Ahhhhhh . . . love conferences! It was so great meeting online friends for the first time, seeing old friends, and spending two days just talking about WRITING.

It always makes me sad that there are so many awesome people who live not too far away from me yet I only see them once or twice a year at these things. And it's never a situation where we can kid ourselves that we'll find time to hang out--with work, family, friends, writing, etc. we're all scheduled to the hilt. All the reason why these conferences are awesome, because we KNOW we have this time where we can spend all weekend together, not just in the professional capacity but also having dinner and drinks and just hanging out and chatting and catching up.

For all the details we talk about writing, I think it really boils down to a few key things. The details are definitely important: writing a good query letter, having good word choice, not overusing cliches, etc. But I do feel like they are garnish on two simple facts. Aka you either have/do these two things or you don't.

1. You have It. I do think it's possible to hone your craft and work towards having It. But it's always amazing to me how quickly you can tell if somebody has It or not. They may be the most amateurish newb ever who starts their story with their mc looking in the mirror and describing themselves but reading their story, you just know you want to know more about this character and you want to read more when the chapter ends. Doing creative writing with teens is so exciting to me--I am so proud and pleased by how many of them really have It, this amazing command of language and insight into character that makes them stellar writers. The authors who have visited my creative writing group have all commented how genuinely surprised and pleased they are by the quality of writing they hear from my teens, and I know they're not just being nice--because it's true! (Okay, I am insufferably proud of my teens, I know.)

and next, if you have It, then:

2. It's a matter of starting your story in the right place. This ultimately carries over into pacing for the whole book--if your story starts off strong and peters out it's not going to have a chance. But over and over I hear excellent writers starting off their story in a totally uninteresting place. Maybe because we've all read so many classics that do just this, start us out with some relatively boring prelude before getting to the good running-around-on-the-moors stuff. I really think the key is knowing what makes your story different from whatever else is out there and having that on page one. Or if you can't have that on page one, at least hinting at it. It could be a plot point or it could just be the extremely unique voice of your main character. Over and over in critique groups we say "You need to have chapter two as chapter one" or "skip all the backstory and get right to the meat of it" or "get rid of the info dump, weave all that stuff into later pages."

I think that's the glory of critique groups and partners. As writers sometimes we get so hung up on the story we want to tell and we want to make sure our readers know all these important details. But our critiquers really help us pinpoint what is interesting and page-turning about our stories and help us get right to that moment.

I know it's a gross oversimplification to put it this way but I do think there's some truth to it too!