Appearance Schedule and Presentations

2024 Convention Appearances

I may be at two events this year, but due to family obligations I won’t know for certain for some time.

Novel Ninja Presentations

The following is a list of current topics I lecture on, either in classrooms as a guest lecturer or at conventions. When a new topic request comes through, I’ll add it to the list.

Please note that all in-person presentations require a projector for best effect, except for the “Ask the Editor” Q&A.

Writing Technique Presentations

Writing Dynamic Characters: My most popular presentation, explaining such things as the differences between main characters, protagonists, and heroes; what makes a good villain; and how to keep characters from feeling stagnant and unrealistic.
Writing Men and Women: It’s often hard for men and women to write the opposite gender. A woman thinks differently from a man; but how can this be portrayed in fiction without one or the other receiving a short straw? This presentation breaks down the differences to basic components involving both “nature” and “nurture,” and then shows how to build on character quirks so that no two men or women are alike.
Anatomy of a Plot: An examination of three act structure, showing different takes on the model and why a three thousand year old idea still works with modern audiences.
Writing the Hero’s Journey: A look at the “Hero’s Journey Format,” based on the work of Joseph Campbell; why it works with the audience, why it’s so prone to failure, and how to adapt it for your own story.
Hooking Your Audience: How do you capture and keep your audience’s attention? What makes some opening lines so good, and how many cliffhangers should you use? I lay out the six things to look at which capture an audience’s imagination and show examples from fan favorites.
Dost Thou Write Dialog?: The greatest and most famous author in the English language is still William Shakespeare, even after five centuries. Can we learn anything from his successes? Of course we can, but first we need to learn how to read him. NOTE: this presentation is best as a two-part event, giving an initial lecture on Shakespearean techniques and then a workshop on how to adapt those techniques to prose writing.
Writing Evil: Heroes are boring unless they struggle; and villains are boring if they’re only there to make the heroes work for their prize. What are the ways we can look at good and evil in fiction? What feels real, and what captures the imagination?

Worldbuilding Presentations

Building Other Worlds: A survey of techniques to use when creating new and different settings for science fiction and fantasy. This is an overview, looking at culture, religion, history, geography, economics, government, and more, and is intended for enthusiastic beginners and intermediate authors.
Culture and Government: A more focused worldbuilding lecture on how to create societies that function in interesting and different ways.
How to Write Religion: Religion is a part of human culture, but that very ubiquity makes it difficult to step back and examine it from a worldbuilding perspective. This presentation examines the influence of Christianity on fantasy and how to remove that influence from your stories (if desired), as well as looking at religion in contemporary fantasy and future sci-fi settings.
Focused presentations on individual topics can be created upon request. The above are simply the ones that I have the ability to pull out on short notice; give me a month or more to prepare, and I can talk about any of the overview topics in detail, or other topics not mentioned here.

Genre-Based Presentations

Sudden But Inevitable Betrayals: This presentation goes over the basics of the mystery story, as well as how to craft mystery sub-plots into a story that might primarily belong to another genre.
Wherefore Art Thou Romance?: This presentation goes over the basics of the romance genre and romantic sub-plots, using iconic romances like Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice.
Being Short: Do short stories matter? This is a look at the techniques used in short fiction (stories of less than 40,000 words), why they stand out from novels, and why a good author doesn’t neglect this form of storytelling.

Novel Ninja