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Showing posts with the label Alvina Ling

Plotting and Plodding Sound an Awful Lot Alike

Dear Kim, Thank you for the William Joyce recap. I really enjoyed his talk and more so was impressed with the way he kicked off the #NY16SCBWI conference. There was a certain amount of: MAKE IT WORK air to this year's conference. Don't you agree? It seemed to pulse with themes like HARD WORK, WRITE...NOW, and DO THE WORK. All themes that I can get behind. I was also pleasantly surprised with the level of guidance in each breakout session this year, at least the sessions that I was able to attend. It is difficult to fit lecture, writing exercises, and leave time for questions when only given one hour per breakout session. Alvina Ling's session on plot gave me a bucket full of strategies (and tangible models from Alvina's rockstar editorial perspective), all crammed into a single hour. Alvina began her session with a show of hands. How many start with character? Setting? A single scene? And how may start with plot? In the room of one hundred or so folks the fewest ...