I recently attended the Desert Sleuths Write Now! conference virtually via Crowdcast. This is a writing conference usually held in Arizona put together by the Desert Sleuths chapter of Sisters in Crime. 2020 being the year it is, they moved it online and let people attend for free.
Here’s a short recap of my experience. Note that all of the sessions were recorded and you can watch any or all of them. Go to https://desertsleuths.com/write-now/2020conference for more information.
It was a one-day event, running from 8 a.m. – 4:30 pm Pacific. Dana Kaye did a great job of facilitating the conference. There were 15 minute breaks between sessions and a 45 minute break for lunch. Since each session was recorded, I could have decided to watch some of them later, but I ended up watching everything live.
After a welcome session, Naomi Hirahara started the conference off by talking about How to Create Characters Worth Reading. She proposed that a writer starts developing a story in one of two ways: either starting with a character and developing it from there or starting with a scenario and figuring out the characters that fit it.
I realized while she was talking that I have started stories both ways, though I suspect I’m more of a scenario person. My series started with an image of a young woman finding her painting teacher in her garden. I figured out the character of Aurora (Rory) Anderson from there.
Naomi also talked about the importance of naming your characters, which I totally agree with. I can’t really work on a story until my main characters have names. They don’t seem real to me until they do. She said names should be unique, meaningful, culturally appropriate and have a good rhythm. She also noted that you should use google to check to see if any real person has that name. If two or more people do, you’re fine. If only one person does, you should change the name.
The next session was with agent Kirby Kim who gave the best and most concise description of the publishing world that I have heard.
There was an interesting panel with Naomi interviewing Matt Coyle and Michael Connelly and one later with the three of them answering questions.
Jessica Morrell gave a fairly long workshop on editing, which she called Secrets of the Dark Arts. She gave out very extensive handouts, which can be found on the Desert Sleuths website. She also participated in a publishing panel with Kirby where they answered questions about the publishing world.
All in all, I think it was a conference worth “attending” with lots of interesting information.
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In other news, I’m participating in the next House Arrest sponsored by Sisters in Crime/LA, Thursday, October 1st at 7pm PT. It’s a Noir at the Bar kind of thing done via Zoom. The public is welcome, but you must register beforehand. For more information and to register go here.
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