Fun at Left Coast Crime

In late February, Marje and I attended Left Coast Crime. It was our first trip to this event, and we had a blast. The event was held at the Embarcadero Hyatt in San Francisco. The hotel was gorgeous. The weather was unseasonably warm. And the folks we met, among the 500 who attended, were cheerful, friendly, and talkative. What more could you want!

Yesterday evening, I finally got around to typing up my notes from the conference. Here’s my favorite exchange from one of the panels…

In a panel on short stories, Travis Richardson said (and I’m paraphrasing), “A novel is like a record. You have lots of scenes, and these scenes are like the tracks on an LP. But a short story is like an individual song. You don’t have as much room, and you have to focus. I love this analogy.

I understand Mr. Richardson has written many short stories. I intend to keep an eye out for his work.

Another panelist, David Schlosser, picked up that theme and added that just like a song usually has a chorus, a short story can sometimes have its own chorus, too. And by that, he meant a word or a sentence that the writer uses multiple times in a story (for emphasis and transition). I’m sure I’ve read lots of stories that do that. The instance that came to my mind, though, was the Paul Bunyan statue in the movie Fargo. It’s been many years since I watched that movie, but I remember the statue appearing over and over. It started as a goofy joke and grew more and more ominous as the movie progressed (or at least that’s how I remember it). Does anyone recall any instances of a short story with a repeated line/chorus? I’m sure there are many. It’s a great device.

Anyway, this was a wonderful impromptu observation by Mr. Schlosser, who I found to be very articulate and clever. If I see his name on a future panel, I will be sorely tempted to listen in.

Switching gears, the Guppy program from Sisters in Crime hosted a gathering at the Hyatt bar. Marje and I attended, and I had a chance to talk at length to Margaret Dumas, a San Francisco writer. I recently read her work, Murder at the Palace, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a nice cozy mystery. I enjoyed her setting (an old theatre running classic movies) and her cast of characters (which included a ghost).

Okay, that’s it for this one. Catch you on the next blog. 😊