Last day of WorldCon. Started the day by attending one final Robin Hobb panel, “Systems of Magical Healing”. It was an interesting panel, where authors discussed different ways of implementing magical healing in fiction and how to keep it interesting. After that panel I had pretty much seen all the panels I intended to see this WorldCon, so I decided to instead attend a couple of panels that Kristina had picked (she also attended the magical healing panel). This turned out to be a good choice, since I ended up attending some panels I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen myself, but which turned out to be quite interesting.
First we attended the panel “Writing Fight Scenes That Work”. There the authors discussed not only how to write the fight scene, but how to establish both motives and stakes for the fight scene and how those might effect the scene. After that we attended “Writing about Plants, Landscapes, and Nature”, where we learn that many authors spend A LOT of time researching the environment they’re writing about, going so far as to dig through the department of agriculture’s soil information databases. We also spend some time wandering the trade floor and the exhibition hall, finding out more information about WorldCon 77 which is set to take place in Dublin in 2019, really want to go there.
Then it was time for the closing ceremony. Thanks were said to all the participants, there was lots and lots of loud applause and the gavel (a WorldCon tradition) was handed over to the delegates from San Jose where WorldCon 76 is set to take place next year. All in all I had a great time and am really grateful to Leona for talking me into attending. I’m also really glad to have made a few new friends, something you don’t do all that often at this age, and will do my best to stay in touch with them.
So, thanks to everyone who made WorldCon happen and a special thanks to all my friends there, both old and new, who made this WorldCon so special for me 🙂