UntitledTown - What Is It?

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UntitledTown Book and Author Festival features authors, some famous, some local with one purpose in mind, teach the craft. It started on Thursday evening with book author, Michael Perry in a benefit concert with the Long Beds. This event was not free and cost $30. I'm not certain if the other featured authors also had a fee to hear them speak. I didn't go to them. All the other workshops and panels were free. There was a lot to choose from. Twenty events on Friday along with author Susan Orlean. Saturday there were sixty-eight events along with author Walter Mosely and Andrea Gibson. Sunday/today there were twenty-five events along with author Rebecca Makkai. Included in those numbers were four other authors - William Kent Krueger, Michael Moreci, Nicholas Butler, and Jamie Ford. Of those many workshops and panel discussions, I chose ten. All workshops started at 10 AM. and went until the 4 PM session which ended at 5:30, except for those authors who spoke in the evening. I didn't attend any evening sessions. I was here interacting with you. My ten events were: Friday Christian Fiction: What is It? Why we write it. This was an awesome panel discussion. They showed the difference between mainstream and sweet/Christian publishing and what publishers of Christian fiction look for in the books they publish. I can tell you, Thread of Evidence will go through some minor revision before I send it back to my publisher. Three women panel - upper left. Workshop: Writing and Faith This was an interactive workshop and gave us a hands-on approach to writing faith-based novels. Upper left two women - middle and right. Inspired by Research: Using Historical Reseach in Creative Writing I expected tips on researching history. This is the session I gave a negative review on and really hope they don't ask her back again next year. In the pictures above, she's the one on the top right. Workshop: Fantasy & Sci-Fi Worldbuilding This was by far the most interesting of the Friday sessions. It went through everything you need to include in your sci-fi novel. I'm happy to say, I hit all the necessary points. I'll be enhancing those points in New Horizons. Saturday Writing Science Fiction: A Workshop with Michael Moreci Michael is a best-selling author. His workshop was interactive. He showed how a basic story structure is made and had us make one. I based my story structure on New Horizons. I was happy the structure worked. He gave many examples of movies that followed the basic structure. He's a huge Star Wars fan, but also had examples from Pixar movies, predominately Toy Story. Though he was familiar with most of the movies out there, many I've barely heard of and some I have, and a couple I've never heard of. Michael Moreci is second row left. Writing & Publishing Sci-Fi/Paranormal/ Fantasy Fiction This was a panel discussion on getting published in the industry. That panel is the middle box. Six authors talked about the pros and cons of the publishing industry. The gentleman second from the left was the presenter for the Worldbuilding session the day before. The Shawano Area Writers Presents 50 Years of Writing Shawano is a city about half an hour from Green Bay, maybe an hour. The gentleman on the left in the second row right is also a member of the writer's guild I belong to. Each member read from an anthology they put together over the years of stories they wrote. It showcased local talent. So You Want to Write Young Adult Historical Fiction This was the session I got lost trying to find in the hotel it was located in. She talked about the make-up of a Young Adult novel. My novel, Scarred is Young Adult and does follow the guidelines except for the length. The typical length for a YA novel is approximately 65,000 words. For the couple of you who told me you read Scarred, you know it's larger than 65,000 words. I believe it's 163,000 and almost 500 pages. This was a good session, she was personable, but there was something in her personality that didn't meld with mine. I'll still give her a thumb's up. She was a good presenter. Sunday/Today Creating a Vision Board: A Workshop That's me with the author/presenter in the bottom middle with my vision board. So as you can tell, this one was interactive and very interesting. We chose pictures from magazines that grabbed us regarding our novels. Again, I based this vision board on New Horizons. What I loved best about this vision board was the picture of the earth as it fades away. It's a good representation of New Horizons because they leave earth and end up on a different planet in a different galaxy and they aren't able to return home. Using Psychology to Create Authentic Characters This was by far the best session of the entire conference. We met in the boardroom at the library where we normally hold our Writer's Guild meetings and as large as that room feels on a normal meeting day, it was ultra small today. We were packed in like sardines, with people sitting on the floor. She definitely needed a larger room. As for the presentation, that's her in the bottom right, she gave all the variables of creating characters and what kind of personalities they have. Each character is driven by something, and finding out what that something is can be an adventure. Okay, there you have my three-day adventure at UntitledTown. It was a marvelous weekend, and I have an idea for next year to present at the event. It was fun to see many of the guild members there, most of them in the last session. How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Thanks for reading. I through in a picture of the flowering bush outside the hotel as it's the only flowering bush I've seen this year so far.