Finding the Secret to Writing Success at Sleuthfest 2014

Like all new writers, I’ve been searching for the secret. The key that unlocks the door to writing success. The key that the big time, successful writers have that beginning writers must try and learn. In other words, I’m searching for the Holy Grail of writing.

Well, I got lucky and was able to discover this key at Sleuthfest 2014, in Orlando over the past weekend.

If you’re not familiar with Sleuthfest, it’s the annual conference of the Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. This year’s conference was the 20th.

The conference is primarily for writers, but there were a number of mystery fans there as well, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from, and hang out with, some of the top writers in the crime fiction genre. This year there were three Guests of Honor. Laura Lippman, Ace Atkins, and Hank Phillippi Ryan. All of the three gave keynote speeches and sat in on a variety of panels.

The panels, primarily educational, ran the gamut from craft related subjects, like plotting, revising and the use of setting in books, to the more detailed and technical issues involved in this new era of publishing. Things like audio book creation, the use of social media to build author platforms, and techniques for partnering with other authors to cross promote one another’s work.

There were also opportunities to meet with agents and editors, as well as roundtable discussions with each of these well-dressed types.

I went to as many panels as possible, looking for the secret. Successful, published authors, most of whom had many books under their belts, populated each panel. Surely they had the secret.

I listened closely, took notes where I could, and then reviewed them at night, looking for this key, or secret. I had many questions on how things SHOULD be done if one hopes to become a successful writer.

One of those questions involved plotting. What do successful writers do about plotting? Do they outline, write a detailed synopsis and then use it as a blueprint for their bestselling novels? Well, I quickly got the answer to that question when a moderator asked the audience how many plotted their novels ahead of time. About half raised their hands. She then asked how many wrote by the seat of their pants. The other half raised their hands. Interesting. Obviously half were doing it correctly and half were not.

Then the moderator asked the same question of the panel. Successful, published authors all. Here was my chance to learn the secret. One by one she asked them. The first said she outlined, but her story often varied from the outline. The second said she never outlined. She just started writing. The third, said he based his story on either a cover idea, an opening sentence he liked, or some other general notion, but he didn’t outline. The fourth said he wrote a detailed outline. Always. Hmmm, fifty-fifty. Exactly the same as the audience.

Okay, maybe there wasn’t a secret to writing, at least when it came to whether or not to plot. But surely there was to editing and revisions. I had circled a panel on revisions because that’s an area where I knew there had to be a secret that I didn’t understand. Do great writers edit as they go, coming out with brilliant first drafts? Or, do they write quickly, and then shape the story during the revision stage?

With this question, there was a bit more uniformity, though statistically, there was no clear answer. One author quickly writes first drafts, and then shapes while revising. Two others took more time with first drafts, and then did second or third drafts that were close to what would be sent to their editors. The fourth, wrote only one draft, but edited, very closely, as he wrote.

Darn it! Once again, no secret. Each of those writers seemed to have their own process for writing a book. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Maybe the keynote speakers, the biggest, most successful authors among our group, would share the secret.

Ace Atkins and Stephen Campbell at Sleuthfest 2014

I arrived on Friday morning, and the Friday keynote speaker was Ace Atkins, the man hired to take on the Spenser series from the estate of Robert B. Parker. Ace is a fabulous and accomplished writer, but taking on the responsibility for one of the great P.I. series of my lifetime, turned him into a (more…)