Sorry for taking so long to post this! Things got pretty busy after the first full day. Any time I sat down to try and write blog posts, I nearly fell asleep. So, here's a short summary of the rest of the week.
Wednesday
We took a group picture on the steps outside the Bell Center at 8:40. Everyone broke into song, singing things from the Sound of Music. 'Do Re Mi' seems to be one of the favorites of everyone. I hope someone got a recording, because it was pretty fun.
The first session was by Jeff Gerke and on the power of plot. He talked about things that can make or break your story--characters, genre, setting--and how to improve it. Something he suggested was a 'ticking time bomb' and putting one in all your stories. A ticking time bomb is something big that's going to happen and the entire story basically "counts down" to that. Not every story needs one, but it very much improves every story. You want your reader to keep flipping the pages and not be able to stop.
Jill Williamson gave the next session, and I have to say this was probably one of my favorites. She talking about storyboarding, which is an outlining technique. It looks really interesting and I think I'm going to try it for my next story.
We had critique groups again and I had a blast. My group was absolutely amazing. Go Elephant Trunks!
The evening session was by Mark Wilson and on Realism and Joy in Christian Fiction. This session was my absolute favorite. I've got so many good quotes from it, which I'll post here for you all:
"Sometimes evil wins for a while [in stories and life], but not forever. Christ has already won the ultimate battle."
"No matter how big the catastrophe is, no matter how long the Roman occupation lasts...there is always hope." (my favorite quote)
"Joy rings true to us because it's connected to the ultimate truth."
And then finally...
"Write with hope. Hope is realistic."
As you can see, it was a pretty cool session. Talk of hope and joy all over the place--and that is IS realistic. I loved it.
An improv team called Greenleaf came after his session and were absolutely hysterical. They had all of the OYANers nearly dying of laughter. Can't wait to see them again next year!
Thursday
Jill Williamson gave two sessions in the morning on revising your novel. I'd never really thought about all the things that need to go into that process before and she really laid out some good points.
She gave us a self-editing checklist (which I'm really looking forward to using). Some other things she said on editing were:
--Make charts for your characters: what they like, don't like, etc.
--Use personality tests
--Figure out what your character wants and why they want it.
--Give them an inner desire--everyone has one.
There was a break at 10:30 before she started the second part of her talk, which was about more considerations for editing. In this portion, she covered using multiple point of views, how important word choice is, dialogue tags, showing vs. telling and flashbacks/backstorys. I could probably write an entire blog post now on each one of those things.
Again, critique groups were awesome.
Dinner was one of the best parts of the day for me. I got to eat dinner with Jeff Gerke and Jill Williamson, so that was amazing. They gave me and some of my other writer friends some good advice on building a platform, advertising and self-publishing.
Mr. S gave a session on putting the unexpected in your novel, which was also interesting.
After Mr. S' session, we had student open mic night. Lots of people performed, including myself. I did the song 'Do You Hear the People Sing' from Les Miserables with a group of other people. It was so much fun and I probably could have stayed up there singing Les Mis songs all evening.
Friday
...and then came the last day.
Friday was a pretty tough day for almost all of the OYANers--it always is, as everyone prepares to leave. Mr. Gerke talked in the morning about three places novelists tend to make mistakes: before the editor sees your proposal, when the editor looks at your proposal and when the editor reads your sample chapters. I took tons of notes on that, so it was an extremely helpful talk.
The second morning session was a Q&A panel with Jeff Gerke, Jill Williamson, Stephanie Morrill and Amanda. People were able to turn in questions and get them answered from all of their perspectives. I really enjoyed that as well.
I went out to lunch with a friend on Friday and had a break from the rather fake cafeteria food. Chipotle has never tasted so good.
We had our last critique group session after lunch and everyone was pretty tired. We were all going crazy and laughing. At one point, one girl was reading a rather depressing scene from her novel. She, and the rest of us, cracked up nearly every paragraph. I guess that's something only writers do. I nearly fell asleep part way through and had to be a little more animated than usual to stay awake. Ahh, what fun. We took a group picture too, which I need to my hands on at some point.
The last session was called "Making it Real" and was by Mr. S. His talk was sort of like Mark Wilson's at the beginning of the week, on Realism.
Everyone hung out in the gym after the session until 1 AM...and cried. I talked with some really good friends, so that was a plus. Lord willing, we'll all be there again next year.
OYAN: I love you. You're like my second family and I can't wait to see you all again.
<3
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