Webinar/Conference Takeaways


I've found that webinars are a great additional to yearly conferences for improving my craft. I highly recommend any of the following. These are my personal nuggets of knowledge that hit me. I'm keeping them here so I can review it periodically when I need a refresher:

Mary Kole- Writing Irresistable Voice- Mary offers many webinars and editorial services. I have taken a couple for her free webinars. Here are the points I took write to my revising process.

~Use active verbs, even in descriptions
~Voice is not only word choice, but also syntax, sentence length (smooth flowing vs short choppy), dialogue style

Marcie Colleen- Study Hall- This was a month long class that included critiques and video chats. My takeaway was to think of my story in scenes.
~Scenes- action/dialogue for the major plot points that the reader needs to witness. (showing)
~Narrative Summary- pulls it all together or moves it on to the next scene. (telling)
You can't do only one of these, you need both. PB's often start with narrative summary.

Mary Kole- Interiority- Showing is external so it has limitations. Think...
Sue bit her nails.
vs.
Sue would rather clean the cat box every day than stand up and talk in class.

Naomi Kirsten- Picturing Your Next Picture Book- Naomi Kirsten is a senior editor at Chronicle. This was an SCBWI webinar (there are some great, cost effective webinars available and this one included a critique!) My big takeaway from this was to remember that book publishing is a business. Where will your book sell? Who will buy it? How is it different? Is there any crossover appeal? i.e adult gardeners might also love your tulip PB.

Matthew Winner-Social Media DO's and DON'T's- Another great SCBWI webinar. The main pearl of wisdom here was not to stress it. Choose the platform that you are most comfortable, and stick to it. I found for me personally the Facebook is good for the groups I belong to. I keep Instagram for family and Twitter is only for writing contacts/tweets.

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