I couldn’t imagine how my story would work without that preamble, so I kept it. I thought about calling it Chapter 1 so the entire prologue problem would be avoided. I mean, the events in the prologue take place only five days before the events in the main novel. Chapter 2 can just begin with italic text: Five days later… Right?

Then, at the Willamette Writers Conference, Charlotte Cook led attendees through the first page of potential submissions. She described everything that she doesn’t like about prologues, and dammit, all of those elements described my stupid prologue. Whether I called it Prologue or Chapter 1, it had everything Cook said was wrong with prologues.

So, finally, someone convinced me of the evils of prologues. What was I going to do now? The central crime of my novel is described in the prologue. Would the rest of the story even work without that?

I’m still working on that, but I’ve come up with some ideas that I hope will elevate the tension and make the novel better in the long run.

The lesson here is not just that agents and editors (and ultimately readers) are anti-prologue. The real lesson is that sometimes we can’t allow our love for our prose to blind us to what our stories need.

You may love the names you selected for your characters, but you may find that they are too similar and your readers are confused. Unless you intend to follow every copy of your published novel to their new homes to explain that Lisa and Lauren are not the same person, well, you better change at least one of the names. (Yes, this, too, is an example from my WIP.)

You may absolutely adore a character who your beta readers find extraneous and stupid. Your story may be better if you completely expunge that character from it.

And, yes, you may love your 3,500-word prologue so much that you would marry it, but if your readers will just skip over it so they can get to what they perceive as the actual story, you are doing your novel a disservice by keeping it.

Ultimately, you may have to kill your darlings to save your story. And that’s okay.

A few months back, I questioned whether writers can work on short and long pieces at the same time. Published writer Eric Witchey says not only can you, but you should.

Witchey offered some great ideas in his session Short Fiction for Fun, Money, and Skill. The fun is obvious–short fiction allows you to play without a huge time commitment.

The money is also pretty self-explanatory. Write the stories, then sell them to paying publications. Witchey gave us some URLs to find sources for our shorts. He has posted these links on his website. He also advised going to the highest-paying publication first, rather than trying to build street cred (aka, a publishing history) through lower-paying publications. Everyone seems to have their own opinions about this, but Witchey’s thought is that the story is what sells you, not your previous credits. Write a good story, and keep submitting it until it gets published.

The skill part is the piece I hadn’t really thought of before. A short story allows you to experiment with a different style, focus on improving a particular facet of your writing, and practice your craft on something you will finish in a reasonable amount of time. If you begin an experiment on a novel, you may not know how it works for you for six months or a year. With a short story, you could know within a week or two, depending on the length of the story and how fast you write. And, if the experiment doesn’t work out, you can set that story aside and go on to the next with the lesson learned. And all of the lessons you are learning by writing short stories can be applied to your novel.

My big objection to the idea of writer promiscuity is that I will be taking away from my larger project by doing the smaller side projects. Witchey’s presentation helped me shift my thinking. By honing my craft with shorter pieces, I am ensuring that the time I spend on my novel is more focused and incorporates all of the stylistic improvements I learn from my shorter pieces.

If you get a chance to attend one of Eric Witchey’s presentations or to take one of his courses, I recommend it highly. He is a dynamic speaker who invites audience participation and works hard to meet their needs. And he is funny–which was a nice break in the middle of the conference.

1. Volunteer

You can save a lot of money on registration by volunteering–as much as 75% off the cost of attending. You can apply your savings to your travel costs or to consults and pitch appointments.

In addition, volunteering can put you in face-to-face contact with the editors and agents you might be pitching to later in this conference or at another conference in the future. In addition, you can see what works in a pitch and see just how exhausting a day of listening to pitches can be.

2. Pitch Only at the Right Time

Don’t corner an editor or agent in the hotel, at a meal, or, god forbid, in the bathroom to pitch them your book. Purchase a pitch appointment. If you are talking with an editor or agent outside of a consult appointment, only pitch them if they ask you to. And, no, I didn’t see the bathroom thing happen at the conference last weekend, but I did read a tweet yesterday from agent Colleen Lindsay about the time she was followed into the bathroom.

3.Don’t Ignore Opportunities

Acquisitions Editor Charlotte Cook hosted a session where she critiqued the first page of volunteer’s stories. She read the page aloud, sharing her thoughts and stopping at the point she would stop if she had received the page as a submission at work. I learned a lot from that session, but I would likely have learned even more if I had brought my own pages to be read.

Opportunities for free critiques, pitch practice, and other feedback abound at a conference, but hey are only going to help you if you take advantage of them.

4. Talk to People

Yes, writers are a shy and retiring bunch. But the face-to-face interaction with our peers is one of the most valuable components of a writers conference. Set a goal to talk to one new person in each room you enter. You might find that you like that so much that you talk to two or three people in each room.

Each time someone asks you what you are working on, you can practice your pitch. When you debrief a session with another attendee, you get a second perspective on what you learned and help cement your new knowledge. And you might meet a new friend you can bounce ideas off. Volunteering also helps with this, as you will likely be in a situation where you will need to talk to quite a few fellow attendees.

I had a great time at the Willamette Writers Conference last weekend, and I will definitely be going next year. Have you been to a conference? What tips might you share with conference newbies?

I will be volunteering at the Willamette Writers Conference this weekend, and the volunteer orientation is tomorrow afternoon.

Volunteering is a pretty sweet deal. You receive tremendously discounted registration with breakfast and lunch (with the option of a vegetarian lunch–gotta love the Pacific northwest). I’ll learn a lot about what goes on at a writers conference. In addition, having a job in common with other attendees will give me a conversation piece that should help me get over my fear of talking to people I don’t know.

I will be taking the morning shift all three days, so I’ll be free to attend sessions after lunch each day.

Find out more about the conference here. And, if you’ll be there, too, let me know. Maybe we’ll run into each other!