Lessons from Readercon 27: Mary Robinette Kowal and Writing as a Craft

J.M. Plumbley 

J.M. Plumbley writes fantasy, horror, and a blog about monsters. Visit jmplumbley.com or follow @PlumbPlumbley for more.

 
As an avid listener of Writing Excuses, I was thrilled to see Mary Robinette Kowal’s name on the program for Readercon 27. Her short story workshop fell on Sunday, one of the last events of the con and the last thing I attended after a weekend of panels, bars, and staying up until 3am talking about books. I had never seen Mary in person before, and was a little bit excited. I got to the room early, readied my notebook, triple-checked that my pen was working, got out another one just in case, and tried to curb my wild grinning so as not to freak anyone out.  
 
This was my first Readercon and my first con period. I loved it. All of the philosophical conversations about stories--who tells them, what they mean, and what impact they have on real life--had my brain humming. These conversations are vital to the health of the speculative fiction community. I was grateful for the opportunity to witness them.

​At the same time, I had hoped for more “crunchy” tips--concrete advice on how to manage life as an artist, how to be your own small business, and, most importantly, how to make stories work. A fledgling writer can only join the dialogue so much if she doesn’t have the skill to write something worth reading.
 Mary entered the (already packed) room and took her place up front while I concentrated very hard on not bouncing up and down in my chair. She informed us that she was going to try to fit a 3 hour workshop into 1 hour, laughed darkly, and then launched in.

 I filled four pages of my notebook during that hour--looking at it now, there are half-sentences, charts, bullets, even a math equation. You can see the glee in my handwriting--usually titled back, it’s tilted forward, open and sprawling. Some content highlights include: 

• The M.A.C.E. quotient (Milieu, Answers, Characters, and Events), adapted from Orson Scott Card’s M.I.C.E. quotient. Every story is made up of these 4 elements, though one can be more of a driver than the other. Mary told us that one trick to get a satisfying story is to close M.A.C.E. elements in the reverse order that you opened them. For example: a man gets in a fight with his wife (character element) and then gets trapped in the underworld (milieu element); at the end, man escapes the underworld (milieu) and then makes up with his wife (character). Etc, etc.
• Mary’s day job is puppeteering (now do you see why I was so thrilled to meet her?!), and her theatrical experience has given her excellent insight into story mechanics. She taught us how to isolate each element of your story as you’re sitting down to plan it, using theatrical metaphors (size of your theater, length of the show, sound of the show) to illustrate her points. It was extremely helpful. For example, it probably wouldn’t behoove you to put a fifteen-minute intermission in the middle of a half-hour show. Why put a scene break in the middle of a flash piece?                                                                                                       
• There is a math equation for helping you to figure out why your story might feel too long or too short. I won’t share it here because I’ve shared enough already, and want to encourage everyone to go out and take Mary’s classes immediately.

 
The hour ended too quickly. Afterwards, I joined the long queue of people waiting to shake Mary’s hand, repeating myself over and over to my fellow Brooklyn Speculative Fiction writers about how great the workshop was and how awesome Mary is.

When I finally got to the front of the line, I was so nervous that I couldn’t think of much to say, so I asked her where else I could take her classes (answer: online and on the upcoming Writing Excuses cruise, which sounds amazing). Mary was friendly and generous and lovely; even after almost an hour of interacting with people in line, she listened intently to my garbled attempt at small talk, and even complimented me on my shirt (a sort of billowy pirate shirt, thank you).
 
This is the magic of Readercon, and of the magic of the speculative fiction community in general. It is a largely friendly, invested, wonderful group of people who like to help each other out where they can and celebrate each other’s good work.
 
They say that you can’t really teach writing, and that’s probably true. Good writing comes from writing a lot and reading a lot, both of which are things only the writer herself has control of. I have seen this wisdom repeated often and do plenty of practicing on my own,  but that doesn’t stop me from looking for pointers wherever I can find them. You can’t teach someone to write well, but you can teach them why some stories work and others don’t. There are tricks out there that actually work. A little guidance can help us better tell our stories, and as other Readercon panels discussed, those stories can have a real impact. Writing Excuses has a boatload of tips. So does Mary Robinette Kowal.

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Writing Excuses is a weekly podcast “by writers, for writers” that is co-hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal. To give it a listen (it’s free!), visit writingexcuses.com. To support the Writing Excuses Patreon, visit patreon.com/WritingExcuses. 
 
Mary Robinette Kowal is a Hugo-award-winning author and professional puppeteer. To learn more about Mary, visit maryrobinettekowal.com/ or follow her @maryrobinette. 
 
J.M. Plumbley writes fantasy, horror, and a blog about monsters. Visit jmplumbley.com or follow @PlumbPlumbley for more.