Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

[Jim Brown] 1:07 pm: It has been researched that around only 7% of
what you use to evaluate what is being said actually comes from the
words.
[Jim Brown] 1:07 pm: The rest comes from body-language, context, tone

Deena] 1:52 pm: It might help to break down how the various social
media platforms work, what they do. Facebook is a semi-closed
system; so is Live Journal. They draw readers from their users.
WordPress.com is a bit more open, it also cross-promotes between
users better than Facebook and LJ. Red Room is great for authors, a
kind of one-stop shop. A standalone website is good, with blogging
software, especially if you cross-post to Facebook and Twitter. I don't
recommend Blogger because it doesnt...
[Deena] 1:52 pm: have that cross-promotional strength the others have.
[Jim Brown] 1:52 pm: A lot of people don't like Blogger because of that.
[Deena] 1:52 pm: And, as several people have mentioned previously, LJ
is great for the speculative author community; there are a lot of them
on LJ.
[Jim Brown] 1:53 pm: Wordpress is good because you can put it on your
own server.

[Deena] 1:54 pm: Blogger, maybe because it's owned by Google, does
seem to have a little bit of a leg up in search engine results.
[Caras Galadhon] 1:54 pm: ?
[Jim Brown] 1:54 pm: Something we have found VERY useful lately is
Goodreads.
[widdershins] 1:54 pm:    
[Deena] 1:54 pm: Oh, yeah, lots of people have talked about the power
of Goodreads, also library thing. There's some disagreement as to
which is best.

Caras Galadhon] 2:04 pm: (Sorry, I seem to be talkative today.) LibraryThing
has a similar promotional program each month called Early Reviewers. It
seems as if GoodReads has a larger casual userbase, but LT is more serious/st
ickier (and I find the folks behind the curtain are in more constant communic
ation with their userbase).

More highlights from Coyote Con!

Show what mental illness does and does not
Show the parts of the character that do tie in with mental illness, to make clear that there are other parts that *don't*. Not everything (good or bad) the char does is because of the mental illness.

( Does and does not continued, schizophrenia, and society and mental illness. )

Finding Experts
[MeredithHolmes] 8:29 pm: You're so right in never knowing where your
experts are. I've found a community on Live Journal called little_details and
it's amazing what kind of info you can find by posting a question there. It's
for writers (mostly) and really helpful. All answered by community members
and, if they don't know the details, they direct you to someone who does.

(paraphrased) If you feel awkward asking a professional your questions--just ask them if it's okay to ask questions. Maybe ask if buying them dinner would be an acceptable recompense.

[My $.02: Speaking of finding experts--I have a lousy memory so I
find it really useful to keep track of them! I recommend keeping an experts file
with contact info, context you know them in (so that you can remind them if
necessary) and specialization: friends, relatives, friends' relatives, people you
had a good conversation with once or attended a presentation by--everyt
hing. Also, I'm going to plug http://www.vark.com (again) You basically IM in
your question and it "finds" people in the network that it thinks can answer it. You might have to fiddle with your terms a little, but I've had good luck finding very specialized knowledge
(like what Russian Orthodox services would have been in the 17th century). ]

The usefulness of wrong information
nalohopkinson] 8:31 pm: Wikipedia; as you all probably know, it's
probably a good idea to double-check information you find on
Wikipedia.
[nalohopkinson] 8:32 pm: Thing is...
[nalohopkinson] 8:33 pm: even if you find that the "information" you've
discovered is incorrect, consider whether you actually need the facts in
that case, or whether the fiction can provide you with an interesting
plot point.
[nalohopkinson] 8:34 pm: Sometimes you absolutely need the correct
information. But sometimes the fanciful version can be a gift to an
sf/f/h writer.

Daily life--sources from the time period
[crneil] 8:41 pm: If you're working on daily life in the early part of the 20th
century of America or England, especially with what can be called the "gentle
folk," early etiquette manuals are terrific for finding out how daily life was
conducted and what people aspired to.
[nalohopkinson] 8:43 pm: If you want to know what people wore and
how it was constructed, old sewing manuals are great. The good thing
about looking up sources like old etiquette books and old magazines is
that you get a sense of how people spoke.

Research resources:
[CindyLynn] 5:48 pm: We spoke about research...do you guys have any
favorite books or sites? I use Kunz's the The Curious Lore of Precious
Stones and Maud Greive's Modern Herbal to base my magic on...
[Sun Wukong, the Monkey King]: Rachael de Vienne has entered at 5:49 pm
    [annathepiper] 5:49 pm: theoi.com is AWESOME for Greek mythos
stuff.
    [MeredithHolmes] 5:50 pm: The Element Encyclopedia series is great
[CindyLynn] 5:50 pm: Also, any final comments before we open the floor
for questions?
    [MeredithHolmes] 5:50 pm: and, oddly, anthropology books. and
pantheon.org
[akashina] 5:50 pm: I use history books on the time period I chose. If I
know nothing at all on the subject, I start with Wikipedia and go in
depth from there.
    [Heather Ingemar] 5:50 pm: I vote for Pantheon.org
    [Heather Ingemar] 5:50 pm: Great, great resource
    [Heather Ingemar] 5:51 pm: Where else could you find out that
vampires were also, once upon a time, allergic to dirty socks?

Entire transcripts of CoyoteCon panels so far: http://coyotecon.com/transcripts/

One of the panelist's presentation written out in report form: http://wardancingpixie.blogspot.com/2010/05/coyotecon-presentation-rough-draft.html

Summary
You need to think about what you want religion to do to your world and your characters. Then you need to do a lot of research. Then you need to decide how much of that research should show.

Highlights
( Read more... )

There was much general discussion, but the following tips are what I found most useful.

[FrancesP] 12:43 pm: Okay, tips for fixing passives:
[FrancesP] 12:43 pm: Get specific: “It was late when he arrived” turns into “he
arrived ten minutes late.” “He was a heavy-set man” turns into “he weighed
over two-hundred and fifty pounds.”
[FrancesP] 12:43 pm: Get descriptive: “She was tall” turns into “she towered
over her co-workers.” “The guy was short” turns into “the top of his head
barely reached her shoulder.”
[FrancesP] 12:44 pm: Expand the idea: “It was raining” turns into “rain
drizzled and pooled in the streets.” “I’m tired” turns into “I can’t force my
eyes to stay open for one more minute.”
[FrancesP] 12:44 pm: Flip it: “In the center of the room was a table” turns
into “a table occupied the center of the room.” “On the top of his head was a
hat” turns into “he wore a hat on the top of his head.”

Lack of sleep and the EST times listed made me miss the first session I'd planned to attend, but I got invited into the next one. That's pretty awesome, since it was a "limited attendance" session and the (free) "tickets" were sold out by the time I got there. So now I know to go hang out in one of the other chat rooms when sold out sessions are going on and see if I get invited (or can ask a moderator in, though that might be seen as rude, dunno).

Caroline Stevermer, 1crowdedhour, did an excellent job (not at all "crushingly boring!") discussing researching and sinking into the time period.

Summary:
Research is important. Primary sources (autobiographical) from the time period are a good immersion tool. You should befriend a research librarian if at all possible (aw, yeah--shout out to da_wyf). Follow the trail hidden in the bibliographies of reference books. I chimed in with my recommendation of the "The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in [x}" series for general stuff and bibliography hunting and http://www.vark.com for getting answers to really specific, weird questions.

Highlights:

Seeing with the eyes of the past
    [CarolineStev] 8:29 pm: With a story that takes place in the past, I try to
figure out what it is that is an equivalent to our cutting edge technology. For
example, looking at the light rail trolley cars here, I think, neato! I fully believe
that if I were standing on that same street corner one hundred years ago, I'd
have thought neato (or the equivalent) just the same. As far as the dump of
facts, I have been thinking a lot about electric lines. We see them all the time
but we (at least I) don't notice them.
    [CarolineStev] 8:30 pm: They are intrinsic to our world but we take them
for granted. I try to get the things that are taken for granted in that place
and time into the story some how -- usually by having them malfunction or
be different in a way that surprises the viewpoint character.
    [CarolineStev] 8:31 pm: Another thing is to really listen to the way people
talk about things -- I listen to friends talk about their technology (iPads,cell
phones) and they talk about how to get things to do what they want them to
do better, faster, cheaper -- I believe that is an eternal human trait. Ingenuity.
It's figuring out what the equivalent would have been.

Conjuring another time
[Oliver] 8:41 pm: When writing historicals, do you have any 'rituals' to
slide your mind into 'another time...'? Do you find you have trouble
coming back to the present?
    [CarolineStev] 8:43 pm: Here's my big secret: I go to the local art
museum and hunt for an object from the place and time I have in mind. In
THE GRAND TOUR, a writing desk blows up while they are in Venice. (I don't
think that counts as a spoiler.) I picked out a table of the right approximate
place and time -- marble top, gilt legs, and I kept that in mind while I was
working on that section. I was never allowed to touch it, but having a real
object firmly in mind really helped ground me.

Wordplay
[CarolineStev] 8:52 pm: Here's the most horrible mistake I've ever made:
conversation in the early 19th century meant what intercourse means today.
So when I had Kate talk about her conversation with the bishop -- well, let's
just say that's not the kind of intercourse I had in mind. I was saved from
myself by a woman who has an advanced degree in English literature with a
specialization in the time period. She was very kind to me. I've never used
the word conversation in anything with that setting again.