Monday, June 12, 2017

West Virginia Writer's Conference


This weekend the West Virginia Writer's Conference celebrated their 40th anniversary.

The sun filled the sky the entire weekend (our conference is usually visited by rain).

People from all over the United State attended. If I remember correctly, we had attendees from Washington, Iowa, Ohio, Florida and quite a few other states.

I live within a few miles of the conference.

Every year they give the JUG (Just Uncommonly Good) award to a deserving writer. This year one of the recipients was Dolly Withrow. She is a member of our writing group and very deserving of the award. She is a Grammar Guru and has a fun way of helping you remember all the rules that are so easy to forget. And she was a member when the conference formed 40 years ago.

One of the workshop presenters, Michael Knost (who was the other JUG recipient), had a great workshop about showing vs. telling.

Think of showing as a radio play-by-play sports announcer.
Think of telling as the sports commentator.

The sports announcer describes each play as if you were there. He becomes your eyes.

The commentator tells you background information and statistics.

In writing a story, it would translate to something like this:

showing - Lucy scrunched her nose at the stale peppermint from the bottom of her purse. (The writer is your eyes, showing what Lucy is doing)
telling - Her mother gave her the candy a year ago. (The writer is telling in this sentence)

Don't tell things that aren't essential to the story.
Show emotions.
Show reactions.

I attended the Awards Banquet on Saturday Night.

I won 3rd place and Honorable Mention in the children's category of their annual spring writing contest.

And I received 2nd place ribbons in the People's Prose workshop on Saturday and the Poetry Writer's Wall.

After attending the workshops, I am now sitting at my desk editing my manuscripts.

Using the knowledge I gained, I will try to make them better.

Have you attended a conference or workshop lately?
What tidbit of writing advice can you share with us?


One thing I have learned is that most writers love to help each other out and share helpful information.

"I love my writing friends. I appreciate all of you!"

(I sneaked in an !, though my friend, Dolly, says not to use them.)

One of my writing friends, Beverly Stowe McClure, just posted a review of Duck and Cover on her blog. Thank you, Beverly. She is a very talented author, click here to check out her blog.