“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
A Conflict-laden Plot Pattern that Works
Want a shorthand formula for a successful story? Start with a heroic protagonist who is sane and moral, but, of course, flawed. Then create the world he or she operates in as crazy, chaotic, askew. Stir in antagonists who are immoral. Create conflict that’s essentially a test. Mix in at least a few sympathetic supporting […]
Read the rest of this entry »Abandon Ship! Or why your readers might bail on you.
To name names or not to name names, that is the question? What the heck, the book is called Eeny Meeny by M.J. Aldridge. So far so clever, right? I recently abandoned this thriller about two-thirds of the way through. I know. It’s a weird place to stop reading. It felt spiteful, but was borne […]
Read the rest of this entry »Advice to Writers: Quit Whining
There’s a lot of whining among writers. I’ve never quite seen the like among other groups; say among plumbers or glass blowers or dentists. We seem to believe that kvetching is part of the writing lifestyle. We think wrong. And heaven knows there’s a lot of procrastinating and wasting time. Not to mention all the […]
Read the rest of this entry »Gather your support team
Writing, as we all know, is a sometimes glorious, but often lonely occupation. As if isolated on the raft of creativity amid a turbulent ocean, we struggle with words and ideas, plots and themes. Alone. At times this isolation makes us feel apart from the world, even abandoned. Sometimes our fight to bring a scene […]
Read the rest of this entry »Live outside your own head
I’ve met way too many reclusive writers, especially science fiction and fantasy writers, who spend all their time obsessively plugging away at a 200,000-word manuscript and reading only stories in the genres they’re writing. Or their idea of a night out is hanging out in a coffee shop with their laptop. It would seem that […]
Read the rest of this entry »Writing requires emotional risk
Bitter truth: Writing requires emotional risk. After the brilliant actor Bryan Cranston played the dark, devious and sometimes evil Walter White in the Breaking Bad series, he played Lyndon Johnson on Broadway in All the Way. His Walter White character arc was one of the most remarkable in our times. White, a high school chemistry […]
Read the rest of this entry »worthy
Your protagonist must be worthy of the challenges in the story. Because when things go wrong— which is what fiction is all about– the protagonist will somehow set them right. He or she acts and reacts, solves problems to bring balance back to the world that became unbalanced in the first story events. Your protagonist […]
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