Now I'm cooking!

Back home at last, and waiting for me was something I'd hoped to have with me in Calgary: a Stowaway Bluetooth folding keyboard for my Audiovox Harrier.

This is just amazingly cool. It's a full-size keyboard (minus the row of number buttons) with a good solid feel and a nice brace that makes it stiff enough to hold on my lap as I type. It's also got a little easel thing on which I can rest the Harrier. The result: an ultra-small writing device, far easire to carry around than a laptop. I can type almost as fast on this as on a laptop, too, and certainly a heck of a lot faster than I can on the virtual keyboard (or even, heaven forbid, on the slide-out thumb-sized keyboard) of the Harrier.

Had I had this at Westercon, my posts from there would have been even longer and more detailed, since I could easily have taken extensive notes of panels. The keyboard is quiet, too, so it shouldn't even be a distraction when sitting in on talks and other events.

And man, oh, man, don't I wish I'd had one of these when I was a reporter? When I think of all the newsprint pads that gave their lives to my barely legible scrawls...

I'm in geek heaven, here. (Although it's cleverly disguised as the Cornwall Centre Second Cup.)

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Westercon: The Science Column

The phrase “science fiction convention” conjures in many people’s minds images of strange people in strange costumes doing strange things.

Well, last Sunday at Westercon, a major North American science fiction convention held this year in Calgary, I saw a blue-skinned woman, a green-skinned Medusa (complete with snaky hair), and (most frightening of all) a group of cheerleading orcs, complete with pom-poms.

But I also took part in, or attended, panel discussions on various aspects of science, writing and publishing. The heart of a science fiction convention lies in the panels, which run (four or five concurrently) morning to evening every day (in this case, over four days). They all have some connection to science fiction--but since, by definition, the worlds of science fiction and fantasy include everything that has ever happened, everything that has never happened but can be imagined to have happened, and everything that hasn’t happened yet but may happen in the future, that can be anything at all.

Westercon’s guests of honor included well-known authors S.M. Stirling and Dave Duncan, publisher Tom Doherty and editor David G. Hartwell, both from Tor Books, the top science fiction and fantasy publisher in New York. There was also a science guest of honor, the world-famous paleontologist Phil Currie, soon to be leaving the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller for a position at the University of Alberta.

I only made it to one of his panels, due to my own commitments, but I had spies in his other panels. He reported on some of the amazing discoveries made about dinosaurs in recent years, such as the astonishing find of preserved soft tissue in a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil and the many recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs. The latter, of course, is just one bit of evidence strengthening the long-mooted link between dinosaurs and birds. It may well be that we can safely say, now, when asked, “Where did the dinosaurs go?” that “You ate one for Thanksgiving.”

I was personally on two science panels, as well as some focused more on writing (and teaching) science fiction. “The Year in Science” was on overview of science news the panelists had noticed over the last year. We discussed the ongoing discoveries of extrasolar planets and the prospect for discovering truly Earth-like planets around other stars in the near future; the discovery of complex organic compounds in interstellar clouds, which raises the possibility that the precursors of life arrived on Earth (and possibly other planets) via comet; and, of course, the discovery that Mars once had water. Our growing understanding of brain activity was another major focus of discussion.

In “The Future of Energy” we discussed future energy sources--and how we get there from here. The general consensus seemed to be that there are technologies, existing and emerging, that hold promise of helping us meet our energy needs in a more environmentally friendly fashion, but that the real challenge is political: finding ways for society to make the transition.

It’s unlikely, we agreed, that the future will belong to a single source of energy: rather, we’ll see a mixture of things such as wind, solar, ethanol, nuclear and more. Individual homes may become net producers of energy, rather than consumers, through new technologies such as the infrared solar cells that may be made possible by recent discoveries at the University of Toronto (which I wrote a column about).

My other panels included “Group Dynamics in Speculative Fiction,” all about how the heroes and heroines in science fiction and fantasy relate to the people around them and “Blasters and Battlestars,” a discussion of “space opera.” (The term follows from calling a Western a “horse opera”, and was originally derogatory; however, it has been reclaimed--at least somewhat--and and I and my fellow panelists--David G. Hartwell and his wife, fellow editor Kathryn Cramer, who are working on an anthology of space opera--stood up for well-written far-future space adventure fiction as good stuff.

I think my favorite event, though, as always, was Writers at the Improv, in which teams of writers (I was teamed with Canadian SF writer Robert J. Sawyer) construct a story from sentences that have to include words provided by the audience. It’s not great fiction, but it’s great fun.

It was a fun four days, and invigorating to me as both a science writer and a science fiction writer.

And the fact that my four-year-old daughter won a certificate in the costume competition for “best use of pink” is just gravy.

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Blogging Westercon - Monday (the wrap-up)

Another 10 a.m. panel Monday morning, this one on the Future of Energy (ironic, considering the distinct lack of energy to be had at 10 a.m. on the fourth day of a four-day SF convention). It actually went very well. My fellow panelists were Karl Johanson, Blair Petterson, A. M. Arruin and Hayden Trenholm. After a certain gloominess regarding the likelihood of politicians getting their act together well enough to manage the transition from our current energy usage pattern to what will be required in the future, we managed a bit of an optimistic take on things based on improving technology. Politics permitting, our consensus seemed to be, the future of energy will lie in a much more decentralized system, where every house is a potential net-energy producer, and many different technologies will work together to meet energy needs.

Of course, what we do in the West doesn't matter a lick in the long term: it's what China and India decided to do that may well dictate the future of energy.

After that, I sat in the Dealer's Room for an hour manning a table featuring several books from authors not well-represented by the larger booksellers. I sold out my small inventory of Lost in Translation and also sold a couple of Andy Nebulas over the course of the day.

During the hour I managed to get my science column for CBC Saskatchewan's Afternoon Edition polished up enough to be able to e-mail it to guest host Joanne Skidmore, although I had to leave my next panel (on the Internet and the burgeoning amount of information available on it--lots of talk about privacy issues and the lack of editorial control) early to do so.
Then I had a joint reading with Leslie Carmichael; I read from Lost in Translation and she read from Lyranel's Song, her upcoming YA fantasy. Among those in the audience: Artist Guest of Honour Mark Ferrari, who said he enjoyed the reading and was sorry the book was sold out in the Dealer's Room. Alas, I wasn't able to help him, since I only brought five copies. (Bad author. Stupid author.) I enjoyed Lesley's reading very much and look forward to reading the entire book soon.

Once that was over, we made our way over to the Eau Claire Market for a quick lunch before returning to the hotel, where Margaret Anne went off to one panel and I went to another, Three Chapters and an Outline, with Nina Munteanu and David G. Hartwell (which is where I talked to Kathryn Cramer and she told me she'd linked to my blogging of the con).

A few interesting notes from that panel: Hartwell said an author's actual writing is far more important than a synopsis, which he, at least, doesn't read until after he's bought the book. Kathryn Carmer noted (from the audience) that the best thing to hope for is that you get a chance, either from a query letter or by having talked to an editor at a convention, to send the entire manuscript, thereby skipping the synopsis/sample chapter stage altogether--it is, after all, just "another chance to say no."

A synopsis doesn't really come in useful until it's time to send the book to marketing, Hartwell said.

He also noted that the wave of the future (or of the present, really) is to use an agent: the majority of New York editors will not look at an unagented manuscript, he pointed out.

He also made the point that it is important to distinguish between editors and houses--large publishing houses have many editors, who specialize in different types of books. Sending a book to the wrong editor can end up in an instant rejection or (pretty much as bad) the book being dumped into the corporate slush pile, where it may be lucky to get a reading of any sort.

Hartwell said the most important thing in creating a book that captures his interest is an interesting setting: nothing kills a book faster than an inadequate or generic setting, especially in a fantasy novel.

"I'm looking to be surprised," he said.

After that panel, I returned to the room and settled in to do a little blogging and await the phone call from Regina. It duly came, and I managed a pretty fair piece on Westercon for the folks back home.

After that, it was off to Nick's Cafe for the traditional IFWA and friends and guest authors' dinner at what is supposedly one of Calgary's finest steakhouses (well, that's one someone told us, though I have serious doubts). Anyway, it's traditional to go there, and so to there we went, and there, indeed, we had the traditional Traditional, plus a steak (in my case) and kebob (in Margaret Anne's case), and some good conversation. Robert J. Sawyer, S.M. Stirling, Patrick and Honna Swenson and Dave Duncan were among the guests who made the trek.

We all eventually got food and drink (it took a while, since there must have been 30 of us there), and I even capitulated to Rob Sawyer's wishes and sang "Old Man River," much to the bemusement of the rest of the restaurant patrons, who had no idea who I was or why I was singing while they were trying to eat.

We returned to the hotel and visited the Dead Dog party in the Con Suite; Margaret Anne and I had a lovely chat with James C. Glass and his wife, Gail. Then it was...well, right about now, or shortly before now, when I sat down to finish up this account of Westercon.

Overall, a fun con that seemed to run smoothly (though no doubt the Operations people have some horror stories, as they always seem to). It felt little different from ConVersion, except for the time of year and the number of panels running concurrently; it was hard to tell if it was much larger.

People are wending their way homeward now, as will we on Wednesday, after a day at the Calgary Zoo tomorrow. I may or may not blog until I'm back at my desk.

If I don't...well, try to keep a stiff upper lip.

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Early morning panel

Myself and S. M. Stirling, lost in contemplation about Group Dynamics in Speculative Fiction.

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Princess Annelise prepares for her entrance

Alice (a.k.a. Princess Annelise, ruler of the Barbieverse), getting ready for the Westercon Masquerade.

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Blogging Westercon - Sunday

UPDATE: Now with links!

First, a welcome to any readers finding their way here from Kathryn Cramer's blog! I ran into her at a panel this afternoon and she told me she'd linked to my coverage of Westercon--and sure enough, I see my readership has gone up. Some. At least temporarily. Please feel free to poke around now that you're here!

I didn't get Sunday blogged in detail because I was up late chatting last night and had a 10 a.m. panel this morning. But let's see if I can't catch up...

Sunday began with a panel on Group Dynamics in Speculative Fiction. S.M. Stirling, John Dalmas, Danita Maslan and myself attempted to identify some of the things that made hero's (and heroine's) groups work (or not work) in fiction. I'm not sure we were successful. At least, nothing we said made enough of an impression on me to remember it just a day later...I do know, though, that we failed miserably at coming up with examples of how fictional groups led by women differed from groups led by men, much to the disgust of my wife, who posed the problem to us. The audience came up with more examples than we did.


At 12 noon it was time for Writers at the Improv again. For a moment it looked like I would have to jump into the fray once more, but at the last moment Derryl Murphy showed up (he'd gone to the wrong room) and I was spared. The story featured hippopotami, aardvarks, a mysterious fleeing perpetrator, an ambidexterous gunman, and much, much more. ("Ambidexterous," by the way, was the word I saddled them with. Sweet revenge; it's the first time I've been in the audience for one of these things in years.)

I only had one other panel yesterday, on Writing From Both Sides of the Brain, which focused on the differing challenges of writing fiction and non-fiction. James C. Glass and Tee Morris were my co-panelists to begin with, joined in progress by Lisa Lee. James Glass focused more on the left brain/right brain idea of writing from both sides of the brain; he urges writers to write as fast as they can (right-brain writing), then use left-brain (analytical) writing during the editing and rewriting process. That's for fiction; non-fiction almost always uses more left-brain writing because, especially in the more scholarly kind of non-fiction writing, you have to analyze what you're doing as you're doing. (Not to mention putting in footnotes, my recent bane in trying to get the Orson Scott Card biography finished quickly.)

Otherwise, the focus of the panel quickly became the balancing of fiction and non-fiction writing. Tee, Lisa and I all write some of the same kinds of non-fiction (even for some of the same publishers). We've all faced the feast-or-famine problem, where you go for weeks or months with not enough work, then get four or five major projects dumped on you all at the same time, all sharing roughly the same deadline. I pointed out that I probably got more fiction written when I had an ordinary job than since I became a fulltime writer, simply because I have to work on things I know will pay before I can work on fiction which, in my case, is still on spec. But we also emphasized that writing is writing: non-fiction isn't a lesser form of writing than fiction, it's just different, and it's important to bring the same passion to a non-fiction project as it is to a fiction project.

I agree in principle, but it's hard to be passionate when writing a book about, say fire preparedness. (Coming soon from Rosen Publishers!)

We relaxed after my last panel by having Barb Galler-Smith, Anne Marston and Jan Stirling (S.M. Stirling's wife) up to our room for an hors d'ouvre or two, then went off for a quick dinner at the Mongolian grill in the Eau Claire Market food court before rushing back to get Alice in costume for the Masquerade.

Yes, our darlin' daughter was dragooned into the Masquerade, not exactly against our will (since we obviously agreed to it) but certainly against our expectation. Fortunately, she had brought with her her "Princess" outfit, a shiny pink flapper-style dress, a tiara, a wand, a purse, and even a cell phone (!). This, combined with a brilliant (if I do say so myself) SFnal script identifying her as "Princess Annelise, ruler of the Barbieverse, where all movies star Barbie, all literature features Barbie, all fashions are Barbie fashions, and the only food eaten is Barbie-Q" made her a hit. She even won an award, for Best Use of the Colour Pink.

The Masquerade itself was short, but there were some excellent costumes. And the intermission entertainment--the entertainment between the end of the costume presentations and the awarding of prizes--was Once More With Feeling, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical. Having already sung the small but pivotal role of the Opera Elf in Once More With Hobbits on Thursday night, I was well-prepared to leap into the equally small but even more pivotal role of The Mustard Man. I delivered my one line, "They got the mustard out!" with panache and flair, I must say. Overall, the musical was enjoyable and, if musically uneven, enthusiastically presented. (An aside: I understand Robert J. Sawyer will be singing the role of the Mustard Man at the upcoming Toronto Trek production of Once More With Feeling. I've heard Rob sing before. It should be sonically fascinating.)

Our little princess was pooped by the end of the Masquerade; I helped her get settled in the room with Margaret Anne, then went off for a drink or two in the ConSuite, chatting with Danita Maslan and John Dalmas and others for a bit, before retiring at the remarkably early (fro a con-goer) time of just after midnight.

Still to come: Monday's exciting events.

You can cut the suspense with a knife.

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Blogging Westercon - Saturday

This morning I met with a few SF Canada members for breakfast, at which we tried to convince Danita Maslan to join. Then, after helping my wife and daughter get up to the pool for some swimming, I returned to the room to blog about yesterday's events and to do some last-minute research for the Year in Science panel.

My first event was the Writers At the Improv. This is a fun exercise in which teams of two create sentences based on words provided by the audience. Each member of the team writes one sentence; the team decides which sentence is better, then that sentence is offered to the audience. The audience votes on which team's sentence is the best, and that becomes the first sentence of the story. Repeat until time runs out.

Writers at the Improv

This year's Writers at the Improv session featured pros against IFWA members, and I was paired with Robert J. Sawyer. Edo van Belkom was also dragooned into being on the panel, along with Leslie Carmichael. It appeared at first that the van Belkom/Carmichael team would run away with things, but Rob and I made a valiant attempt, and got a couple of sentences into the story. I captured the much-lusted-after honour of writing the closing couple of sentences. Since this year's story began with an exploding testicle and went downhill from there, this was a dubious honour, to say the least.

That was followed by a panel on teaching young people to write SF and fantasy, with Barb Geller-Smith, James C. Glass and myself. We had a grand total of three "audience" members, so it became more of an informal discussion, primarily with an interested young writer and his mentor.

The Year in Science panel followed, with Blair Petterson, James C. Glass (again), Karl Johanson, myself, and (a last-minute addition) Larry Niven. We talked about astronomical discoveries (extra-solar planets, organic compounds in space), developments in physics (quantum teleportation, etc.), and medical developments (advanced brain-scanning techniques, mind-controlled prostheses, etc.).

After that came a panel on school visits. Elizabeth Trenholm was the main panelist; I threw in my two cents' worth; we had a moderator, and there were three people in the audience, at least to start. I got some good ideas from Liz for my own upcoming teen writers' workshop in Regina.

A completely non-productive autograph session followed, and it was time to head off to the Locus Awards not too long thereafter, which I blogged in some detail below. Before I went, though, I sat in on Dinosaurs in Fact and Fiction with the science guest of honor, Dr. Phil Currie, Robert J. Sawyer, and Karl Johanson. Where is the new dinosaur science fiction? I'm not sure--maybe I should write some.

Dr. Phil Currie

After the Locus Awards, I briefly attended an SF Canada mixer. Then it was home to blog--and go to bed.

More tomorrow!

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Blogging Westercon - Locus Awards

Here I am, high (35th floor of the International Hotel) above Calgary, awaiting the results of this year's Locus Awards. (UPDATE: This was initially live-blogged, with photos and links added later.)

Charles Brown began with a comic introduction of Connie Willis (first pretending to think he was at a literary conference in China).

Charles Brown and Connie Willis

Connie Willis riffed on being from U.S. in Canada--jokes on recent news items of individuals displaying lack of smarts. ("The really good news: Paris Hilton's chihuahua is writing a book.") She also played off a number of famous "Americans" who are really Canadian.

Connie Willis

And then the awards begin:

Best book publisher: Tor Books.

Best magazine: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder.

Best Editor: Ellen Datlow.

Best Artist: Michael Whelan.

Best Art Book: Spectrum 11: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Arnie and Cathy Fenner.

Best Non-Fiction Book: The Wave in the Mind, by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Best Collection: The John Varley Reader by John Varley.

John Varley

Best Anthology: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

Interlude: Hawaiian shirt competition. Charles Brown once honored by everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts; it became a tradition. (Used to have a Hawaiian hulu guy, but he got broken by Bruce Sterling.) John Varley won a banana autographed by Charles Brown.

Hawaiian shirt competition

Best short story: Neil Gaiman won for "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire."

Best novelette: "Reports of Certain Events in London," China Mieville.

Best novellette: "The Fairy Handbag" by Kelly Link.

Best novella: "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe.

Best Young Adult book: A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett.

Best First Novel: Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

Best Fantasy Novel: The Iron Council by China Mieville.

Best Science Fiction Novel: The Baroque Cycle: The Confusion; The System of the World, by Neal Stephenson.

A reception followed, and as the rural correspondents of The Weyburn Review used to like to say, "A good time was had by all."

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Blogging Westercon - Friday

From left to right: Calgary's deputy mayor, Guest of Honour S. M. Stirling, Publisher Guest of Honour Tom Doherty, Editor Guest of Honour David G. Hartwell, Canadian Guest of Honour Dave Duncan, Artist Guest of Honour Mark Ferrari, Fan Guests of Honour Eileen Capes and Cliff Samuels.

A busy day at Westercon yesterday. We attended the opening ceremonies, at which the Guests of Honour underwent the White Hat ceremony, making them honourary Calgarians, with the help of Calgary's deputy mayor.

Then we had lunch at The Barley Mill in the Eau Claire Market with Robert J. Sawyer and some local Calgary writers, members of the Imaginative Fiction Writers' Association.

At 3 p.m., I was on the Blasters and Battlestars panel, focused on space opera: what is it, and is it a good thing? I suggested the panel idea because Lost in Translation has been called space opera; I was delighted that David G. Hartwell, a senior editor for Tor Books, and his wife (and co-editor) Kathryn Cramer chose to join the panel, too. Since they're editing a space opera anthology and Hartwell knows more about the history of SF than I ever will, I was fairly quiet, except for plugging my book a little. Hartwell has written an extensive essay on space opera, so I won't rehash what was said--besides, I thought it would be gauche to sit and tap at my Harrier while my fellow panelists were talking.

Yours truly with David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

Danita Maslan's book launch was also held yesterday afternoon. Her book, Rogue Harvest, is just out from Robert J. Sawyer Books, the new science fiction line from Red Deer Press. We bought a copy and had it autographed, and enjoyed chatting with others we knew at the launch.

Danita Maslan autographs Rogue Harvest for me at her book launch at Westercon.

We went off to Joey Tomato's for dinner (Connie Willis sat at the table next to us, although we didn't actually say hello to her) and then made our way back to the hotel for the Aurora Awards.

The ceremony was hosted by Robert J. Sawyer, who was also one of the winners (see the post below where I listed all the winners--I sent that by e-mail using my Harrier just as the ceremony was wrapping up last night).

Robert J. Sawyer, emcee, shows off the Aurora Award, one of which he would later win, at the Aurora Awards ceremony at Westercon.

It was marred--if that's not too strong a word--only by the fact that only two of the winners were actually present, Rob Sawyer and Edo van Belkom. (Dale Spiers was next door at a panel, but that doesn't really count.)

Then I had a brief reading to do at the Talebones/On Spec reading session, after which I went off to sing The Road Goes Ever On, the Donald Swann setting of poems by J.R.R. Tolkien. That went very well; a small crowd, as usual, but an appreciative one--one person told me I sent chills up her spine and I think I even saw someone wiping a surreptitious tear away. Another woman thanked me because, she said, she'd been waiting 30 years to hear those songs performed.

That was followed by Once More With Hobbits, a rewritten version of the Buffy musical episode Once More With Feeling with humorous Lord of the Rings lyrics. I played the Opera Elf, a one-line wonder: "They got the Wagner out!" Very clever lyrics and narration, so it was a lot of fun.

And that was that. Today I have Writers at the Improv, three panels, an autograph session and the Locus Awards Banquet. Fun, fun, fun!

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Aurora Award winners

Hot from Westercon:

Long-form English
Wolf Pack, Edo van Belkom

Short-form English
When the Morning Stars Sang Together, Isaac Szpindel

Long-form French
Les Mémoires de l'Arc, Michèle Laframboise

Short-form French
Ceux qui ne comptent pas, Michèle Laframboise

English other
Relativity: Essays and Stories, Robert J. Sawyer

Artistic achievement
Martin Springett

Fan publication
Opuntia, Dale Speirs

Fan organization
Brian Upward, I.D.I.C.

Fan other
Karen Linsley, filksinging

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Blogging Westercon - Thursday Night, Part 2

The second panel I attended on Thursday night at Westercon was on Great Openings. S.M. Stirling was on hand again, along with Barb Geller-Smith, Andrew Foley and David G. Hartwell, a senior editor at Tor Books.

Hartwell rather dominated the panel, mainly because all the would-be authors in the audience were most anxious to hear what someone who actually buys books had to say. And what he said was very interesting: editors, he said, have too much to read, so they're always looking for reasons to stop reading whatever is in front of them. You don't want to give them that reason right off the bat with a lousy opening. (Although he said he sometimes will read through a boring beginning because he's familiar with something else the author has written and expects the book to get better--and, yes, editors do remember the stuff you sent them before; they remember hundreds of names.)

He suggested, once a book is finished, going back and rewriting the opening, in light of everything you've learned in the process of writing the book. He also recommended lots of reading--both short stories and novels, especially in the field but also out of it, to see how other writers have solved the "problem" of the opening. By doing so, he said, you build up a mental repository of possible ways to approach the problem, and are better prepared to finding an effective solution to the problem of opening your particular story.

Reading widely gives you a better range of solutions to problems, Hartwell said, even on the sentence level.

Hartwell said there is much too little reading done by novice (and some experienced) writers. You can use something that was used many years before, but you have to transform it. Foley said the same thing holds true for comics. Stirling pointed out that some writers have successfully transformed even Victorian-era prose for modern storytelling purposes.

You can go even further back. Hartwell noted that Poul Anderson was a great master at openings--and Stirling noted that Anderson got some of his techniques from the ancient Scandinavian sagas.

On the question of series books, Hartwell said you should aim for new readers with every book in the series, because there's a certain amount of loss in readership that's inevitable.

You not only select your audience with your opening, you deselect a certain element of the audience. William Gibson, Hartwell pointed out, consciously eliminated the adventure audience with the opening to Neuromancer. He thought he was writing for a very small audience (fortunately for him, it turned out he was wrong, although it took more than a year for the book to become a commercial success).

Hartwell also said that lots of books have great openings, then fade. Ultimately, what's important is not just the way a book is written, but the emotional content.

As Stirling pointed out, L. Sprague de Camp was a better writer in every way than Robert E. Howard (and had the added advantage of not being a "nut," like Howard), but the material he wrote in the Howard milieu lacks the emotional impact of Howard's own stories. "He didn't believe in it the way Howard did, and it shows."

After the panel, I briefly visiting ConVersion 21.5, the "mini-con" being held by the ConVersion people, ConVersion being on hold due to Westercon, and had a nice chate with James C. Glass and his wife. Then it was into bed. My first panel today: Blasters and Battlestars, all about space opera. Hartwell is on that one, too, so it should be particularly interesting.

More later!

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Blogging Westercon - Thursday Night, Part 1

Westercon doesn't really get underway until today--the opening ceremonies are at noon--but there was some "pre-convention" programming last night, and I took in a couple of panels.

I didn't take complete notes--I was using my Harrier and although I'm pretty fast with a stylus on a virtual keyboard, I'm not fast enough to catch everything that's said. Also, I had Alice on my lap for part of the first panel.

But here are a few tidbits from the first panel I attended, on Backstory. Panelists were Dave Duncan, Diane Walton, Leslie Carmichael and S. M. Stirling. The panelists said pretty much what I expected: don't try to cram everything you know about your world and characters into your novel or short story, and especially don't try to do that in the first few pages--that's deadly. (Interestingly, Dave Duncan says he sends his assembled "bible" about any world he creates to the editor along with the manuscript.)

In historical fiction, Dave noted, there are some things you simply cannot know, no matter how much research you do--in which case, you have to extrapolate. If someone out there does know the truth, and catches you in extrapolating something that doesn't match historical fact, you will hear about it.

S.M. Stirling concurred, although he noted, it isn't what you don't know that usually gets you--you can research that--it's the things you think you know that are actually wrong. He gave the example of a Rudyard Kipling short story that features a beautiful description of life as a Roman galley slave. Alas, the Romans never had galley slaves, and even in the 19th century, Kipling could have found that out--he just assumed he knew the truth instead of checking.

Stirling's rule for presenting backstory is that it's only as important as its effects on the people in the story.

Everyone agreed its easier to do backstory for fantasy, where you can make more stuff up, than it is for science fiction.

Presenting backstory in the second, third, fourth, etc., books of a series was also discussed, since in the ongoing books of a series, what happened in previous books is backstory.

It's a challenge, everyone agreed; you simply have to treat that backstory like you would any other and present it along with the story.

Dave made an excellent suggestion: bringing in the backstory by presenting it from the viewpoint of a different character than the first time around. That keeps regular readers entertained while educating new readers about the world and history.

There was much more, but that gives you some of the flavour.

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