1) Everyman: Instead of focusing on how “normal” or ordinary this character is, try to figure out what makes this character inspiring.
2) Hero/Heroine: Sure, this character is extraordinary… maybe even superhuman, but what makes him or her human? 
3) Dark Protagonist: This character is wounded/lost/condemned to suffer but how can he or she find hope?

We’ve all heard writing teachers tell us that our protagonist needs to change, but rarely do they ever tell us how.  Maass’ lecture taught me that character development comes down to one simple principle: whatever category your protagonist falls into, the challenge is to make the reader realize that the character could be something that’s the flip-side of who the character actually is.  In other words, the ordinary character needs to have the potential to do something extraordinary, the superhuman character must become at least a little bit human and the condemned character must discover a glimmer of hope.

But wait, it gets better.  Instead of making us think only about our characters, Maass showed us how to get to know our characters by drawing from our own experiences.  He had a whole series of questions he asked us to answer about ourselves and our experiences depending on what category our protagonist fell into.  Essentially, the question lists came down to this:

• For the Everyman think of someone who inspires you.  Try to tease apart what it is that makes that person inspiring and they give that trait to your protagonist (even if it’s just a small slice of that trait).
• For the Hero/Heroine make note of ways in which you are fallible and human.  Try to give some of that to your protagonist.
• For the Dark Protagonist consider ways you can feel compassion for that character.  How can he or she find redemption?

Sometimes it’s scary when our characters turn around and do the opposite of what we want them to do.  I know when that happens to me, it seriously makes me question my sanity.  But the truth is, when our characters misbehave or surprise us, that’s when we know that they’re becoming real.

Update: for more on Donald Maass’ session Putting Fire in Your Fiction, check out this post at All About Them Words.  In her post, Ghenet shares some tips from Maass on how you can draw on your experiences to make flat scenes come to life.

Every time I go to one of these “How to Get an Agent” panel discussions, I always end up feeling a bit like this:

The experience is often a bit like that child psychology class I took in college where I got a whole semester of “101 ways you WILL ruin your child’s life before it’s even born.”  The only difference here is that instead of ruining your child’s life, you’re destroying your book before it’s even published.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The agent panel at the Writer’s Digest Conference taught me that finding an agent boils down to 3 principles:

• Do Your Homework
• Don’t Be Stupid
• Quit Obsessing

Here are a few priceless gems I learned from that panel discussion.  (By the way, the amazing agents on this panel were: Janet Reid, Donald Maass, Jud Laghi, Mary Kole and Chuck Sambuchino as moderator.)  Now for the pearls of wisdom.

Do Your Homework.  This includes obvious things like researching the agents before querying or knowing the word count parameters for your genre or target age group.  It also means finishing the book before you query (for fiction and memoir) and sending material to the agent the way he or she wants to get it (i.e. don’t snail mail if he asks for email, don’t send an attachment if he prefers pages in the email text).

Don’t Be Stupid.  There are no-brainers like: “don’t send naked pictures with your query” (do people actually do that?) and “don’t make claims about your internet presence if you don’t have the numbers to back it up” (i.e. don’t lie).  But some mistakes they mentioned were also more subtle.  For example: if you have an editor at a publishing house who’s already looking at your work, let the agent know.

Notice how there is a significant correlation between this principle and the previous one.  In short, if you do your homework and use common sense you will seriously cut down your chances of doing something incredibly stupid.  And that’s a good thing.

Quit Obsessing.  This was probably the principle that most made an impression on me.  A few examples:

1. Of course you want to know what the word count parameters are for your genre but don’t obsess if your book lies a little outside the limits.  As Donald Maass put it: “When a book is powerful, I never hear editors comment about length.”
2. It’s a good idea to have your book professionally edited, but that doesn’t mean you have to shell out a gazillion dollars to do it.  A couple of insightful beta-readers can be just as professional.
3. Don’t apologize for not having credentials.  Most authors have had one book that came before they had “credentials.”  It’s called a first book.
4. As for genre, you worry about all those fancy marketing terms like “commercial women’s fiction” (stuff for women that sells) but in the end, it’s about figuring out where your book will find a home in the book store.  And in the words of Donald Maass: “Genre is a 20th century concept.”  Considering how book retail is changing, I think he may have a point.  In other words, don’t panic if your book falls outside the genre pigeonholes.

In the end, these three principles of querying are just a tiny slice of the pie, because what really matters is the writing.  As Janet Reid said: “Write beautifully and send the query.”

I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a lot better.

OK, we’ve already established that reading is awesome, but imagine my surprise when I went to the Writer’s Digest Conference and the most inspiring talk of all was not actually about writing.  It was about reading.

Richard Nash, who gave the lunch keynote speech on Saturday, gave a fascinating talk about how writers have to be readers, how reading and writing are the opposite sides of the same interaction.  All I have to say is: OMG did he read my mind?  This is exactly the sort of stuff I’ve been obsessing over for the last few weeks.  In fact, after hearing Richard Nash speak, I am completely convinced that reading can, in fact, change the world.

A few weeks ago, I posed the following statements for discussion.

Hello friends of iggi!  How I missed you and your smiling bloggy faces while I was at the Writer’s Digest Conference.  It was such a great weekend though and I had oodles of fun.  I met lots of amazing people and learned tons and tons.

Oooh, and guess what…  I’ve brought back prezzies!

There was so much awesome stuff to learn at this conference and I want to share it all with you.  After all, what’s the fun of having something awesome if you can’t share it with your friends, right?

The bad news is, I can’t give you exact transcripts of all the sessions I saw.  First off, I didn’t manage to take notes on every last detail of awesome because I can’t write that fast, so I only wrote down the really good stuff.  And secondly , I’m not sure it’s actually legal or good-sportsman-like for me to transcribe those sessions anyway.  (And lawyer-hubby reads this blog, so I gotta stay on the nice side of legal.)

But the good news is, I can give you the really super bits of awesome.  And when it comes to the other stuff… really, do you want to hear the boring parts?  Didn’t think so.

What does this mean for the iggiLand?  For the next whatever-many days, I’ll be doing recaps of all the super-amazing tools, tricks and ideas I picked up at the conference.  This means I’ll be breaking out of my usually-scheduled post topics, but I have a hunch you’ll forgive me.

Here’s a preview of what’s in store:

• How Reading Can Change the World
• Agent Panel: Quit Obsessing
• Every Book Can Get Better
• Writing Conferences: Don’t Be “That Guy”
• Two Words about Social Media: Don’t Panic
• How to Survive the Revision Process
• Blogging 101
• Writing: We Are All in This Together

In the meantime, you can find more awesome at the Writer’s Digest live conference blog.  Oh, and if you were at the conference and you couldn’t see a session because it conflicted with another one, you can always check out the live conference blog to see the ones you missed.  (I know I’m going to…)

And on twitter, check out the #wdc11 hash tag for conference-related tweets.

Oh, and if you were at the conference and are doing recap posts on your blog, feel free to leave the link in the comments so we can all share the awesome with you!

Now, here’s a round of iggi-tinis for all.