Recap on Life, The Universe, and Everything

Yes, BYU had its annual sci fi con–er, symposium–this weekend!  It was pretty freaking awesome!  We had Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Elantris), Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted), and Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) as some of the main speakers, plus Kevin Wasden who’s a famous illustrator, Eric James Stone who makes it out to Quark writing meetings occasionally, and Howard Taylor, who writes the webcomic Schlock Mercenary.  There were also all kinds of other cool LDS writers there who had some pretty awesome things to say–unfortunately, I didn’t recognize most of the names, but it was really fun to listen to them!  Here are some of my thoughts and reactions from the symposium…

First of all, I have to say that I am REALLY pumped to write!  I mean, I almost wanted to skip some of the big name sessions this afternoon just to go and write!  The symposium was about sf/f in general but it was especially geared towards writers, with sessions on writer’s block, how to create worlds with believable mythology and folklore, how to work believable space travel into a story, how to make sure that your romance isn’t too sappy, etc.  Luny from Quark, who made it out to just about every session, said “yeah, if the writing vp wasn’t here, something would be seriously wrong!” But I was there, so there was order in the universe!

Orson Scott Card had some very interesting things to say.  He slammed Levi Peterson in his main address, calling him a Mormon literary writer who despises the everyday Mormon.  He also slammed literary fiction in general (like he usually does) and examined the history of Sci Fi and the role it’s played in literature in the last century.  Very fascinating stuff.

Some of the more interesting things he spoke about had to do with why Mormons in particular lean so heavily towards SF/F.  It’s true: there are more LDS sf/f writers per sf/f writers than there are LDS per population.  Why is that so?  Well, it’s true that some of our beliefs tend towards sf themes–we believe in multiple populated worlds, faster than light travel, and we have this whole concept of intelligences that sounds like something out of a sci fi story.

But really, the main reason OSC pointed to was that the LDS religion is both very practical and very scientific.  We believe that God is bound within law–that he can’t just wave his hand and do anything, that he is constrained to be perfectly just, perfectly merciful, etc.  Also, our heroes are very practical and solve problems logically without relying purely on divine intervention unless there is no other way.  And the LDS religion is very receptive towards the idea of believing things because they are reasonable and tested.  OSC pointed to Moroni’s promise as a sort of scientific test–loosely in the idea that you believe the religion because you’ve tested it for yourself.

The romance panel was interesting–I didn’t catch it in person, but Drek was kind enough to record it for me on my iRiver (there are benefits to not selling out to Apple–benefits such as finding an mp3 player with awesome recording capabilities for only $15 on ebay).  They looked at the romance in Star Wars and compared episodes 4, 5, and 6 with (blech!) episodes 1, 2, and 3.  Basically, the romance in 1-3 was beyond hope when Padume said “oh, Ani, you’ll always be that little boy that I remember.” One of the panelist made the comment that she looks at every story as a romance on some level, and that was also interesting.  Shared the concepts of prince charming vs. the rogue, what the differences are, how the two characters who shouldn’t get together almost inevitably get together, and other good stuff that I need to learn because I really don’t know very much about writing romance.

There was a very interesting panel on writer’s block.  Basically, their solution: sit down and write.  They talked about what kind of people true writers really are–basically, people who are always coming up with story ideas out of everything they see (that’s me!).  It was a good pep talk, saying that even though it’s really, really tough to get published, it can happen, and really it just takes work and determination.  The biggest obstacle to your writing is really yourself–your own self doubt and self criticism–and you need to allow yourself to be imperfect and make mistakes.  Good life advice as well as writing advice, but especially useful to writers.

On that note, there was also a panel about the publishing realities of New York, moderated by Sanderson.  It was very interesting.  The odds are very bad–only about one in a thousand manuscripts ever gets published–but the good news is that publishers reject 50% of that before even reading the first page, it’s so bad (no SASE, colored paper, didn’t follow submission guidelines)–and after that, most of the remaining stuff gets thrown out after reading the first page due to spelling errors.  It’s possible to get a novelist published out of the slush pile–one of the panelists actually did that–and the key to everything is networking: who you know and who they know.

Which means that I’m in a really good position because I’ve got the opportunity to get to know Sanderson really well from taking his class!

There were all kinds of other cool stuff, but basically I just need to let it all sink in and maybe listen and re-listen to this stuff again.  I recorded the following panels and speeches, so if you want a copy, just let me know and I’ll burn it to a CD or something:

Orson Scott Card’s main address (Friday)
half of Realities of NY Publishing
Putting Romance in Your Novel
LDS Beliefs & SF&F
Gail Carson Levinne’s main address (Saturday)
The Myth of Writer’s Block
Orson Scott Card: SF&F as a Legitimate Literary Genre

And that’s all for now.  It was definitely an awesome conference, and I’m glad I went!  Next time I’ll have to make it out to one of the big ones like worldcon or dragoncon!