Escape the Plot Forest -- The Plotting Summit

#1

We’re planning an online conference or plotting summit for October.

Please propose speakers below. Ideally these would be authors you would like to hear from or other other writing teachers (KM Weilland, John Truby etc). It would be great to get a longlist of fifty possible names.

Feel free to also propose sessions or goals for the conference – what would be a good writing goal, for instance?

My idea is to have a three to five day online summit, with a range of speakers, all about plotting stories / novels. The focus will be plot, in a broad sense. We’ll talk about storytelling, outlining, inspiration, pitching your ideas… You can watch live or catch the replay (all talks will be free for 24 hours after they go live, and then you’ll need to buy an “all access pass”).

How does that sound to you?

Escape the plot forest
Escape the plot forest940×788 893 KB

5 Likes
#2

This is the original questionnaire:

https://question.danieldavidwallace.com/summit

1 Like
#3

I’m looking forward to this plotting summit. I already responded to the questionnaire, but wanted to add Lisa Hall-Wilson and C.S. Lakin as possible speakers. They are both teachers I respect and admire.

2 Likes
#4

On the questionnaire, I mentioned the author Brandon Sanderson who has a lot of writing classes on YouTube.

I also mentioned Mark Spencer, who is a popular teacher with the Writers Digest University classes.

6 Likes
#5

I’ve just filled out the questionnaire and have proposed a list of speakers, including Chuck Wendig. I’d like to add Dean Movshovitz who wrote Pixar Storytelling. And perhaps James Scott Bell?

3 Likes
#6

Chris Fox, if he’s available.

2 Likes
#7

Cool! Do you have a favourite book or blog post I could look at?

1 Like
#8

Also, Jessica Brody, who wrote Saves the Cat Writes A Novel as well as numerous YA and sci-fi novels of her own. She’s a delightful public speaker.

6 Likes
#9

Cool! That’s a great suggestion.

1 Like
#10

Okay. People have begun saying yes to speaking at the summit. Wow.

(Tim Storm is coming, for instance – I know that will make a lot of people happy.)

New question:

What plot issues would you like the speakers to address?
If I did three days of themed talks – what should the three themes be?

E.g.

  1. Getting started
  2. Developing the story
  3. Building to the ending

or something closer to how I teach my CF workshop:

  1. set up
  2. structure
  3. pacing

–

What appeals to you as a plan for the event?

3 Likes
#11

I think it would be beneficial for a talk dealing with the ending of a novel or story—kind of what you have for the suggested theme—because, for me, that’s where I have a tougher time. Just knowing when to wrap everything up and the different ways to approach the ending would be really useful.

3 Likes
#12

He has a YouTube Channel with all sorts of writing advice. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6RYg6_-pTQxLVq3Fv6lYg

He also wrote a series of books, starting with “5000 Words Per Hour” (spoiler: dictation). The most generally useful book would probably be “Lifelong Writing Habit” or “Plot Gardening” for a plotting conference.

2 Likes
#13

I suggested a few people in the questionnaire, but someone else I thought of is Abbie Emmons (lots of YouTube videos and a free scene template). I think she would be a good speaker about what to accomplish in a scene.

Another suggestion I have for the summit’s process and structure is a guy named Geoff Affleck https://geoffaffleck.com. I recommended him to an author whose book I edited and Geoff did a great job of optimizing the book on Amazon. I also signed up for Geoff’s class and enjoyed it (and his Facebook group) and learned a lot. Geoff has done several summits (around the topics of book writing and self publishing). He’s worked with several people and if I understand correctly he usually makes a book out of the talks and then sells it after everything is over (check out the latest on Amazon). He’s a nice guy and I think he would be glad to be interviewed for tips.

2 Likes
#14

I think it might be interesting to tell the various speakers what you have in mind for the summit and then ask them if they have a favorite topic they would like to address.

I’m interested in learning more about secrets, setups and payoffs, reversals, and twists.

3 Likes
#15

Everything on this cherry tree is important. I’d like to see a blending of the two lists’ themes.

1 Like
#16

I agree with Lita. It’s all important. But I think getting started, pacing, and building to the ending sound like a good balance.

2 Likes
#17

I would like to see how to integrate characters & environment…
Sometimes I struggle with too much conversation between characters and not enough detailing of how the environment plays into the main plot. A lot of times the environment part is problematic when I want to transition from one place to another but the character is engaged in what’s happening physically and then mentally they are somewhere else, describing the environment then draws the reader away from the connection to the relatable aspects. How could that situation become a seamless transition without censoring the finer details or omitting them all together?
It would be great to have resources or suggestions about “what is too much dialog”.
I can’t remember where I heard it but I was told that:
“If your characters do all the talking, the writing becomes a diary and if the land is all that is detailed, the writing becomes a map… somewhere in between is the story.” ~Unknown

1 Like
#18

Okay. Jessica Brody is hard to reach — all inquiries go through her agent. Just wondering… has anyone here saved her cat at some point…. or have any contact info for her?

1 Like
#19

I have now contacted Abbie Emmons! #waiting

#20

Fingers crosssed! I watched a few of her videos and was impressed with her love of writing and she is engaging. One of the reasons I watched the videos is I keep trying to learn how to use Scrivener and to get good ideas for how other writers use it. I don’t know if you had time to look at or download her templates, but one she uses to write a “short” outline from a “messy” story idea, which she then refines and adds to before she starts writing. I attached that template and also her scene template that I had in Word (in case you didn’t see them yet). After this, I am going to add another idea to the section of what I’d like to learn at the summit. Oh, I just saw I can’t upload a .doc or PDF file. I will email them to you.

1 Like