The Florida Writers Conference 2022 took place on Oct. 28-30 at the Hilton Orlando/Altamonte Springs. It’s a great event for meeting other Florida writers from around the state and for exchanging writing and marketing tips.

Since this was a relatively pared down conference compared to previous years, I didn’t attend every session. The booming attendance this year hopefully will encourage conference planners to resume their multi-tract format from previous years. I admit to skipping certain topics in this case that didn’t interest me with no alternative sessions available.

The first thing I attended was the Friday evening cocktail party. This got quite a crowd and I met a lot of interesting people. It was fun to run into some familiar faces, including fellow FWMA members. The Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America has their own annual conference, SleuthFest, held in July in Deerfield Beach.

Here I am with my husband Richard, then Sarah N. Fisk, Marlene Stringer, Al Pessin, and Elaine Viets.

Screenwriting Workshop

Saturday morning after a hot buffet breakfast, I went to a session on Screenwriting with speaker Jaimie Engle.

Here are some things I gleaned in summary. Any errors are my own:

Follow industry people on LinkedIn.

Enter screenwriting contests.

Action & Dialogue make up a screenplay. Story & Character are the focus of novels.

Specify isolated visual moments for action in a screenplay. Cut on an action and resume on an action. Go from Point A to Point B and let the viewer discern what happened in between. Story is told in between the shots.

Dialogue should have layered character nuances.

Have people say what they want to find out what they need.

Scene changes are location changes, and this costs money.

Start by figuring out:

Character needs or wish song
Theme
What’s the win?
Give it, take it away, then watch what happens.

What’s the win for the character if they get what they want? What happens if you take it away? Or if they get what they want, what else are they going to need next?

Workshop on Dialogue with Julie G. Murphy

Julie discussed how dialogue comes from the writer’s subconscious. It should be invisible, create tension and reveal character.

Royal Palm Literary Awards

The gala cocktail party and dinner took place on Saturday evening. My husband and I joined friends Al Pessin, Elaine Viets, and Daphne Nikolopoulos at a table. We had a delicious dinner while waiting for the ceremony to begin. Congratulations to Al, Elaine, and Daphne who all won awards. I am relegated to Finalist status for the third time in the mystery category.

Agent Panel

Sunday morning’s agent panel included Arielle Haughee, Marilyn Allen, Marlene Stringer, Sarah N. Fisk, Jae Worthy Johnson, and Stephanie Katz. I liked their advice that they look for “The Hook, The Book, and the Cook.” The hook is obvious. The Book is about the story and the writing mechanics. And the Cook is about the author. Why are you qualified to write this book and how do you plan to market it? If it’s nonfiction, have a one-liner tagline and offer comp titles that are recent and get good ratings on Amazon. Make the proposal interesting to read. Submission guidelines are on their sites.

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