Conference Recap, Twitter Style

In the past month I've attended two writer's conferences. I learned so much and I wanted to share that knowledge with everyone else. Many of you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to recap my bits of advice shared. I'm going to put all of my tweets below and if you have any questions, or you just want to discuss one of the points, leave me a comment!

1. When picking an agent, make sure they're hungry to sell your work.

2. The theme for this conference is writing from the ashes. Adversity strengthens us.

3. Make sure the readers know why we should care about the character from page one. Hardships aren't enough.

4. If it doesn't tell you something about the character, story or tone, then don't use it.

5. Make your words simple and sensory.

6. Creating back story before we write gives our characters more consistency.

7. Often people choose to avoid pain rather than seek pleasure.

8. Internal and external conflict should be happening at the same time. i.e. Luke losing his hand as he finds out Darth Vader is his father.

9. Food writing is a new trend. Food can be a great hook.

1. Edit your dialogue, subtext holds more weight
 
2. Keep a journal when you travel, you never know when you might use that experience

3. Why do others reject us? It’s because they’re struggling too, consciously or unconsciously, against their own resistance.

4. Adding mystery is not making things unclear. That's just confusion

5. Let your characters dictate to you. If you force it, it comes across as false.

6. More than ever people are looking for books with a champion.


What's the best conference you've ever been to?