Rita Mae Reese on non-writing
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Apr•
05•16
The one thing I’ve discovered about writing over the years is that not-writing is like a virus—it’s always mutating, always trying to overcome your defenses. Sometimes it will succeed. There’s no single answer that will work the rest of your writing life. You’ll think you’re a disciplined writer and then you’ll have kids; your first book will come out and all of those ideas waiting in your notebook just wither up; you’ll find a great community of writers and find that you spend more time talking about writing than actually writing. I have, however, found a few defenses that have been essential against not-writing. The first is the vitamin B6; it helps you deal with stress and it makes your dreams more vivid. I don’t like taking pills, even a vitamin, so I’ve stopped taking it dozens of times, and always I notice that the impulse for writing wanes without it. The second thing is reminding myself: You don’t have to write anything that you’re not deeply interested in. Every time I remember this, it’s a relief and a surprise. Walking, meditating, writing by hand, and keeping a notebook have also been useful, particularly in conjunction with the first two defenses. I realize that it all comes down to maintaining and refreshing a sense of play. As Martin Buber once wrote, ‘Play is the exultation of the possible,’ and exploring the possible is what writing is all about for me.”
—Rita Mae Reese, author of The Book of Hulga (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016
Bitter Truth: Time is a tyrant
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Mar•
25•16
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 stove on the patio and winter is coming….
Most people underestimate how long tasks and projects take to complete. This phenomenon even has a name: planning fallacy. And you know what’s weird, we keep making this mistake over and over because it’s simply difficult to predict all the problems that might occur.
Back to writing. Raise your hand it if this happens to you: You’re 
trying to tell a story that’s above your skill set.
You were way too optimistic when you started out, before you ran into snags and potholes. I mean plotholes.
You procrastinate.
You spent too much time researching.
While fixing your second draft you realize you’ve drifted too far from your theme or the whole shebang needs a major rewrite.
Your beta readers are asking you some hard-to-answer questions about your ending.
Your characters have proven to have a mind of their own.
Real-life events, health problems, and tragedies intervene.
You’re a perfectionist. So is your editor.
Once you’ve gotten a few completed books under your belt it’s easier to predict the amount of time required to reach The End. Meanwhile, carve out time, fix what can be fixed, and no, it cannot all be fixed.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Quick Take:
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Mar•
23•16
Stories are about change. The more painful the better. These difficult changes are going to happen to your protagonist–he or she will always be the character most hurt and changed by the story events. The effect of all these changes? A character arc. Proof that your protagonist has come through the fire, has been somehow tested and transformed.
Details to heighten conflict
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Mar•
21•16
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 the first page or so of a story the reader should know where he is in time and space, the season, the weather, and understand the tone. The opening pages sketch a map for readers to follow and it might include a few beige parts of a story. But stories aren’t beige, they’re Picasso, Matisse colored. They brim with what matters including the details that will pierce your reader, heighten the conflict, make the abstract concrete, show where your character is at in the moment and reveal what he or she is feeling.
Georges-Seurat_A-Sunday-on-La-Grande-Jatte
Have you ever stood in front of a painting that depicts an intricate scene and studied all the dynamics and tiny elements? Have you noticed how it depicts and era, culture and mood? Have you ever felt like you could step into the painting? In a similar way your readers want to step into your scenes and details anchor them there.
Successful stories often feature a character at his/her breaking point. As in life, each character’s breaking point will be idiosyncratic, but somehow the scene must convey the desperation of the moment without spelling it out. That’s where details come in–setting, props, attire, body language and posture, facial expressions– mixed into circumstances and reactions. And the best details heighten the conflict, stir in more tension and questions.
Say a couple is about to call off their engagement. Will the argument escalate while they’re are driving in heavy traffic? Or take place at their favorite Italian restaurant where the waiters know them? Will the diners at the next tables look over in concern and annoyance? Will the air smell like garlic and bread? Has the couple ordered the most expensive or cheapest Chianti on the menu?
Keep asking yourself what small details will create intimacy and communicate layers of meaning. When the drunk and broken-hearted ex-lover pounds on the door for admittance will your character be leaning against a sink filled with dirty dishes or standing amid a gleaming, spotless kitchen?
Will he/she have just showered? Dressed to go out for big night? Awakened on the couch with the Home Shopping Network chirping in the background?
MYSTIC RIVER Jimmy is restrained when he learns his daughter’s body has been found.
When the tragic news arrives will it happen in a dreaded 2 a.m. phone call; will the school principal phone at the office. Will your protagonist spot his teenage daughter or son climbing into the car belonging to a petty criminal or the bad-news friend they’re forbidden to hang out with?
Will the funeral of the too-young-to-be-gone character take place on an impossibly lovely summer afternoon or with rain falling or the ground frozen? Will the victim’s school friends huddle together, sobbing and stunned?
Friends travel to comply with their friend’s wish to scatter his ashes
Will the mourners show up for the wake shaken and struggling to keep it together? Will the dead girl’s mother be unable to greet her guests and instead retreat to her darkened bedroom? Will the dead girl’s father look like he hasn’t slept in days? When another character shakes his hand will those hands be cold and chapped and his eyes vacant? Will the dead girl’s younger brother appear lost and dazed and scared?
Are you keeping a notebook where you spill out these observations and tidbits? Do you write about gatherings and parties and restaurant meals and moments witnessed on the street? Because tragedies, funerals, arguments have all been written thousands and thousands of times keep searching for that trifle that whispers. What fresh angle, dark humor, or complicated emotions can you bring to these moments? What matters?
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
George RR Martin on Gardeners and Architects
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Mar•
19•16
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 the gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener. In my Hollywood years when everything does work on outlines, I had to put on my architect’s clothes and pretend to be an architect. But my natural inclinations, the way I work, is to give my characters the head and to follow them.
Villains, Part 2
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Mar•
15•16
Raymond Burr playing the villain in Hitchcock’s Rear Window
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 creating your own bad-to-the-bone character.
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Create important, believable motivations. Your villain
This severed head was Bill’s practice run.
shouldn’t just exist to wreck havoc. In Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs the villain/madman Buffalo Bill was denied a sex-change operation so is killing young women and harvesting their skin to create a female body suit (of sorts). As Hannibal Lector said, he covets.
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Villains will never play by the rules.
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Must somehow be despicable.
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Must toss in surprises and twists that we don’t see coming.
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Shape a compelling backstory for him–nothing is more plastic than villains who seem to spring to life for the sake of the story.
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Imbue with an interesting mindset and rationale for his/her behaviors.
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No smirking. Ever.
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Beware of writing ‘truth serum’ scenes. These hokey scenes typically take place toward the end of the story when the villain has captured the hero. Instead of offing his victim, he starts confessing his crimes and embittered tale of woe. Gloating is also sometimes part of this scene. Been done, my friends. To death.
Make it personal. The link between the hero and villain needs to become increasingly personal and intimate as the story goes along.This is Robert DeNiro playing Max Cady in the remake of Cape Fear. The hero in the story put him in prison so now that he’s out he’s stalking the hero’s family and he’s going to make them pay. In fact, he wears a tattoo that says, ‘Vengeance is mine.’
Note: Robert Mitchum was no slouch in the earlier film version. Both men possess a simmering sexuality and smoldering rage in the role. 
Be wary of using mental illness as motive and reason for being evil. It requires a lot of research and believeablity. For example, not all children who underwent trauma or were abused grow up to become abusers.
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Consider giving the villain and hero shared traits and characteristics. Harry Potter and Voldemort are an excellent example. Even their magic wands share some of the same origins.
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Good villains often have minions and followers. These types must be creepy also. The Deatheaters in the Harry Potter series are excellent examples. What would the series be without Snape and Molfoy?
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Don’t write about villains who make obvious mistakes or can be easily outwitted. A common trope is when a villain captures a hero, taunts him or her for a bit, then dashes away to take care of other important business. Meanwhile, he’s made some crucial error so that the hero can escape with little or not much effort. To live another day and take down the villain.
Lord Voldemort
