Muse & the Marketplace Day 2: Saturday

Reporting to you from the end of Day 2 of the Muse! I’m less tired, but still tired. I decided to strategically skip the morning keynote with Emily St. John Mandel and catch up on some sleep, which I think was a wise move. Today started later, and I was so happy!

I got to the Park Plaza at 10:30 for my first session, Literary Agents 101. With my decent working knowledge of how the publishing industry works, I probably should have picked a different session. Most of the information wasn’t new, but I worked on the novel during the event.

After Literary Agents 101 was my favorite workshop of the day, Conquering the Muddle in the Middle. Because that’s what I’m grappling with right now! Hank Phillippi Ryan was very good, very informative. She walked us through five basic steps, which are going to sound obvious, but are far more meaningful when given space to breathe and time for explanation.

Step 1: Ask yourself: “What does my character want right now? What do they hope for? What do they wish for?”

Step 2: Ask yourself: “Why does my character want that thing? Why do they need it?” In every segment of your story, that want and need and motivation always has to be there.

Step 3: Ask yourself: “What do they decide to do?” This allows you, the author, to examine the setting, the possibilities, and the psychology of the character. Does the character make the wise, measured decision? The money-grabbing, selfish decision? The decision they make reveals their character. How does this alter their thought process?

Step 4: The character does whatever that decision was. What happens when you do something? Action.

Step 5: Something stops the character. Something stymies them. Suddenly, there’s a new conflict.

The trick is that this happens constantly. Every chapter, every moment, this is what’s happening. I chose this workshop because this is something I knew I was going to struggle with when I was drafting Hand Magic. I had a lot of gears to put into play, but little notion of how to keep the protagonist an active player while doing that. I was concerned with packing in a lot of the background details and components, red herrings and hints that would be critical to the plot and climax, but I lost track of making my MC active and decisive.

What I’ve gotten from my two favorite Muse workshops is that my MC’s character journey needs to change significantly. I’m going to distribute her worse traits among her allies and make her a stronger person. More ambitious. More active. It makes the story make way more sense, which is thrilling, and it ups the pace, which is necessary.

Something else that I’m getting from these workshops is that my favorite book, Crooked Kingdom, is legitimately a masterwork of the craft. It uses the setting (Ketterdam and the world Bardugo built) to inform the characters’ journeys, actions, decisions, literally everything they do. Every character has their internal journey, external journey, their wound, and their flaw, and there’s six POV characters, so that was no small task. Kaz Brekker, in particular, is an example of this good, meaty character work. He is, first and foremost, a product of his environment, which is vicious, greedy Ketterdam. He is never not making decisions, never not taking actions. Everything Desmond Hall said yesterday, everything Hank Phillippi Ryan said today, I would think of Crooked Kingdom and be like, “Ah, yeah, Bardugo did that here, here, and here.” I can summon concrete examples of every single piece of craft advice that they gave easily, without even trying. And Bardugo hides it while you’re reading! There’s no evidence whatsoever of these story gears turning and doing all of this work. Crooked Kingdom is a masterpiece, fully and entirely. It’s a shining testament to the craft of writing.

I want Hand Magic to be like that. Tight as a drum, vibrant as a Van Gogh.

By the way, I’m not sure if I’m going to get judged by the literary community for stanning Leigh Bardugo. I’m a basic bitch when it comes to literature. I like the popular shit. I like the best-sellers. I cried like a baby reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I reread the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy every year. I’m a total basic bitch. And I maintain that things are often popular because they are very, very good.

Back to the Muse. I woke up this morning cranky and a little deregulated, so I did what any sane individual would do when they’re moody and out of sorts. I ate a brownie sundae for lunch.

Big brain move. I’m a genius. It totally worked, I felt much better in the afternoon. Then I went to my afternoon workshop, Rewriting History.

I won’t lie, these workshops have been very hit or miss for me. Given I’m literally rewriting four hundred years of history with Hand Magic, I figured this workshop would be profoundly useful, but it seemed to have more of a lit-fic/memoir vibe. Stuff way more serious than what I’m going for. So I did what I always do. I worked on the novel.

After this, I decided to not go to my fourth workshop, which was Agent Ask Me Anything. After my first agent-related workshop, I suspected I wouldn’t get much out of it. Not sure how true that would have been. I went to this session which was just a casual, “If you have nothing to do and are tired of workshops, come to this place where there will be a GrubStreet person directing conversation with other folks.”

There were five people there. But three of those people were actors, so the conversation was…loud, shall we say. Animated. I really could have gone for some quiet time, but the folks I connected with were lovely. We all went to the Muse Dinner/Party at 6 pm at O’Connor’s Pub next door.

Such a great time! I had two free cocktails with the blue tickets they gave me and many, many finger foods. The place was packed. I spoke to Literary Agent Eric Smith, who was apparently going around actively seeking out writers to talk to? I don’t know of any other agent doing that at the conference. It’s a buyers’ market, usually writers just go to them. But I thought that was very nice and friendly. Sad I missed the chance to give him one of my super cool business cards.

The entire time at the pub, and literally for all of Muse, I keep thinking, “God I wish I could talk to everyone.” I did a lap of O’Connor’s and thought this the whole way around the restaurant. I’m in grad school for engineering. I never get to talk about stories. This entire weekend feels like a fire hose of pure joy. I’m sad it’s ending tomorrow, but very happy I’ll be able to take everything into Hot Revision Summer.

xx Claire