Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
Setting Details Catagorize
I’ve been sitting in my armchair with my laptop and a cup of Earl Grey watching the sunrise decorate the horizon through Douglas firs. I know the colors I’m looking at have a scientific basis–when the sun is low at sunrise and sunset, sunlight needs to travel farther through more of the atmoshphere than during […]
Read the rest of this entry »Building Storyland, 2
Place matters. With your opening words the setting signals readers that they’ve now entered storyland. Signals readers that a story— part wonder, part participation located in an ordinary or treasured or troubled realm⎼⎼is unfolding. It means readers will have a place to land and settle in. And setting helps categorize fiction–urbanfantasy, westerns, Lovecraftian, dark fantasy, high […]
Read the rest of this entry »Building an Immersive Story World, 1
Storytelling in its many forms allows readers to enter immersive, dramatic situations, where interesting people tackle intriguing and often harrowing problems. Now these problems can be sordid or heartbreaking or seemingly hilarious–I’m remembering a Sue Grafton novel where PI Kinsey Millhone illegally enters a house and crawls in through a dog door. Not surprisingly she’s […]
Read the rest of this entry »There is one thing you should know about writing…
There is one thing you should know about writing. It will inevitably lead you to terrible places, as you cannot write about something if you have not lived it. Though the most important thing to bear in mind is this: you are there as a tourist and you must remain one. There was a very […]
Read the rest of this entry »Writing is
Writing is the mineshaft to the soul. ~ John Baird
Read the rest of this entry »Goblin Mode and other Gems
I’m always collecting word gems, aren’t you? Do you keep an active word list to update and refresh your vocabulary? The first Word of the Year voted by the public for the Oxford Dictionary is goblin mode. As you might guess, goblin mode is not an attractive state of being. Think slothful and freeing. The […]
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