Although I wasn’t able to arrange my life so to be able to attend the Fourth St Fanatasy convention (because I found out about it just a few weeks ago), I did manage to make the Writers Seminar, which was held last Friday. The topic was storytelling and the seminar featured professional puppeteer and fiction writer Mary Robinette Kowal, actor and storyteller Oneal Isaac, editor Beth Meacham and fiction writer (and volunteer storyteller) Scott Lynch. The panel was ably moderated by writer and digital content strategist Karen Anderson.
I will admit that I had some concerns about the make-up of the panel and the format. It seemed a little hodgepodge in terms of the backgrounds of the participants, and each panelist got 30 minutes to do a formal(ish) presentation. I, personally, wanted to get straight to the discussion and the Q&A (and after lunch we did have an excellent Q&A session).
I was wrong to have such concerns.
I think that too often aspiring writers get focused on the nuts and bolts or, conversely, on the abstract dreams. What made this panel excellent was how the participants brought their various backgrounds and areas of expertise in to the conversation and demonstrated that vibrant personality, life experience and a strong point of view are the key energies behind successful storytelling.
For example: I have heard Mary Robinette speak about puppetry and how a knowledge of its principles can apply to fiction writing, but it’s one thing to read a blog post (or listen to a podcast) and quite another to see her demonstrate it and play off of the energies of the other panelist and the audience.
For example: Oneal Isaac talked about the power of storytelling but did so by telling stories — both his own and classics from the storytelling tradition.
For example: It’s one thing to know intellectually that editors are on the side of the authors, but that they also have commercial concerns to deal with. It’s quite another to hear that expressed by Beth Meacham with such heart and candor and within the context of the other panelist affirm and elaborate on what they discuss.
For example: All of us fanpersons think that it’s totally cool that Scott Lynch is a volunteer firefighter. It’s not cool. It’s dangerous and difficult and heartwrenching and Scott used stories from his time as a firefighter to demonstrate why he writes developed characters and why he puts developed characters through the wringer (or on the anvil).
I took a ton of notes. But they can’t really do justice to the seminar, especially since so much of what I learned came out of the stories that were told and how they were told and how the panelists interacted with each other and the audience. So I may pull a couple of things out and post them here, but less as a report and more as developed reactions/musings.
For now, let me say, yes, it was just a writing seminar. But I walked away* with the conviction that telling stories is more than just a matter of craft or desire: good storytelling is about passion, personality, point of view and love.
*also sad that I had to leave and couldn’t stay and vowing to be back next year for the whole thing.