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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Notes from LTUE 2012: Pitching, Writing, and Epic Fantasy

I thought I'd share the key lessons I took home from LTUE this year--hopefully something here will be useful to one of you! (If you missed my post on mapmaking, see it here.)

On Pitching:
  • The more excited you are about your book, the more excited others will be
  • What makes your book different? Your hero different? ("Different" is the key word, here.)

Writers on Writing:
  • Don't write around it, write it!
  • Read from ALL fields, even if you only write in one
  • Book recommendation: On Writing by Stephen King
  • Ask yourself this: How many books are you willing to write without ever being published? (This is a hard one for me to answer! I'd rather not know the number!)

Epic Fantasy:
  • Idea for creating a story: take a standard epic fantasy plot idea (like the quest to save the world), and then add something the protagonist is dealing with that's completely unrelated. Tie them together.
  • Avoid adding new subplots and characters in the last one-fourth of the book.







5 comments:

  1. "How many books are you willing to write without ever being published?"

    ALL OF THEM

    (hey, it took Brandon 13 so...)

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  2. I've written at least three or four by now, maybe it's five. I didn't want to count but it looks like I'm willing to write quite a few before getting published. I have to get these stories out of my head.

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  3. Looks like we took different classes. But LTUE was AMAZING. I loved it and can't wait to attend next year.

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  4. Those are really great points. I try to follow them all but they are very motivational.

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  5. I never really figured out my number of books I'd be willing to write. But when I heard Brandon say he wrote 13, I was actually quite relieved. Like I had that many to get it right. I guess I figured then that I wouldn't stress about it until I hit that number. :)

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