This post's purpose is to collect my common tags in one place, so readers (and I!) can easily access entries on several subjects.

I'll be at CapClave 2009 this weekend.

Here's my schedule:
Fantasy-Mystery
Friday, 8pm, Montrose
Andrew Fox (m), Peter Heck, Victoria Janssen, Jean-Marie Ward, Diane Weinstein
From Harry Dresden to Rachel Morgan to Sookie Stackhouse to Anita Blake, a lot of popular urban fantasies/paranormal romances seem to be mysteries. Why add a third element to the mix? What works/doesn't work when you combine them?

Paranormal Romance: Just Chick Lit?
Saturday, 11am, Montrose
Jean-Marie Ward (m), Mattie Brahen, Victoria Janssen, Mindy KlaskyWhy is the main character in paranormal romances usually female? Is the audience meant to be women only? What is the right balance between the paranormal and the romance?

Broad Universe RapidFire Readings
Saturday, 1pm, Twinbrook

Bridging From YA to Adult
Saturday, 6pm, Montrose
John Hemry (m), John Bentancourt, A.C. Crispin, Victoria Janssen, Mindy Klasky, Karen Newton
What books overlap the YA and adult genres? What is the distinction? Are there books that shifted from being classed one way to the other? Are there changing attitudes as to what is appropriate for younger ages?

Anybody have any really good resources on vampire mythology? Say, that I should look at before moderating my Worldcon panel on vampires?

Thanks!

WisCon 2009

"The Anvil Chorus: Historical Fiction and Social Justice"
Sunday, 4-5:15 pm.  Lesley Hall [moderator], Jane Acheson, Deepa D., Ellen Klages

My notes stop when the moderator began taking questions from the audience, because my hand gave out.  This is all paraphrase, unless it's in quotes, and then I am pretty sure I am quoting directly, but of course my memory might be at fault.  LH as moderator mostly offered questions but did not answer them.

Introductions
DD:  focus on historiography, unknown voices
EK: writes historical novels set in 20th century
JA: proposed panel; she researches history and read awful children's books that elided unpalatable parts of history ("they were pants.")

LH:  "the past is another country"

EK:  "You can't visit the past, because your time machine does not work."  By writing the book, you make a time machine for the reader.  In The Green Glass Sea, "everybody smokes."  She gets flak because of this, even though it's historically accurate.  She did lots of research, felt duty to people still living who lived through that period.

JA:  commented on portraying history as it was.  studies 1840-1860 U. S. west of the Missouri River. many people then were non-literate or didn't write anything down. hard to find sources.

DD:  commented on how history is made; history is something we invent, the stories we tell about what happened.

LH:  the writer knows the details and uses them, but current myths say to the writer "that's anachronistic"

EK:  "Groovy" used as slang in 1946-1947, but couldn't use it because it's so associated in modern mind with 1960s.  writer has to anticipate this when writing.

DD:  easier to find anachronisms when more sources are available, especially in fiction from the period.  choose period with more sources.

EK:  authors sometimes knows more than nitpickers, but someone will always care.  her theory, "if I can't find it, who can?"

DD:  with the caveat that sources might be easily available to, for example, her as an Indian that the writer couldn't get or couldn't read.

JA:  embarrassing words or facts weren't always written down--private versus public behavior. used example of slang we know was in use because it's quoted in court records.

DD:  how much of third person omniscient follows what our character would?  what does the narrator tell us?

EK:  reader knows more than character because "we are all from the future."

LH:  writers who got it right?

DD and JA said they were better at finding authors who got it wrong.

EK:  "you can't get it right."  reader has modern sensibility.

JA:  talked about Kit Carson's daughter, reality versus children's book about her.

DD:  authorial voice can intrude; she finds racism in the author's voice more appalling than the historical racism in Gone With the Wind.

JA:  narrative authority.

EK:  authorial intrusion breaks fourth wall.  she's not a fan of omniscient in historical fiction, unless the fourth wall remains.

DD:  Louisa May Alcott--she likes that omniscient voice, which makes the world portrayed more interesting and subversive, but Alcott was writing about her own contemporary period.

[then my thumb went out and i had to stop writing.]

Happy Inauguration Day!

I'm back from Arisia and back online. As you can probably tell, since I'm posting this message....

Con was good. I particularly enjoyed the gender panel, which benefitted from an excellent moderator, Lee Harrington (who often gives workshops, facilitates, etc., which was really evident). I attended a couple of panels in their entirety and a few partially, as they were scheduled at the same time as each other. I only had to participate in two panels and a reading, so the amount of time to actually attend other stuff was unusual for me, and fun. I was really tired during the Steampunk/Cyberpunk panel I was on, and also we were sitting near a door to outside, so my feet were cold the whole time. The "Trend? What Trend?" panel was a blast. There were only four of us on that one, and we had a range of knowledge of different genres, so it moved pretty quickly.

It snowed, very beautifully, most of Sunday.

Best news of con, Sarah Smith is done with the ghost book she was working on, and is back to the next in her mystery series! I am curious to see how the mystery is going to tie in to the Titanic, which features in the plot.

Okay, I'm going to stop suggesting panels now. Really, I am.

( My panel suggestions. )

These are my notes on the narrative panel at WisCon. Mostly, I didn't write down attributions, or try to make a sequence (or narrative!). This is just the bits that struck me, and that I wanted to refer to later. Also, there might be some of my own thoughts and interpretations, but not a lot.

The panelists were L. Timmel Duchamp, moderator; Carolyn Ives Gilman; Susan Palwick; Pat Murphy; and Eileen Gunn.

Received narrative as a force/atmosphere and combating/resisting received narrative; reader reading subversively, and writer leading/seducing reader into the subversive reading. The latter sounds like the hard part.

How do we make new narratives/stories for which the models don't exist? Subverting the conservative force of narrative: this equals story, this does not equal story. Making new story understood as story.

Narrative arc can be independent of structure; for example a single narrative arc, but structured as scenes going forward and backward in time. Structure can reinforce narrative arc, also. Thematic reinforcement ought to work as well.

The game of reading is to see narrative in a collage of events; seems to happen naturally when you have three random events; even two will do.

If reader is faced with a puzzle, must read interactively to assemble the puzzle/narrative.

Writer can write a story and then distance herself from the story, allowing her to rework it with greater freedom. "That story is done. I am now working on this story." (William Gibson recommended this technique to Eileen Gunn.)

Once a narrative is out in the world, it's no longer yours.

Exploit the holes in the story. [I think this meant, exploit the holes in one story to make a new, more interesting story.]

Carolyn Gilman: narrative is not explanation, it simulates explanation; narrative stresses competition and conflict; narrative tends to stress the personal and private over the public and political. Sequence in narrative implies causation.

I didn't take any notes at the "Slow Writers" panel at WisCon, but here are the things I remember about it, distilled.

( Everybody works differently, and everybody is right. I knew that, but it's good to write it out. )