Word by Word

Practical insights for writers from Jessica P Morrell

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Registration still open for Claim Your Story Writing Conference

October 4 You can find the details for the conference here. Here’s the short version: a day of workshops and inspiration for $125 at the Lithia Springs Resort, one of the most charming places you’ll ever set foot in. Melissa Hart is the keynote speaker. I’ll also be teaching along with Midge Raymond.  Includes a […]

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Quick Tip:

     Leave room in your story for the grey area between right and wrong. This is especially powerful when a character wrestles with a moral dilemma.

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Avoiding the Perils of Expositional Dialogue

     There comes a time in many stories when a character must deliver needed information via dialogue. It’s called expositional dialogue—a conversation with a whole lot of facts or explaining going on. It provides the back story and details necessary to understand for the story. Trouble is, after not too long these dialogue exchanges […]

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Quick Take:

Writing is like marriage or a healthy partnership. It needs nurturing, surprises, tender attention. Honesty is required and you cannot take your beloved for granted. And you cannot hold grudges for things that went wrong in the past. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

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Quick Take: Get into your body

Our minds are crowded little places and we too often sit at our computers our breaths shallow and shoulders riding high. Or, after hours spent alone in your head it feels like an echo chamber. Yet your inner knowing is connected to your heart beat, your breath, your bones. The more you write from your […]

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Writers need to stay curious

  “The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one’s curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day. Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and […]

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Quick Tip: Commas

    I see this mistake often in manuscripts so just wanted to pass along this reminder about using commas to separate adjectives and after independent clauses. From the Purdue OWL: “Use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by any of these seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet. […]

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Time is all we have

About twenty-five  years ago when I was in deep distress over a painful marriage, the need to leave it and a teenaged daughter who was enraged about my choices, I was desperate for answers, trying to figure out how I’d landed in such an unhealthy marriage. It was the late 80s and I went to […]

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July

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Quick Take: beware of thumbnail sketches

Avoid thumbnail sketches  or police blotter descriptions  whenever a new character steps into your book. (The suspect was a Latino male, 6 feet, medium build, scar on left cheek, tattoo of snake on right shoulder,  wearing black jacket, jeans and sneakers)This technique tends to feel contrived especially if used too often. A character doesn’t need […]

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