Writing and finishing your short story/novel/memoir will likely take longer than you planned. Anyone who has every hired a contractor to remodel their kitchen or bathroom knows this. Things just can and do go wrong. The factory doesn’t have the right tile in stock. The electrician never shows up. Meanwhile, you’re cooking on your camping […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
Details to heighten conflict
Our daily lives are filled with insipid details, background sounds, and habitual responses. There is both sameness and comfort in the dailiness of our routines, the furnishings and clutter in our homes, the alarm clock buzzing each weekday morning. And our storytelling needs bits of this day-to-day normality to establish an authentic and breathing world. Within […]
Read the rest of this entry »George RR Martin on Gardeners and Architects
I’ve always said there are – to oversimplify it – two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But […]
Read the rest of this entry »Villains, Part 2
Nothing creates suspense and fear like a potent, evil, will-take- prisoners villain. A good villain is the stuff of nightmares and will haunt the reader long after the story concludes. The best villains create genuine feelings of vulnerability in characters and readers. As in make your blood run cold. Here’s a round-up of tips for […]
Read the rest of this entry »Villains: Color them Dark and Dastardly, part 1
A liver-eating, Chianti-drinking cannibal.Let the games begin!
Read the rest of this entry »Advice from the brilliant Margaret Atwood
When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion, dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood.It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you’re telling it, to yourself or to someone else. ~ Margaret Atwood […]
Read the rest of this entry »Quick take: Skip the “took a”
Like many editors I’ve collected my own gaggle of words and phrases that I find annoying. I can become curmudgeonly if I spot certain words in a manuscript, especially when they’re abused and appear over and over. Now, I realize that taste and preference are highly subjective and chances are I might stand alone on […]
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