No, I wasn't done with fiddling with "Bound by Spells," as it happened. Realized scene 1 was 1000 words. Attempted to cut to 500. Called it a draw at 800 by taking out a non-useful character and jumping immediately to the conflict. It's sadly still kind of talking heads in space-like.
To balance the long ramp-up, I started writing a long end piece. Realized I may need to do more structural investigation than that even. Simple problem/reversal, problem/reversal at semi-regular timed intervals may be enough to get the story on track (or on pace or on structure, whatever). Why is this so easy to think of here and now, with the story safely closed? Why do I lose all sight of it when the story is facing me?
Tricksy story.
Silver by Penny Jordan (39) (n + 3 re-read)
It wasn't quite as satisfying this time. I may have to shelve this one for about five years before I pick it up again. Oh, all the words were there, right where I left them, but the plot was too familiar after this, which must be more than the tenth time I've read this book.
So, no lengthy discussion. The inspiration just isn't there. It's still an extremely well-plotted book, I think. And well-structured, too. If nothing else, this read-through let me realize that, and it's a good lesson for me.
Home sick today. I don't think I'll do anything but read. I'd reread something comforting, but the usual suspects--Wolfhunt, The Blue Sword and Jackaroo are out on loan (and have been for six months or more, so, time to get those back), and I feel like I just reread Crown Duel and Beacon at Alexandria (though, did I? I'll have to check.) What I've got is Silver, which I was in the mood for, right up until I opened the book, and the writing threw me off.
Silver is a great comfort read. Emotionally resonant. Stirring conflict. A strong heroine and a strong hero, both. The middle part of the book is too painful to read very often, but I was thinking about reading the whole thing instead of the beginning quarter and the end quarter (which I do fairly often). Then, three pages in, I was all "blah!" and threw it down. (Well, actually, it fell over as I fell asleep, but the "blah!" was there, it just trailed off into a snore.)
Right. Comfort reads. Back when better.
Uhm... I think I counted my "Souls on a String" rejection last week, so that makes one rejection this week, the one I got about 90 seconds ago on "Star and Galaxy."
Why can't that bugger find a home?! I don't know. It may not be a compelling story. It was a compelling dream, full of lush visuals, which is why I thought I should write it down... but I'm sure something got lost in the translation. Maybe I should just be happy to have a fine record of my dream, and trunk it, instead.
Or, maybe I'll look at it one more time and send it out one more time, because... persistence makes the heart grow fonder.
I managed to write about 2000 words on "Wedding Dress Tea Parties" but have not managed much else. On the other hand, learning to switch narrative voices when something doesn't work was a breakthrough that felt so good...
I did manage a rewrite of "Bound by Spells" and to partially rewrite "Souls on a String." So, other work was accomplished.
For the first time in my life, I've felt freed by writing in the third person omniscient. Usually, I feel far freer in first person. Something about reading Jane Eyre at a crucial developmental point, perhaps? I've always been more inclined to pick up a book in the store if it's in first person than in third, and I've always had a far easier time getting into writing things in first person.
I started "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443" in first, and was struggling over the interactions between Captain Amstall and Lydia Eager. But tonight, I rewrote everything I'd written previously, and it all flowed much better. Then, out flowed another thousand words on top of that.
I shall be shocked to pieces if anyone ever buys this story, but I'm having a ball writing it, now that I know how to write it. Oh, lookee that, it's 2:30 in the morning. Well, it's not the next day until you've slept, so I'm going to fudge the timestamp of this entry, but at least you all will know.
...and yet, none, really.
I see the end of the hard work at the dayjob. I mean, it's still pretty far away, but I *see* it.
I am working on a rewrite of "Souls on a String." Just finished one for "Bound by Spells." This weekend, I intend to restart the novel.
This coming week should be full of responses, and I shall be quite bummed if that's not the case. One can't actually set a time-keeping device by any slushpile turn-around, with the exception of F&SF, but some places do have auto-responders that say when to expect an answer (for email subs), and others are fairly reliable vis a vis their guidelines. So. I expect to hear on at least "Bound by Spells" and "The Regency and the Roman" by the 30th. And I wouldn't be surprised to hear on "Sun's East," or "One Million Years BFE." The rest, I'm not so sure of.
Finally, I started reorganizing my bookshelves. It's fun work, if a bit depressing. I've read a lot of books. I have not read all the books I own. Sad.
Last Panels: Fantasy Noire and Roundup
Fantasy Noire
Panelists: Delia Sherman, Faye Ringel, Glen Cook and Jim Butcher
There was some early debate over whether or not the topic should be treated as "fantasie noire" or "fantasy noir"--and the moderator (Ms. Ringel) decided to cut it right down the center and discuss both.
I had some flashbacks to my 8th grade English class's unit on film noir and sort of felt vaguely out of phase, but fortunately, the conversation turned around to dark fantasy, which is where I was waiting for it to go--nothing against The Maltese Falcon and such, but I thought that Madeleine E. Robins in discussing Point of Honor during Fantasy of Manners said more interesting things about noir-as-genre in just a few brief comments than was said in a good half-hour here.
This panel did spawn some of the better quotes, though.
"Who doesn't love a big old apocalyptic trilogy?" --Jim Butcher
and
"Dark fantasy has at risk the soul; light fantasy, the heart." -- Glen Cook
---
Anglo-Saxons and Other Panels I've Forgotten
I seem to not have taken notes on a few panels, so I'll try to relate what I recall of them as best I can.
I got up early to attend "Anglo-Saxon influences on fantasy" lecture/panel thing, which had some charmingly funny moments. (Not to mention, I think lovers of Old English resonate at some weird frequency that's incredibly... sexy?) At one point, people were bandying about A-S roots and stories about Tolkein (and actually, this was my first glimpse of Jo Walton)... And someone brought up Boethius. There aren't an incredible lot of OE texts for the young scholar to peruse. You pretty much end up reading some of the gospels, maybe a little "Apollonius of Tyre" and the obligatory Beowulf when you're starting out, but you know. Boethius is one of the few things we've got. And I think that if you got up for a lecture on Anglo-Saxon influences on fantasy at 9:30, you probably were pretty familiar with the OE corpus, in general. But the moderator stopped and squinted apologetically at us and asked how many of us were familiar with the Consolation of Philosophy. And I'd say that 98% of the attendees raised their hands.
I just grinned and decided I had found my tribe.
The other panel I forgot to mention was "Do women write differently?" -- and the essence was, no, men do. Ha!
No, it was a good panel, with lots of room for discussion, and good, intelligent discussion at that. Plus, more time to admire Justine Larbalestier's pretty hair and accent. (I mentioned my thing with accents, right?)
My Lady Notorious by Jo Beverley (38)
I believe I read the last book in this series some time ago, and found it very disappointing, I think because I had missed all the stuff that came before. Now I wish I had it, still. (Actually, I think I didn't read the book because it was so clearly the end of a series--stopped around page 90.)
In any case, this one was pretty darn good. I liked the heroine-disguised-as-a-man thing, which ended up with the usual "could that be homoerotic tension with the hero?" thing neatly resolved by the fact that the hero figures it out and is teasing the hell out of the heroine. Nice.
But, the author againdid the thing that made me so unhappy in Lord of My Heart--there was a point where the heroine acted rather out of character. (With very vague notions of finding evidence to blackmail a woman who aided in her ruin, the heroine leaves the sanctuary of a locked-room and enters a Satyricon-esque house orgy. Once out and about, she develops some good reasons for staying there, but... An otherwise selfless woman who only does disastrous things when pushed to the point of utter necessity and for the sake of family, does something truly reckless? It could be argued that she wants to make sure that her love interest doesn't get seduced out from under her nose, and that's... potentially a more pleasing subtext. But still.)
The saving grace here was that this action was not without consequences.
I'm thinking more deeply about romance novel motivations lately, and I think the time has come for a fallen woman to be a fallen woman, and to own her sexuality and her virtue, as per Madeleine E. Robins' Point of Honour, but more firmly in romance territory. I've read a few books that sort of explore this--Mary Balogh's More than a Mistress springs to mind--but I'm thinking of pushing beyond that.
I wonder if it would sell.
Anyway. Good stuff. Cyn and Charles--er, Chastity--are likeable. (I did squee whenever Cynric called her Charles. It was like shared territory. I'm sure they'll do fine in Canada together.)
Because nothing really happened last week. I probably managed a scattered thousand words? Maybe two thousand, but somehow I doubt that.
My biggest accomplishments were pushing through feeling cruddy and writing anyway. I also started class and organized the books in my bedroom into piles. (Shocking good fun!) This had a purpose... I found some much-needed research material.
For all intents and purposes, I guess I took the weekend off. I've opened all my files a number of times, but nevertheless, no serious writing occurred. (And when I say "all my files," I'm not kidding.)
Other than that, a rejection on "Souls on a String" today.
Onward.
Panels: Aging Characters and The Age of Fighting Sail...
Aging your Characters
Sort of the opposite of the young female protagonists panel. Lois McMaster Bujold, Jean Lorrah, Nancy Kress, John Scalzi, Steve Miller and Susan Schwartz presiding.
I found what people were saying to be interesting, but the whole panel threw me off into thinking about the "abuela" theory of human evolution, and naturally, my note-taking suffered. There was almost some youth-bashing going on at some points--someone implied that young people are "unformed." (The actual statement was more like, "Writing older characters is about transformation. You can't have a transformation unless something has actually been formed.") Hm.
Hm, hm, hm.
I think anyone who has spent any time around a child knows that they get formed awfully young. Personality traits seep through at startlingly early ages--traits you can't account for through simple nature versus nurture argumentation. There's something there from very early on, and pretending that age is this magical thing that makes people more interesting was more baby boom elitist bs that I frankly don't enjoy. On the other hand, Lois and John certainly didn't jump into the midst of that, and gained even more respect in my eyes thereby.
---
The Age of Fighting Sail isn't Over (it just moved to SF)
panel: Walter Jon Williams, Jim Mann, John G. Hemry and Susan Schwartz
Various parallels between sailing ships and spaceships were drawn: 1) movement through a hostile environment; 2) specialized technology (rigging, etc vs. the accoutrement of space travel); 3) first contact situations
Something that struck me: we are between both of these ages of sail--perhaps even at a midpoint between tallships and spaceships, with only straggling remnants of the one and the early prototypes of the other. I don't know why that thought would actually excite me, but I'm always sort of thrilled by littoral places and moments. Or even liminal ones, if you'll forgive me the word abuse.
My notes get sort of random at points, but I did thoroughly enjoy the dialogue WJW, JGH and JM struck up about David Weber stretching the boundaries of good sense in order to make his Napoleonic warfare allegories hold fast in space. If anyone's really thrilled by this topic, or how Kirk is no Jack Aubrey, I have some more notes about it. Just speak up.
Panels: The Young Female Protagonist; Tough Love for New Writers
The Young Female Protagonist
Panel: Tamora Pierce, Louise Marley, Mary H. Rosenblum, E. Rose Sabin, Anne Harris, Mindy Klasky and Mike Shepherd/Mosco(w?)
I'm not sure I learned much in this panel--my youthful girlhood does not feel very far away in many respects--but it's just lovely to hear Tamora Pierce get all fired up about what she writes and why she writes it.
I was 11 when I read In the Hand of the Goddess and I stayed up what seemed like all night to do so (it was probably 2AM, at a guess). That was it--the first book that kept me up past my bedtime, and certainly not the last, and it was exactly the sort of book I wanted to read. And write.
There was a lot of discussion in this panel about why it's liberating to write young characters: they aren't afraid to take risks; they won't be penalized (by the reader) for not knowing the rules of their society; they can be used to deconstruct their society... but I found that all of that really wasn't why I still read YA books after all these years, or why I write them.
It's not so complicated for me, really. I'm 29, right? But in my head, I'm still 11 a lot of the time. It's just the world I know. I'm still a girl, and I still don't get everything, and I still want to read about girls kicking butt. Yeah.
---
Tough Love for New Writers
panelists: Gavin Grant, Priscilla Olson, TNH, Steve Miller, David G. Hartwell
I've never spent a more empowering 50 minutes listening to people talk about despair and desperation.
It's not that any of them painted a rosy future. But it's that it was so honest, maybe, that I found it inspiring. Statements like "publishable does not mean good," and so forth.
Basically, I think the message was positive: if you're a writer, you write because you have to write. Whether or not you get published is a completely different issue. It doesn't make you good or bad... or a writer.
After some back-brain cogitation on the matter, I decided that if that panel depressed or discouraged anyone, then they were the ones who needed to be depressed or discouraged. If it empowered anyone--then they were crazy. But my kind of crazy.
Would I be happy with my publishing career if I never managed to break into the pro's? Noooo.... but would I still be happy with my writing? Yes.
I dunno. I liked it.
Panels: Fantasy of Manners and Next Steps for New Writers
Fantasy of Manners
panelists: Ellen Kushner, Madeleine E. Robins, Jo Walton, Lois McMaster Bujold
Finally a panel where I had not only read every author, but where I was actually quite knowledgeable about most of the works of most of the authors.
MER (I highly approve of her initials): "a lady never offends inadvertently" (very Jane Austen in sentiment)
JW: a fantasy of manners should have 1) a fantasy; 2) be defined as "Jane Austen with..."; 3) have manners used as a weapon and 4) be small-scale, not epic 5) wit
(Note to self: pursue Barbara Hambly's Stranger at the Wedding)
Class is a vital piece to anything that could be defined as "of manners"--since class leads to social climbing, and social climbing leads to adopting certain behaviors and affectations that allow the native members of a class to recognize one another...
MER: dislikes the 1810's settings with the 1990's characters. (I thought immediately of Sherwood Smith's essay, which was probably the first and only thing I've read on the internet that caused me to write an author out of the blue.)
I took rather personally relevant notes on this, and the whole fantasy of manners panel has gotten oodles of discussion around and about, so I don't feel that I'm actually contributing much fleshing out my notes here.
---
Next Steps for New Writers
Panelists: James Steven-Arce, Eleanor Wood, Kevin Anderson, Vera Nazarian, Sally Weiner-Grotta and Jane Jewel
This was a panel for folks who'd recently made their first big sales--either a novel or maybe had finally qualified for SFWA membership. I figured that I was going to be an optimist and assume that I would qualify for SFWA membership by the time WorldCon got around to the US again, and thus went.
I took four pages of notes. It's even less meta-writing on the scale than the plot and pace panel, but I think I heard some good things; mostly, exhortations on acting like a professional, and how to act like such, and hey, that's always good advice.
Panel Reports: Plot and Pace; the Future of the Future
Plot and Pace
panelists: Sean M. Mead, Stephen Dedman, Alison Baird, Jay Lake, Jim Gardner, Uncle River
This was not a "meta" panel on writing, like the archetype/princess alone panel, but more of a "how to" or rather "how I..." panel. Overall, I found more to disagree with than to agree with amongst what the panelists said, but it was good discussion to overhear nonetheless. I found that Jay Lake, surprisingly, had some of the best things to say. (You see, I was all prepared to resent Jay Lake, for some reason, but then it turned out he was this really funny and interesting fellow, and dammit, who's left to resent? Who??)
Sadly the whole thing about pace seemed to get mired in the "how to avoid infodumps" discussion, and really far, far too much was said about how to do exposition in a showing/not telling way. Ok, riiiight.
The best things said were: plot structure is a *tool* to make certain you've actually told a story (Jay Lake) and structure is subjective (Stephen Dedman). Uncle River actually pointed out something rather brilliant, I thought: aggression and rapid pace are often confused. And George R.R. Martin was cited as having some of the best pacing around-- "Something is always happening to someone."
---
The Future of the Future
I was wandering around trying to get into a number of panels that ended up standing-room only, until I gave up and went to this one about ten minutes late. But as it turned out to have not only Elizabeth Bear on the panel, but also Walter Jon Williams, I was actually quite pleased. Plus, Stephen Dedman from the previous panel was sitting about two seats away, and I got to sneak little adoring glances at him. What can I say? I'm a sucker for any accent that's not my own.
Other panelists: Dennis Livingston, Judith Berman and Daniel Hatch
It was a good panel, but I didn't take too many notes. Walter Jon Williams hit the nail on the head with pointing out that politics and technology don't evolve at the same rate--just because technology exists doesn't mean it's going to get distributed to the masses. He cited the fact that everyone on planet earth right now could eat and eat well, but for politics. (I started thinking all these thoughts about redistribution of wealth that quite distracted me from the conversation for a bit, and I was taking notes on a story--and Stephen Dedman snuck away then, too.)
I did like the general agreement amongst the panelists that the singularity is not something anyone actually needs to worry about. Phew. I never did want to worry about it. (droll smile)
I did manage to write last night, and tonight as well. It just wasn't what I wanted to write, or as much as I wanted to write.
A few months ago, I know that I felt that the process was becoming easy again, after a time of difficulty.
I decided that the previous discomfort with writing meant that there was a new plateau about to be pushed through--and right after that, things were briefly easier, and I wrote "Huntswoman," "Bound by Spells" and "Sun's East, Moon's West." I have not heard any official word on the quality of "Bound by Spells," but members of my writing group laughed themselves to tears reading it, and "Sun's East" made it out of the slush pile twice now, and "Huntswoman" was my first pro sale. This, and the fact that I felt this utter smoothness, this ease--somewhat while writing them--and somewhat thereafter as well, ties them together in my mind. They are a linked set, for all that they have no characters in common, and almost no sensibilities in common, either.
But now I'm struggling to get the flow going on this current batch of stories, and they are also linked in my mind, because of the difficulty I'm having in writing them. I probably wrote about 500 words tonight at Write Club, on more than three stories.
Birthing pains. Both for the stories and for the next stage of craft.
Ouchie.
It's been a bad day. Depressing on a multitude of fronts, mostly over things which shouldn't matter but somehow do. (Parts of it are my fault of course. Parts of it are not.)
So, tonight's a test. I push through this and write for an hour, and I pass. I don't and I fail.
We'll see who pushes hardest.
0 rejections
1 acceptance
Oh, man. I don't want this to be true, but that was in fact the third week in a row for acceptances, I think. (If it wasn't, that just means that Worldcon was one of the weeks, and that was just as jolly as any acceptance.)
The next few months are probably going to suck. There's no way I haven't managed to use up all the year's luck, is there?
(And yes, folks, this is the science of acceptomancy, to go with the art of rejectomancy.)
Other weekly doings:
1000 words or so on "Coming Due"
1000 words or so on "The Library Seed"
1300 words on "unnamed Anglo-Saxon thing," which may or may not turn into an homage to "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"
100 words or so on "Lawncare in the Afterlife"
500 words or so on "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443"
0 progress on the novel
I managed to create actual, mostly MLA-proper citations for all my works, in case, you know. In case anyone ever wants to cite me, I guess. (I say "mostly" because I do not agree with the MLA format's use of dates over volume/issue information, and believe that there is a maximum form of accuracy in citation work that is achievable beyond APA/MLA standards. Uh... is it actually any wonder why I have two speculative fiction library stories percolating through the sand-filter of my mind?)
The only other thing to relate is that I made a pest of myself on the subject of "Huntswoman" to the Strange Horizons crew (by querying a few days earlier than etiquette demanded)--on the grounds that, y'know--every other time they'd been late, the rejection had gotten lost in the mail, and they hadn't been late at all. No, no. The rejectomantic irony is not lost on me. Intellectually, I know that lateness can mean more than lost communication--it can also mean that there are editors debating the relative merits of your work and fighting for it to join their inventory, or... similar.
Next time, I guess I'll manage to keep a little more patience. Yes. I very much will... Not that it worked out badly in this case (and my query letter actually was quite professional, not obnoxious. I hope.)
More reports on panels: SF without Smiles and Archetypes of Fantasy: The Princess Alone
I didn't write much down for the Seriousness or Humor in SF panel. The only panelist I wrote down was Gordon Van Gelder for some reason, but I could look up the other folks if anyone is interested. I mostly attended this because I don't quite know how to write without humor, so I was curious if that was going to seriously affect how people thought of my work.
Ultimately, though, the discussion came down to tone and length-- "The Lottery" was cited as an example of unrelentingly humorless, for obvious reasons--but it is brief. I did not stand up and point out that We Have Always Lived in the Castle (another work by Shirley Jackson) has it's fair share of humor, though it's kind of a sick humor, but other panelists certainly touched on how you've got to have a little bit of levity in a 120k word work.
"Comic relief" was never mentioned by name, which I found interesting; but most SF isn't exactly high tragedy, so maybe that's why.
The subjectivity of funny was discussed as well--GVG (and this is the only thing I actually wrote down) said that he thinks Jim Morrow(?) is a hysterically funny author. And that some people like the "hey, look at me, I'm funny" stories, and some don't. But in any case, it was agreed that funny has to be tonally proper, and has to come at the right moment. Wit can be used to undercut dramatic tension to good effect--and to bad. Specifically mentioned were the Lethal Weapon movies, with Danny Glover making one-liners during gun-fights. Most thought this was bad undercutting, though the one-liner during the gun-fight cliche was not thought to be universally bad...
I don't know. I essentially got out of that one: "I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, then. Oh, and maybe I'll go read some Jim Morrow."
---
Archetypes in Fantasy: The Princess, Alone
panelists: Justine Larbalestier, Paul Witcover, Michelle West, Jo Walton and Diane Duane (see? This is where I got better about note-taking)
The first thing brought up was the Rapunzel-in-the-tower type of princess--versus the princess archetypes of say "the two or three princess sisters"--who have specific fail, fail, succeed or "one speaks diamonds, one speaks snails" arcs. I wasn't sure why the fail-fail-succeed princesses were brought up, actually--counterpoint? The Not-Princess-Alone?
Someone mentioned that an example of lone princesses that don't get mentioned much are Catholic saints.
There was much good stuff said, of course, but things really got rolling when the discussion turned to why it is that so frequently princess stories all end up the same way (the princess and the prince together in the end), and Jo Walton talked about "the weight of story"-- tradition, culture even, all work towards turning stories in a certain direction, and trying to turn that story in the other direction is a serious battle! We have cultural expectations that keep the weight of story rolling in one direction, and an author really, really has to work in order to be able to subvert all of that.
Jo Walton also pointed out that it's easier to go against the weight of story if you use humor. She also discussed how it is that women who go against the cultural expectations (ie, the princess who does not wait in the tower to be rescued) is usually an exceptional woman in some way--a woman who is unlike all the other women in society. She had to work very hard in her King's Peace books to create a world where her female characters didn't have to be exceptions to society in order to do great things--that doing great things and being a woman was something that happened in a backdrop of other women doing great things. We haven't really gotten anywhere until we have "extraordinary" women as a standard, not an exception.
Shoot, everything I wrote down is stuff she said, I think.
JW: "Women in fairy tales don't really have friends except dead mothers and animals."
This led to a flurry of discussion about E. Nesbit setting the standard for not having a princess alone, but rather as having a group of children (friends) off on an adventure together. Jo's son had also once asked why there were no books with a mum and a son off on an adventure together, and people could think of one, maybe two books where that happened, but the point was, there were almost none.
---
By the time I'd attended these panels, I had six pages of notes on the whole Bitter Road/Brook story arc and half a dozen short stories.
Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie (37)
My first Crusie. I'd seen her books mentioned around the internet as fun and funny, and that's what this was. It read fast--about two hours, maybe two and a half. I don't think it quite did the task of distracting me from everything else on earth (yep, there's still melancholy in the air...), but on the other hand, I didn't stop reading once in two and a half hours.
Made my first pro sale today: "Huntswoman" will appear in Strange Horizons, probably in January.
I've been kind of hyper and kooky all day today. Save me from myself!
The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King (36) (re-read)
I think, in some ways, I like this book best of the Dark Tower ones I've read so far (and I'm up through Wizard and Glass). I'm sure that's residual from when I read the series the first time, and felt like I could identify with Eddie Dean. (I think about that now and wonder what I was thinking.)
The images are compelling, the lone door on the beach especially. The Tarot-esque imagery of The Three. The fact that Jake is saved. The fact that Roland is loved and learns to love. King was just getting his groove really on with this story, and yet had not fallen off course at all. Everything that happens in this story happens for good reason. (I never felt that way with The Wastelands, but that's coming up soon, so I'll find out if I still feel that way.)
Hm. I feel like there's more to say. Something about Randall Flagg and the concept of making the "stand" and remembering the face of your father. Etc. Good stuff.
I was in Boston!
My con reports are turning out quite lengthy, so they will all be behind cut-tags. I'm thinking 2 panels a day for reportage.
Today's are: "Torturing Your Characters" and "The Quest Structure"
These won't be super-detailed panel descriptions; I only made notes on things that particularly struck me, and fairly often, I ended up taking more notes on how it related to stories I'm writing than the general information itself. Apologies if you were expecting something objective or reliable.
Torturing Your Characters was really called something like "Shadow of the Torturer: Playing God with your Characters." I believe the panelists were Elizabeth Moon, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tamara Jones and Jim Gardener. I could go look it up, but well. I woke up at 3:30 this morning, and I'm Not Moving.
Elizabeth Moon said she tends to think she tests her characters, rather than tortures them, and is a firm believer in letting the consequences of their actions happen to her characters.
Lois said that she believes the theme of adult life is redemption; recovering from a blow and getting back up to face the test again is what it's all about. There's not much meat there if they don't have an adequate test.
Tamara Jones said that she thinks it's best to put your characters in impossible situations, where there's a wrong choice and a wrong choice; making it easy on the character makes it boring for the reader, and is also untrue.
Jim Gardiner emphasized that problems have to be serious--real problems with real consequences.
Elizabeth Moon briefly diverged into commentary about how it's not easy to write these seeming moments of torture; sometimes it forces you to look into parts of yourself that you don't quite like to admit or believe are there. She didn't really delve into that (like, what she doesn't like to believe), but I believe also that she was reacting at that point to a fan that stood up and objected quite vociferously to Paks' rape in one of the Deed books. Elizabeth was quick to point out that it's realistic for a woman in an untenable torture situation (especially in a medieval world, but really, many or most worlds) to be raped.
Lois also pointed out that since the writer is in control, that the writer can vary the tone to dampen down moments of violence (or sex, or pain) to keep them from overshadowing the rest of the work. Tonal control is important.
---
Later, I went to a panel about "The Quest"--Madeleine E. Robins, James MacDonald, Mindy Klasky and Jeff VanderMeer presiding.
They discussed how quests are good structures for driving narrative (fast-paced). Classic quests include: "Who am I?" "How do I get home?" "Find the object!" --and, of course, there are allegorical quests (the search for Rhyme and Reason in The Phantom Tollbooth).
The drawbacks of the quest structure are that they're predictable, and frequently used; it's hard to "sell" the quest structure because the main character has to have something really at risk, and characterization is therefore paramount.
Discussion about anti-quests led to the suggestion that Lord of the Rings is actually a big anti-quest, since you're trying to get rid of your token, and you lose the wacky band of sidekicks along the way.