Halloween Advice for writing "scary" from R.L. Stine (of Goosebumps fame!)

R.L. Stine photo from here

"I think you have to create a very close point of view. You have to be in the eyes of the narrator. Everything that happens, all the smells, all the sounds; then your reader starts to identify with that character and that’s what makes something really scary.

 ...The other big elements are shock and surprises! You don’t want a linear plot. You want to have twists in there that the reader will stop and say, 'Oh, I didn’t realize that.'"                    –R.L. Stine, from an interview at GalleyCat"

Want more R.L. Stine? check out this MTV interview Rachel Handler did where she visited Stine in his home, "What Scares R.L. Stine?"

Illustrate and Write On–and Happy Halloween!
Lee

SCBWI's 2011 Annual Winter Conference Registration Opens Tomorrow!

Mark your calendars! Synchronize your watches! Start planning your outfits! At 10 AM Pacific time tomorrow, registration will be open for the 2011 SCBWI Annual Winter Conference in New York City. The event takes place January 28-30, 2011, at the Hyatt Grand Central and features a fabulous lineup up of publishing professionals to instruct and inspire conference goers.

In addition to Saturday and Sunday workshops and keynotes, attendees can also opt for Friday pre-conference Writers or Illustrators Intensives--a day-long critique-a-thon with editor and agents for writers and day-long workshop for illustrators. If you're interested in one of these, don't doddle. They sell out amazingly quickly. 

The full faculty line-up will be revealed tomorrow when registration opens, but I can tell you that among them will be Mo Willems, Sara Zarr , Lois Lowry, Jules Feiffer and R.L. Stine! (Have I used too many exclamation points in this post yet? Don't worry! There will be more! I'm excited!)

SCBWI TEAM BLOG will again offer live coverage of the event on the Official SCBWI Conference Blog, as well as loads of pre-conference faculty interviews on our individual blogs.

TEAM BLOG is:

• Martha Brockenbrough (Twitter: @mbrockenbrough)
• Jolie Stekly (Twitter: @cuppajolie)
• Jaime Temairik (Twitter: @jaimetem)
• Lee Wind (Twitter: @leewind)
• Suzanne Young (Twitter: @suzanne_young)
• Me (Twitter: @alicepope)

The official Twitter hashtag for the event is #NY11SCBWI. 

Click here to register for the Annual Winter Conference.  Hope to see you there!