I spent the weekend up in Muncie, IN for the Midwestern Writers Workshop’s Agent Fest. Anyway, it was good way to connect with fellow writers, meet agents, and get some insider information. Thanks to one memorable presentation, I now look at writing my synopses completely differently.

Writing is a pretty solitary experience, so it’s always nice to learn and talk to others doing the same thing as you. Something I really love about writing in general is that the “enemy” so to speak isn’t other authors, its people who don’t read.

I’d encountered such a phenomena in the Scotch whisky industry years ago when I was writing my masters dissertation. The distilleries all sold different products, but on many occasions they joined forces to promote Scotch as a whole and broaden the overall customer base.

So collaborating with other writers whether it’s for a combined sales initiative or just sharing information about the craft or the profession can benefit both parties. For instance, I was waiting for that “How to Write a Good Synopsis” presentation to start and got to talking with my table. I learned all about a couple of programs that scan your prose for redundant phrasing, poor grammar choices, and active/passive voices in far better detail than Word ever could. In return, I think I ended up telling them how Amazon Direct Publishing works. See? We all win.

I’ve gone to enough events over the past 7 or 8 years now having to do with writing that I’ve started to define what type of experience I think I can expect based on the title of the program alone. Keep in mind, these are my definitions. Program creators are free to name their events whatever they wish.

A Conference: Different from a convention. I define a conference as a learning experience where people present ideas. Usually, it’s author to author. A place to go, network, and soak up some good discussions.

A convention: More of a celebration of the craft or a particular genre. More fan/reader presence as well as more booksellers. For an author it’s a good place to meet those fans and meet fellow authors. It might be tough for new authors to find each other though, as they fall someone in the middle.

A workshop: Can involve presentations of some kind, but the big difference is that the author attendee is actively working or practicing a lesson of some kind. To give a shout out to MWW, you can usually find instructions and critiques from some “faculty” authors paired against presentations or lectures about specific topics.

A retreat: A sequestered experience in some out of the way location so an author can focus on his or her writing. Usually it’s run by another writer of some clout who shares their expertise and critique on a much more personal level.

Those might be self-explanatory, but it helps to set the attendee’s expectations. A new writer could still make connections at a convention for instance — hello, Bar Con! — but it’s a much less structured experience.

I like to go to events. I usually come back with a couple new tricks, some contacts, and I always learn something. The price of some of these events can get limiting, but if you’re ever on the fence if you should attend or not, my answer is yes!

Now you just have to whittle down which one that’ll be 🙂

Maybe next time I’ll give you my list of the types of people I usually run into at these things …