonts have been discussing a show about “The Last Writing 101 Panel You’ll Ever Need”. Most of us have been to a writing 101 panel, some even as a panelist. Year after year it’s more “Ask the panelists the same questions you asked last year.” A bit of this was also included in our first explicit SWS episode. Can we finally move past the Writing 101 panel and either move on to more specific panels, or do we just need a “Ask an author” panel where we tell panel goers to stop asking questions about their very specific scene/character in their book and ask a question we can all understand?

So I ask you panelists and panel-goers, what are those questions that are asked too often at the Writing 101 panels that we can just put to death? What are the facts that you think should be told to those attending the panels?

#2

Track heads often are afraid to try this, but I’ve found that giving more advanced panels actually works pretty well. When I was still track-heading myself with some frequency, I used to include panels like “Narrative Hooks”, “Theme-- The Idea at the Heart of the Tale”, and “The Five C’s of Writing”, which were broken down in into individual one-hour panels on “Conception”, “Creation”, “Critiquing”, “Correction” and “Commercialization”. (BTW, I personally made up that breakdown so don’t expect to find too many other writers who use the terminology.) I found that if you go in at a “higher” level the audience responds in kind as a rule, while there’s also still enough “basic” questions to fill an hour. Generally, though, the level of discourse tends to be far higher this way, which in turn draws better crowds towards the end of the con as word that “something unusual” is being offered spreads during the con.

Best of all, as a panelist I find these topics much more rewarding. I often learn at least as much as I share.

That said…

“How do I get Published?”

“Why won’t anyone buy my story?”

“How come my self-published book won’t sell?”

“Where do your ideas come from?”

“Where can I get my story critiqued?”

“Where can I find a critique-circle or group to join?”

“Here’s my great idea for a new novel!” (twenty-minute impossible-to-follow monologue ensues)

“Why can’t I get an agent?”

“All those green grammar-check lines are really annoying. Is grammar really that important?”

“How come no one likes my stories?”

“How do I get more followers on Fur Affinity?”

“I write furry stories that aren’t porn. How come no one ever reads them?”

“How can I promote my new book?”

“How do you find time to write?”

“What’s best, longhand or computer?”

"Should I outline or not? Which is better?

“I’m stuck halfway through a story. How can I finish it?”

“I have a master’s degree in literature and still can’t sell anything. What am I doing wrong?”

#3

My suspicion is that unless you’re presenting at a con that hasn’t had a writing track before, you never need a “Writing 101” panel. Most of the things that would be surveyed in that show up in other panels, while the reverse isn’t true.

Panels we’ve presented at FC recently include:

[ul][]FWG Meet & Greet (hello!)
[]Adult furry writing
[]Creating and selling ebooks
[]Beyond the Furry Horizon (selling outside the fandom markets)
[]Historical Fiction with a Furry Twist
[]The First Fifteen Seconds (how to immediately grab an editor or first reader’s attention)
[]The “Save the Cat” Beat Sheet
[]Reviewing in the Fandom
[]The Gun on the Mantlepiece (plotting and foreshadowing)
[]Why a fox? (i.e., why is your story furry?)[/ul]

We’ve also done writing workshops–both “write your story right now” and “send your story in advance” types. But I don’t think we’ve actually done “Writing 101,” whether that name or any other, in the last few years.

Actually, this makes me wonder whether having a panel expressly for questions about very specific scenes/characters might be interesting. Story doctor!

#4

For some added perspective, here are some of the panels from Friday at AC2014:

[ul][li]Characters and Dialogue[/li]
[li]Plot and Structure[/li]
[li]Settings and Worlds[/li]
[li]Description and Scene[/li][/ul]

(I used the above as a sort of basis for the Writing 101 panel I gave at MFF 2014.)
Later in the weekend there were these:

[ul][li]Submit and Publish[/li]
[li]Editing and Revision[/li][/ul]

All of the above look pretty basic, or at most intermediate, but having some basic panels isn’t a bad thing. We don’t want to give all the panels names and descriptions that will scare away the beginners who might think they’re too advanced, nor do we want to give them all names that are too clever and arcane to the point of obscuring what they’re about.

I’ve mentioned before about becoming the writing track lead for a forthcoming convention, so all of these discussions are of interest to me. There is also the question of how much to plan out the slate of writing panels. At one extreme, I could come up with what I believe to be a good cross-section of panels that covers most aspects of writing, and then it’s just a matter of finding panelists to do the panels, but that pretty much overlooks that most panelists already have their own ideas of panels to do, and may even have a fully outlined presentation (perhaps one they’ve done before at other cons). At the other extreme, I just let all the panelists come up with their own panels, but then it becomes kind of random, with some panels overlapping others while some key aspects of writing go unaddressed. What I’ll probably end up doing is something between these two extremes.

#5

How about a “Writing 201” Panel? :wink:

#6

Good to see some responses, but no one is really paying attention to Ocean’s question of:

So I ask you panelists and panel-goers, what are those questions that are asked too often at the Writing 101 panels that we can just put to death? What are the facts that you think should be told to those attending the panels?

Our aim in this podcast episode is to put these questions rest.

#7

The biggest question:

“Where do your ideas come from?”

I still think the best response was given during the SWS episode of Fangs and Fonts: “I steal them from you while you sleep.” But the question is a really bad question because it’s really asking, “Where do you get the idea that make you successful?” A lot of beginning writers don’t understand that execution is largely more important than idea.

In addition to Rabbit’s excellent list of questions, a few I might add…

“I’m stuck. What do I do?”

“I don’t know how to end the story. What do I do?”

“I don’t know how to start the story. What do I do?”

“Why do I need beta readers?”

“How do I get better at writing?”

“Why can’t I put myself in my story? I’m an interesting person!”

#8

Maybe not a beginner question, but… “How do you overcome the ‘I know what I mean’ syndrome?”, i.e. the writer has a mental picture of a character, scene, or event, but fails to properly convey enough of it into the words that the reader sees.

Another common beginner mistake is “head hopping” (changing your POV character in mid-scene, possibly alternating from one paragraph to the next).

#9

I think it’s already been stated, but one of the biggest ones that beginning writers ask is not about craft, it’s “How do I get published?” Rather than focusing on finishing their book or whatnot.

#10

One structural problem with this podcast may be that there’s more than one answer to many of these questions. If asked “Where do I begin?”, for example, I’d respond with an explanation of what plot arc is, then an explanation of narrative hook, and finally pass on one of the best pieces of advice I ever got-- to, when in doubt, begin with a quotation mark.

I bet that no other writer here would replicate that specific advice, yet their answers would be perfectly correct too.

#11

“What’s your writing process?”

“How do I deal with writer’s block?”

“Why should I care about readers or others if I’m writing for me?”

“Why should I care about getting published?”

“How do you get furries to read stories?”

“How do you get non-furries to read furry stories? Will non-furries read this?”

#12

The same is true for a Writing 101 panel.

#13

Actually, this makes me wonder whether having a panel expressly for questions about very specific scenes/characters might be interesting. Story doctor![/quote]
While I think “Story Doctor” is a good idea, I think a better model would be a time or a place where anyone can come up to a panelist and get 5-15 minutes of their time. This way the whole room doesn’t have to listen to Fuzzyfox’s super-specific 20 minute issue. This could be “bring me a piece of your writing, I’ll look at it and give opinion” or just “Okay let’s go over the issue.”

#14

True enough, I suppose

#15

As a veteran furry writing panelist, I wouldn’t at all mind a setup where I could meet with folks and dispense advice in a semi-private setting for a couple hours. However, I’ve never run a writing track at a con with enough writing interest to support such a thing. Good idea, IMO, for those who can pull it off. But not many cons, I suspect, will be able to.

#16

I think this sounds very similar to the writing critique that Kyell held last FC. He had people who wanted to attend send in a story, then circulated those stories amongst the group. Then at the panel, they went over their comments of each story.