Matthew Quick on Writing
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Oct•
15•14
” The most difficult part of the writing process was and is sending my words into the world. Writing is a very personal, therapeutic, and maybe even spiritual process for me. And the emotions I feel when I am sitting alone writing are very intense and often not what I show people face-to-face. But writing is an act of communication, and an act of faith—trusting the reader to be someone who is willing to shake the hand that comes up out of the page. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I really should be showing people all these naked words I try to write passionately and bravely and honestly, that it does matter and writing fiction is not a waste of time, or a self-indulgent act. Believing that I really do have something to offer people, and that people need and will want what I send out into the world, that’s the most difficult part of the writing process for me. It’s a daily battle. The most difficult part of the writing process was and is sending my words into the world. Writing is a very personal, therapeutic, and maybe even spiritual process for me. And the emotions I feel when I am sitting alone writing are very intense and often not what I show people face-to-face. But writing is an act of communication, and an act of faith—trusting the reader to be someone who is willing to shake the hand that comes up out of the page. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I really should be showing people all these naked words I try to write passionately and bravely and honestly, that it does matter and writing fiction is not a waste of time, or a self-indulgent act. Believing that I really do have something to offer people, and that people need and will want what I send out into the world, that’s the most difficult part of the writing process for me. It’s a daily battle.” ~ Matthew Quick author of The Silver Linings Playbook
for more Matthew Quick go here
New feature here: Motivational Mondays
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Oct•
07•14
“What’s your story? It’s all in the telling. Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions like arctic tundra or sea ice. To love someone is to put yourself in their place, we say, which is to put yourself in their story, or figure out how to tell yourself their story.” ~
Rebecca Solnit
Advice from Don Delillo
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Oct•
03•14
First you look for discipline and control. You want to exercise your will, bend the language your way, bend the world your way. You want to control the flow of impulses, images, words, faces, ideas. But there’s a higher place, a secret aspiration. You want to let go. You want to lose yourself in language, become a carrier or messenger. The best moments involve a loss of control. It’s a kind of rapture, and it can happen with words and phrases fairly often—completely surprising combinations that make a higher kind of sense, that come to you out of nowhere. But rarely for extended periods, for paragraphs and pages—I think poets must have more access to this state than novelists do. ~DON DeLILLO
Registration still open for Claim Your Story Writing Conference
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Oct•
01•14
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 catered lunch and beverages.
Also, there is a scholarship available for a writer in need.
In case you have never visited, Ashland, OR is stunning in the autumn.
Quick Tip:
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Sep•
27•14
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.
Avoiding the Perils of Expositional Dialogue
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Sep•
24•14
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 can easily become tedious and bog down your story. Especially if the conversation, speech, sermon, or testimony goes on for pages or the scene is solely based on delivering these facts.
So what’s a writer to do? Here are some solutions:
- Tuck the information into scenes laced with heavy conflict, especially with high stakes. Courtroom scenes typically contain expositional dialogue, but the stakes are sky high and jurors need to learn what they don’t know.
- Add tension—perhaps the characters are afraid of being overheard or it’s improper for them to be meeting.
- Try summarizing some of the information instead of only using direct dialogue.
- If possible the character delivering the facts should be fascinating, funny, brilliant,mysterious, or somehow loaded with personality—and keep it lively whenever possible.
- Tighten it to the bone. Not a single unnecessary word.
- Set it up—readers need to experience the need to know before the exposition happens.
- Feature the protagonist tracking down the information or somehow being proactive.
- As one character is listening to the dialogue he or she doesn’t need to simply sit there. He/she needs to actively participate—become agitated, struggle to control emotions, ask difficult questions, etc.
- Another trick is to have a necessary object or situation or fall apart and exposition is used as the object/situation is fixed.
- Figure out when readers need to be kept in the dark and give out information on a need-to-know basis, especially in Act 1
- Never discuss information that both characters already know.
- Determine if the back story is sufficiently complicated; a flashback might work better to bring forth the information.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, heave heart
Inner Logic in Fiction
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Sep•
18•14
Does this happen to you? You’re reading along in a novel written by one of your favorite authors and you feel
yourself somehow slipping out of the story. Maybe the pace is too slow, or you’re losing interest, or maybe you’re realizing that things aren’t making sense. Or, you’re stopped, puzzled or bothered by an action or dialogue exchange that just doesn’t feel right based on the characters you’ve come to know. The odd thing about fiction, even if characters are wildly original and wicked, they’re more consistent than real people. And when they behave inconsistently or seemingly on a whim, it can sink the storyline.
These are general illustrations, but usually faulty inner logic happens on a larger scale. For example, it could be the hero (as in good guy) kills off another character not because this death is necessary to the plot, but just because the hero just didn’t like the guy. If the hero is supposed to rescue the world, or solve the case, or win the day, readers need to trust him. If he’s going to break bad, then the whole story should be about his downward arc or uncovering his true values and motives.
Wait just a darn minute. You say your wisecracking, rough-and-tumble protagonist is an antihero? These types can star in any story and use unusual and even illegal means to solve problems, but they still need a moral compass that readers understand. And buy into.
Other problems that fall under inner logic: There isn’t a truly dramatic conflict at the center. The protagonist’s goal isn’t story worthy or it changes so much as the story goes along that readers cannot track what the protagonist wants and fears. Too much of the story is not spent on answering the central dramatic question. A subplot or secondary character takes over the story. The story turns into the author’s soapbox. Or the real story doesn’t start until page 150 after a lot of back story and stasis so then never develops as needed.
One of the biggest problems with weak inner logic is lack of motivation. Why did the protagonist take down his ex’s new husband if the action comes out of the blue? Was the guy a danger? Or was it desperation? Jealousy? Revenge? The solution is to know the morality of your main characters—their values, moral dilemmas and decisions are the plot’s backbone. In this case, the reader also needs to know the threat the new husband plays. Now, if the protagonist and his former wife have children together and the new guy likes kids, but not in a wholesome way, then things start to jell.
Inner logic problems can also come from the world of your story. The further your story veers from the real world, the firmer the foundation needs to be. In the Hunger Games series readers soon learn that every year an authoritarian regime demands literal tributes from each of its districts. Now if these games just took place because it’s bloodthirsty government, the inner logic wouldn’t hold up. However, when readers and movie viewers see the proofs of this new world–the grinding poverty, the military presence, the relentless terror the citizens live under–then we start to believe. As the first novel progresses readers learn that these yearly fight-to-the-death contests are a punishment for a massive rebellion/uprising. They create more fear, prove with hideous certainty that the government is in charge. And how little they care about citizens’ lives, even children.
Readers want the whys of life answered when reading fiction. Readers have internalized story structure from a lifetime of reading. They know that Act Two—things growing more complicated and surprises popping up—is followed by Act Three where matters come to a head, then a resolution follows. Fiction is a way to transfer nontransferable knowledge—that is knowledge a person cannot learn from his or her own experiences. This means readers learn and experience through fictional characters. And what they learn needs to make sense.
Humans are the only creatures that believe in worlds inside their imaginations. Worlds found
between the covers of books or on screens. But all imaginary worlds are built from cause and effect; conflict coming to a boil; scarred, vulnerable characters going up against huge odds. For a damn good reason.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart
Quick Take:
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Sep•
17•14
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
Quick Take: Emotions are the lifeblood of stories
Written By: Jessica Morrell
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Sep•
07•14
Emotions are the lifeblood of characters and stories. Without characters feeling and exhibiting emotions, you’re just writing events, but you’re not drawing readers into your story. As you become more intimately acquainted with your characters, understand their emotional bandwidth, their highest highs and lowest lows. And, of course, how they react to them. Remember too that emotional intensity builds over the course of your story.
There is no life without emotions and writers need to tap into them. Feeling deep, seething anger? That’s gold. Unbearable longing? That’s another pearl for your story. Write it down. Same with the heaviness of sorrow, the twitteriness of worry, the exuberance of new love, the long winter of grief.
