BOSKONE Report
This weekend past Kim and I attended BOSKONE 61, at the Westin in Boston’s Seaport District. Seeing as it’s been 40+ years since I went to one – my spotty memory tells me I saw the trailer for STAR WARS at the 1977 con – it felt like I was due. And more to the point of something, since now writing (and hopefully selling) SF books is my job, this was an opportunity to reconnect with today’s SF & Fantasy zeitgeist, as it were. Below are my scattered observations and reflections on the whole thing.
The Vibe
I had no set expectation of the what the atmosphere would be like, other than vaguely nerdy. The nerd was definitely there – gents sporting steampunk kilts is a strong indicator. Overall though the feeling to me was pretty quiet. Maybe all of us wearing masks cut down on ad hoc conversation, or pushed it to the food and drink areas? Hard to guess at attendance, my estimate was 1,000 – 1,200. Since we were there only for the daytime program, maybe we undercounted?
A definite thing both Kim and I saw right off was that con-goers were definitely on the gray side, in which we include ourselves of course. I think this is a well-known thing, as documented here; in the 1950’s the average SF reader was in their 20s, today that average is in the 40’s.
My experience was people were friendly, orderly in queues, and all clearly happy to be there – since my most recent experiences with convention-events have all been in the high-tech world (cutthroat is not an inapplicable word there) that was a welcome and enjoyable difference.
The Panels
This was my focus at BOSKONE. I attended seven panels and two “kaffeeklatsches” – roundtables with 8-9 participants. Everything I took in was writing- and publishing-oriented, but for one science-themed panel.
General observation: Far and away the most common answer panelists would offer to questions, either from the moderator or the audience was (wait for it ….) “It depends.” I get that every story is different, in some way at least, and that there’s no magic formulae for things like getting an agent or being traditionally published (otherwise we’d all have agents, right?) but, c’mon. I would have liked to hear more of the panelists’ personal views on the things that got raised.
That to the side I got value out of pretty much every panel. All About Chapters was discussion about, well, chapters – how long, how many, how to start and end and so on. Reasonable observations there on how when chapters rarely end in cliffhangers, a book feels too slow paced, but when there are too many cliffhangers, the books seems one-note and unconvincing. Your Editor is a Monster (For Your Own Good) was about working with editors. This panel included guest of honor Ben Aaronovitch; I found him informative and funny on this and another panel he was on. For example Ben reflected how he’d gotten to the point as a writer where he has the knowledge, and power, to ignore his editors, and he cited some instances how that wasn’t a good choice. Big message to the session was partnership with an editor, and reining in one’s ego.
The editor-panel was one where I asked a question. (Aside, I made a point in being upfront in all panels and I was the first audience questioner in all my sessions – so I got that going for me.) Anyway my question was about developmental edits, and how you can determine when that is a good investment. This was one of those “it depends” answers, though they did reflect on how if your book has few or no “in love with it” supporters, it’s probably not a good use of resources.
The Alternative Publishing panel was super-informative for me. Going into this I thought of alternatives as primarily self-publishing, with a tiny bit of so-called small press – publishers, many of them decades old, that are like the big houses but focus on the SF genre and its sub-genres. What I found is there’s an eco-system of three-four person “presses” that outsource a lot and focus on a really small number of titles. Such a concern might be two authors, an editor, and a jack-of-all-trades, all working part-time.
Last panel I’ll highlight was Story Structures Other Than the Hero’s Journey. If that’s new to you, quick summary: Joseph Campbell synthesized an idea of a “mono-myth”, a universal template for heroic stories that many myths and fables employ, and that gets endemically used in storytelling today. Example: Luke Skywalker is told by Obi-Wan he should go off and fight the Empire; Luke declines, saying he already has a life; His aunt and uncle are killed and Luke takes on the quest; Luke finds his helpers in Han, Chewy and Leia, and also has the talisman of the lightsaber; Yoda becomes Luke’s mystic mentor and also tests Luke in the cave … I won’t reiterate the whole plot of STAR WARS but every one of these is a hero’s journey step. IMDB lists thirty-five hero’s journey movies; Goodreads has twenty-seven books.
Problem is, as much as this story structure works and is generally satisfying, it’s predictable and frankly corny. The panel was supposed to be about alternatives to it.
I wished they dug into the topic more. There was a lot of critique of Campbell – he really cherry-picked myths to get to his “universal” conclusion. And there was a lot of cultural commentary, about how hero’s journey is “too western.” I guess I agree with that, but this part of the discussion was too much about cultural identity and not enough about story-telling.
My question to this panel: Are there examples from literary fiction, where hero’s journey is rare, that we can draw upon to write new SF & F stories? All the panelists but one were stumped by this, unable to name a single literary work, let alone discuss one. The outlier – Ben Aaronovitch, who suggested I look at The Salteaters, a book from 1980 about black faith-healers in a fictional southern city.
I’ll close this part with the kaffeeklatsches. I’ll do the second one first, hosted by Dana Cameron. Dana started writing mysteries, then went on to urban fantasy, and some horror, and now is developing a historical noir set in 18th century Salem. I really wanted to hear some tips and advice from an actual working author … and, as way back in the day I worked in tech with her husband James, I had a bit of an intro. Was a great talk, about things like maintaining focus while writing, books we’re reading, and goings-on in the publishing world. Also present there was Nicholas Kaufman, a mystery/fantasy/horror writer.
The first kaffeeklatsche I went to was with three agents, those divine beings with the power to elevate one to being, ah, “agented.” The lead was Joshua Bilmes, who has been working SF&F for forty years; with him were John Berlyne and Stevie Finegan of the Zeno Agency (UK); Joshua’s JABerwocky Agency does US-rights for Zeno authors. This was a fantastic nuts-and-bolts talk, though not without its “it depends” moments. All nine of us at the table were authors, aspiring or low-midlist-ing, all eager to get quality advice. Some of the Q&A:
When should I follow-up on a query, is three weeks too soon? I was surprised at this, even I know the answer is, you don’t. Joshua made that plain when he said, “My preference for you to follow-up is never.” The agents did talk about how packed their days are; consider they may work with 20, 30 or more clients. While that work is very sporadic – clients spend most of their time writing – sometimes it gets intense.
I’ve self-published some books, is it possible to now get an agent and a traditional publisher? I was pleased to hear the answer, that while in the past the answer was “no”, today it is a clear “yes”. What matters is the quality of your work. There’s even a small advantage in self-publishing, in that it demonstrates ability to finish something, and to do things like marketing on your own.
One of my questions, If after months you’re having no response/requests for more info in querying a book, is it better to revise the book and try again, or start fresh with a whole new book? There was some “it depends” waffling, but Stevie had the answer I wanted: “Every next book you write will be better than the previous. Better to push forward with the best possible product. And your previous books will still be there.” I may well face this very situation and I’ve started a new work – hearing this from someone in the biz upped my confidence in that path.
Final bonus nugget of wisdom, from John Berlyne in response to a question on query letters:
“Original” is a dirty word in this business, never put that in your query. Publishers don’t want original, they want things like what’s selling already. Besides, if your work is original is not for you to say.
The Art
The art show and auction was small (or so Kim tells me) in comparison to other cons she’s been to lately, like Anime Boston. We were able to see it all in thirty minutes I’d say. No major themes, I’d say fantasy art slightly predominated over SF. Only a small amount of spaceship art, it seemed robots, steampunk and aliens were more prevalent – that and dragons, krakens, and maidens stopping/strolling/ running through ethereal forests..
The three examples above are pieces we came away with. The birds on either end were free giveaways, from the collection of Abby Cinii, an active and much-beloved fan who passed away in 2020.
The piece in the center we bought, it’s the work of Anne E.G. Nydam, a blockprint-artist and poet. Anne was on two of the panels I attended and her affection for her subject matter of animals and the natural world really impressed me. I’m looking at getting her bestiary, On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination.
The Books
I was amazed at the variety of books on offer, literally hundreds of titles you will never find in a bookstore. For me there seemed a lot of focus on specific audiences – for example, if you like books about gender-curious werewolves, well, there’s likely such books there. Which is all fine.
I selected the four books above partially at random, partially because they were authored by panelists. I wanted to both take advantage of the opportunity to get books I’d otherwise never see or consider, and to support the larger community – if Science Fiction and Fantasy gets reduced to just what you can get on Amazon, or what comes from traditional publishers, that would be a loss.
The Takeaway
So there it is. Now that I have this baseline, for future cons – not just future BOSKONEs but Readercons and I’m sure others – I can target what I see and do much better.
For BOSKONE 61, it was a great weekend and a valuable one. Maybe it’s over-confidence (not always bad) but I came away thinking, I can do this author thing. And I’m also confident that somewhere in all the myriad identities I saw in play, there’s space for an irreverent, judo-expert, spaceship-piloting woman investigator, and her grumpy alien boss.
Till next time …