The first event I went to was a writer symposium about food in fiction.  The discussion wasn’t very exciting, and the authors weren’t very insightful, but they did bring up a few interesting points. Food can bring believability to a character, and it can help in determining the personality of characters.  I brought up the use of food as a recurring character, and at least one of the authors were fascinated by this concept, and offered me some advice:  Make the appearance of this character gradual, very gradual.

I then preceeded directly to the room across the hall, where Patrick Rothfuss, my favorite fantasy author, held a Q&A.  OMFG, Patrick is fraking amazing!!!!!!!

He’s funny, intelligent, sarcastic, and brutish.  My first question to him was:

“Could you elaborate on your use of music in The Name of the Wind?  How did you go about incorporating it, and why?”

To answer, he brought up the “art of extrapolation”.  Basically, Rothfuss knows very little about music, but he’s very good at extrapolating the meaning and the subtleties in things he doesn’t know about.  Like women and music (two core themes in The Name of the Wind).

I consider The Name of the Wind to be an excellent example of how to develop a character, so my second question, toward the end of the talk was:

“Do you have any precise method for developing a character?”

We didn’t have much time left, so he answered by saying that natural, believable character dialogue was one of the most important ways to develop a character.

On our way out, we grabbed custom made fortune cookies.  The red cookies contained vulgar messages related to Rothfuss and his works, and the orange ones contained regular ones.  My cookie says:

“Book two, page 348-353, Kvothe and Bast fuck like bunnies.”

After that, I went to the exhibitor floor (the gencon that you see in pictures), and browsed.  Saw some pretty interesting new games, gold and silver d20 ear rings, lots of cosplay, cool shirts, OH GODS! FIRE!!!

….I’ll add more when I fee like it…