Do You Need To Register In Gencon Writers Symposium To Get Into A Panel

GenCon 2013 crowd 2 Imagine fifty,000 people packed into a unmarried indoor space. Now add a xx-pes alpine Cthulhu (made entirely of balloons), a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (in a elevation hat, no less), armies of warriors and monsters, and a roster of elevation sf and fantasy writers. Yeah, it got crowded. Only that'due south GenCon.

Never listen that the Indiana Convention Middle provides 500,000 foursquare feet of sprawling indoor space. In that location were withal times when I found it impossible to walk without bumping into someone or someaffair.

And did I mention that there was as well a motorcycle convention in boondocks. Yeah, you tin can't brand this stuff upward. I tin only imagine what information technology must have seemed like to the residents of Indianapolis, seeing their urban center overrun with bikers and mythological beasts (at that place's a high-concept Hollywood movie in there somewhere). Indeed, information technology must have seemed as if a trans-dimensional portal had opened.

I was in town as part of the GenCon Author's Symposium, a large writing convention that coexists within the sprawling wonder of GenCon. Its panels, readings, and workshops frequently attract continuing-room crowds, and the attending writers provide a fine cantankerous-section of the field.

Larry Dixon and Matt O'Dwyer The Symposium kicked off with a Wed dinner, where I shared a table with author Brandie Tarvin, editor W. H. Horner, and upward-and-coming novelists Jeffery Brooks and Matthew O'Dwyer (both MFA candidates at Seton Hill Academy). Along the mode, nosotros were joined by Larry Dixon, who contributed to the digital effects on Lord of the Rings and collaborated with his wife Mercedes Lackey on a number of terrific fantasy novels.

the writing process according to Oscar Wilde The next morning W. H. Horner and I launched Fiction Fundamentals, three days of workshops covering the essentials of genre writing. The sessions explored writing as a procedure rather than a product, looking at how the experience of reading a novel (moving folio-by-page from beginning to the conclusion) has footling in common with the act of writing 1. The graphic on the left illustrates this difference, showing how the manuscript for 1 of Oscar Wilde's plays progressed circuitously from concept to finished work – passing through a serial of handwritten and typing-pool drafts along the manner.

I also did a couple of readings, one featuring selections from Visions and This Way to Egress, the other centering on an abridged version of "The Fourth Sign" from Paul Genesse's The Ruby-red Pact. I did both readings from memory, a form of delivery that harkens back to the roots of storytelling (recollect Homer or the Beowulf poet).

The Crinson Pact I peculiarly enjoyed presenting "The 4th Sign." It's a rather subversive story, one that gradually removes the wall between reader and story. It opens with a few references to the reader'southward earth and builds from at that place, drawing the reader in until information technology becomes clear that he or she has been a character in the story all along, and that the act of reading the story (or attending the reading) is actually the story itself.

Information technology was fun watching the audience as they sensed everything coming together, and having the story memorized helped me go on the performance in synch with their dawning realizations. You can read Paul Genesse review of the reading (and the convention) at his weblog.

I too took part in panels on Steampunk (where Jennifer Brozek, Paul Genesse, and Sara Hans talked almost ways in which Victorian-age scientific discipline fiction can reflect 21^st-century inclusivity) and Difficult SF (where Wesley Chu and Jason Sanford urged first writers not to get bogged downward doing enquiry). I may become into more item on these topics in future blogs, simply right at present I sense the portal is closing. I need to go out while I can.

Till next time, I'll see you between the pages.

Scop on!

Prototype Credits:

GenCon Crowd by Mike Olson Spirit of the Blank.

Larry Dixon and Matt O'Dwyer past Lawrence C. Connolly.

The Writing Process According to Oscar Wilde by Lawrence C. Connolly.

Lawrence C. Connolly, Karen Bovenmyer, Paul Genesse, Patrick Tracy, Stephanie M. Lorée, and George Strayton at the Crimson Pact reading. Photo by Tammy Lyn Genesse.