Michael Stackpole presented Saturday’s first three hourly workshops, Hyatt Inman, all by his lonesome. I attended two of these workshops last year and marveled at the nuances he added to the same topics this go-around. Incredibly, he made them all pass by in a sprint when I had expected a marathon. (I even had plenty of java left for the afternoon.) Try to keep up.

“Crafting Multi-POV Narratives,” Michael Stackpole, Saturday at 10AM:

Per Stackpole, multiple plot lines, characters, expertise, and points of view (POV) add more depth to your fictional world. If you split POV between your protagonist and antagonist, you can build more suspense: the antagonist may lay out a plan while the protagonist doesn’t know what’s about to hit. Major and minor plot lines can be represented by one character’s POV each. Minor scenes with short plot threads might be provided by only one character (often eaten by a monster in Stephen King’s use of “spot characterization”). The writer wants the reader to become emotionally engaged with characters. If a major character is killed off, catastrophe ensues for the reader.

Does the successful writer manipulate, even torture, readers? Smile and nod.

“What Does an Editor Look for?” Michael Stackpole, Saturday at 11:30AM:

“Editors are not the enemy,” Stackpole began (admitting that editors do have good and bad days). He described copy editors at the most basic level, more exalted editors who want to make your book the best that it can be, and steps the writer will face in this manuscript-improvement process. He also addressed the use of sensitivity readers and discussed the need for freelance editors available for hire and how to evaluate their proposed services.

Be reliable. Meet deadlines. Practice good time management. Check, check, and check!

“21 Days to a Novel,” Michael Stackpole, Saturday at 1PM:

Grow a novel from a single character and a single sentence? “Impossible,” you think, until Stackpole shows you how to do six impossible things before breakfast and launch a novel with no more than these two singles. You, too, can progress to completed character descriptions and plots to create the foundations for an entire novel in a mere three weeks. Over his career, Stackpole related that he had completed several books in only 21 days each.

Egad! Am I up to the 21-day novel challenge? Are you?

(To be continued: nine hourly workshops pondered, nine to go…)