Well, that was a wasted hour. Beth and I went to a panel discussion on 101 Ways To Kill A Character. How did it mess up? Let me count the ways...
First, too many people on the panel. There were eight. I dinged Conglomeration for having Panels-Of-One, but Panels-Of-Too-Many are just as bed. (3-5 people is just about right). To make matters worse, one of the people on the panel wasn't a writer at all, and one (Robert Asprin, a great writer and a great speaker utterly wasted here) rarely, if ever, kills people in his stories. Of course, no one stayed on-topic at all; the panel basically devolved into a long, boring, and pointless discussion about the psychology required to kill people and a lot of hoo-hah about brainwashing soldiers to turn them into killing machines. If I wanted to attend a panel on "The psychology of killing", I would have. One of the panelists, an author of "splatterpunk" horror, was clearly the right person for the panel, but he didn't get to speak much. If the dicussion had stayed on topic, I bet he would have had a lot of good ideas.
Then, we wanted to go to the filk room, but there was a huge line outside it and a packed room within. Given that those within were not likely to leave when the acts changed, and those outside all wanted in, we decided to call it an early night. This is the soonest I've ever gone back to my room at a Dragoncon.
Point blank, the con seems to be outgrowing its current space. This is great for the con, but it makes the experience for each attendee rather less than it could/should be. I hope they add a hotel next year, or cap membership, or something. (Well, next year is Worldcon for me, so moot point, but I hope to be back here in 2009.) (I also think some sort of split is needed betwixt those who view a con as basically a big rave with wild costumes, and those who view a con as a chance to meet other fans, learn cool things, and attend interesting discussions with their favorite writers/artists/whatever. Yes, I'm a Grumpy Old Man. I have been since I was about 13.)
Lizard's Rules For A Good Panel:
1)Decide what the panel will be about. Don't just have a cool name and no real topic description.
2)Ask each participant if they a)like and b)understand the topic. If either is false, don't have them as a participant. If there aren't enough participants, have a different panel and go back to 1). There is nothing worse than having a panel participant say "I don't know why I'm here" or having the panel as a whole not understand what the panel is supposed to be about.
For example, one of the best panels I attended was at Millennicon. It was called "A Horse Is Not A Jeep", and it dealt with the realities of horses and how they are often ignored in fantasy fiction. Each of the three panelists was both a)Someone who worked professionally with horses, and b)Someone who wrote professionally. Gee! A panel about using horses in fiction where each panelist knew something about both horses and fiction! This kind of innovative brilliance (you may detect some sarcasm) is all too rare.
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