My ACFW Conference Take

By Elizabeth Ludwig

I was privileged to attend the 2015 American Christian Fiction Writer’s Conference recently in Dallas, Texas. This is an event that I’ve attended before. In fact, I’ve only missed a couple of conferences since I started writing for publication back in 2002. The math on this one is pretty simple…that’s fourteen conferences over a span of an equal number of years (give or take a year when life got in the way). 

On paper, the conference hasn’t changed much. The focus has always been directed toward teaching aspiring authors the craft of writing and inducting them in the intricate, and often treacherous, world of publishing. To accomplish this, the staff at ACFW do quite a remarkable job of scheduling informative workshops and speakers with a heart for authors. They also put together an impressive list of industry professionals—editors, agents, book reviewers, and media—for authors to meet and talk to about their respective writing projects. 

At one time, this was a very valuable experience. In 2002, as an unpublished, un-agented author with a dozen different writing projects and no clear sense of direction, what ACFW provided was instruction and guidance. Several years later, with thirteen book titles to my name, including a Carol Award Finalist, an ECPA bestseller/SELAH Award Finalist, and a Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence Finalist, I have to admit that the conference no longer holds the same allure. In addition, I honored to say that I am represented by one of the most respected agents in the business. 

ACFW 2015: Beth Adams, Elizabeth Ludwig, Susan Downs

So what is the takeaway for an author in my position? Why would I bother spending the money to go to a conference that I’ve attended at least twelve times before? 

If I’m honest, I struggled to answer that question before arriving in Dallas. I justified the expense with some inane excuses that sounded good but held very little validity. And then, I looked over my schedule. Along with the appointments I remembered, I had signed up to serve as an appointment monitor.

For two hours!

Two hours of doing nothing more than standing outside a door and holding up my hand to signal when the time on a fifteen-minute appointment expired (insert whine here). Two hours of pacing in bored stupor while the workshop I really wanted to attend went on without me and other people went in to speak with people I hoped to meet but now would not be able to…or so I thought. 

What really happened was that I stood outside the door and chatted with a representative from RT Book Reviews for almost all of those two hours. Shortly thereafter, we were joined by a representative from Library Journal who asked about my books, my career, and eventually my publishing history. Please understand…I have never, ever had the chance to rub elbows with such prestigious industry professionals for such an extended length of time. With my very best efforts, I could not have coordinated such an opportunity! 

In addition, I renewed old contacts as I walked editors and agents to their seats, introduced them to their respective appointments, and volunteered my services as timekeeper, hostess, and overall gopher. 

That, my friends, is the takeaway from a conference such as ACFW. It’s not always about the scheduled appointments. Sometimes, it’s about the chance meetings that only God can orchestrate. It’s about the friendships that happen over coffee, and the kinship that comes with shared prayers in crowded hallways. Finally, it’s about stepping out in faith, without an organized agenda but with a heart for service—even if that heart started out whining, and ended up being incredibly and unbelievably blessed. 

Elizabeth Ludwig is the award-winning author of No Safe Harbor and Dark Road Home, books one and two in the popular EDGE OF FREEDOM series. Book three in the series, Tide and Tempest, was recently named a finalist for the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Elizabeth was also named a finalist in the 2015 Selah Awards for her novella “One Holy Night”, part of the bestselling anthology collection, Christmas Comes to Bethlehem, Maine. She is an accomplished speaker and teacher, often attending conferences and seminars where she lectures on editing for fiction writers, crafting effective novel proposals, and conducting successful editor/agent interviews. Along with her husband and children, she makes her home in the great state of Texas. To learn more, visit ElizabethLudwig.com.

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Making the Stakes Higher by Sharon Dunn

Sharon Dunn is an award winning writer of romantic suspense and humorous mysteries for the Christian market. Her suspense novel Night Prey won the 2011 Carol award. Zero Visibility is her fifth novel of Love Inspired Suspense. You can read more about Sharon at www.sharondunnbooks.net.

In writing fiction, the advice is often given to “make the stakes higher.” It took me a long time to translate that in a way that helped me construct a tighter story. To me, upping the stakes for a character just means that you increase the potential for disaster or you make what the character stands to lose even bigger if they don’t make the right choices or succeed in their goals.  

With suspense, increasing the stakes for a character usually involves the potential loss of life or of a loved one’s life. When I set out to write a suspense story, I try to come up with a threat that is relentless and escalating. For example in my current Love Inspired Suspense Zero Visibility, the inspiration for the story was a what if question. What if two character, Nathan and Merci, were completely isolated from help and they had only each other to rely on for survival? So I picked an isolated setting—a mountain side during a freak spring blizzard. Those are pretty high stakes for survival right? But harsh weather conditions and isolation are not enough to sustain a whole story.  I had to raise the stakes even more. Back to the what if questions. What if these two people were being chased by thieves bent on killing them? Those two factors help create a suspenseful story, but I can raise the stakes even more by causing more mayhem in my characters’ lives. What if one of the characters gets injured? What if they have no weapons, no way to defend themselves? What if they get lost on the mountain? With that one, I can make the stakes even higher: What if they get lost on the mountain at night? All of these factors create the potential for a character to die, thus the potential for huge loss. 

Finally, raising the stakes doesn’t just involve threats from external forces… even in suspense. Often the greatest potential for failure and best place to raise the stakes can be found within the characters. In Zero Visibility, I have points at which each character gives up hope that they will get off the mountain alive. Also, a character’s background is a good place to look for possibilities. The one thing these two characters have is each other.  What if Nathan does something that reminds Merci of her father with whom she does not have a good relationship causing Merci to walk away? When the two characters are separated, the potential for danger increases.  

Upping the stakes is not only important for good suspense writing but for all story telling. In a book I am currently working on, I couldn’t figure out why the romance between the two characters seemed so blah. The characters were forced to worked together to survive, but there was no spark between them.  Back to the what if questions. Initially, I had this hero and heroine meeting for the first time when her life is suddenly under threat. The what if question I came up with changed the dynamic of the relationship. What if hero and heroine had known each other when they were teenagers? Had in fact been in love and had a child they gave up for adoption. Their immaturity at 16 made it impossible for them to sustain the relationship. The stakes are raised not only for things to not work out romantically, but also for them not to be able to overcome the hurts of the past to work together and keep the heroine alive. 

A lot of times in a book, the stakes are emotional. A character stands to lose a relationship or faces humiliation that devastates them. The bottom line is, you need to mess with your characters. Create a situation that seems insurmountable and them make it even worse.     

      

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