Jessica Morrell

Willamette Writers – Jessica Morrell – June 2010 – Notes

Jessica Morrell:

Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.writinglife.com
Blog: http://[e-mail]


A Vulnerable and Believable Character: Needs wounds/baggage facing a struggle (sometimes unwillingly) that has major ramifications and consequences and along the way makes a discovery that changes his/her life or way of seeing the world.

“Write with passion. Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” William Wadsworth

Short Tip: A successful plot puts people/characters through an operatic range of emotions, including despair, yet does this without melodrama.

Plot = Turbulence.

Talk:
1) About Publishing Industry
2) What editors look for


About Publishing Industry:

Put self in mind of editors.
1) Editors buy books based on voice.
2) Don’t edit or act as hands-on as they used to.
3) Follow the “imprints” – template or form

‘80s – more publishing houses than now. (lots of mom and pop publishing houses) many smaller publishing houses eaten up by 5 or 6 big ones. (Publish 80% of books). Still have smaller independent publishing houses, but many fewer.
Large houses: Promotion only for best authors.
(everyone else pays for their own book tours).

Business of writing: Needs a sales platform (Internet). Fewer buyers now. (Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon). If you don’t exist online you have little chance with publishers. How to get a platform:

1) Blogs: Can set up in ten minutes:
2) Networking with other authors
3) Toastmasters
4) Newsletters
5) Need to make contacts.
6) Affiliate with other writers




Platform:
1) Best previous publication ((Start somewhere))
a. Church Newspaper
b. Current Newsletter

Figure out ways to be found. Need your own knowledge of business strategy. Learn all you can about business. (Recession ->Publisher Industry shrinking -> they are more competitive. Industry wants writers to promote themselves. Learn who is who in publishing industry.

Agents:
1) Need an agent or at least a good lawyer.
2) Agents collect 15% of royalties.
3) Agents are business partners, not friends

Publisher Houses use assistants or interns who read 100 queries a day. Acquisition editors and senior editors work a couple of years ahead.
1) Novels looked at for backlist potential (ability to keep selling after they come out).
2) Also front-list potential (want to sell big when first released).
3) Have meetings and committees to decide on books.
4) Limited space on bookshelves
a. Longer books not liked as much
i. Save money with thinner books
ii. Save shelf space
iii. 80,000 to 90,000 words best
1. (Can be longer for sci-fi and fantasy).



Editing: (Truth: A lot of writers suck.)

Most important thing – revising and rewriting – She rewrites books, blogs, and website constantly. Write or revise all the time.

1) Learn how to write a good sentence. (Larry Brooks – www.storyfix.com)
2) Don’t break rules until you know them.
3) Write interesting query letters.
4) Read widely, critically and analytically.
a. Write1st draft as fast as possible.
b. 2nd draft on – Read as above: critically and analytically
Aside – She loves George R.R. Martin – suggests we read him critically
5) Make writing first priority in life
a. (Averages 10,000 hours of writing to get published).
b. Develop a routine and habit you can work with. (eg. write first thing in day?)
i. The more you write the easier it is
6) If you get bogged down -> it’s from a lack of understanding.
a. Scared
b. Not worked out ahead of time
c. Know your agenda – what you want to tell the world
d. Where do you get your ideas from?


Editing: Literary talent not enough.

7) Second draft the hard part (writers make mistake of holding on to first draft too long)

Aside: Her: Uses a different font for the first draft. Edits pages from day before to start. Starts each session with twenty minutes of editing – to get past writer’s block. Times New Roman for final font. Wants editorial distance from 1st Draft. Reads it in a different place.

8) Editors print out manuscripts to read. She says do the same (print out chapters).
a. Read somewhere different from where you write.
i. Take project bible, notebook, red pens with you.

9) Editing order:
a. Start with biggest problems and work down.
i. (Print. Fix it. Print again. Do online – as a copy editor).
ii. Big Problems:
1. Scenes and pacing
2. Follow a character
3. Follow a subplot.
`Index Cards – consistencies
b. Editors and agents – love writing. They want to know if you can craft words.
i. First 60 words are everything.
10) Job as a writer:
a. Entertain
b. Inform
11) On her blog: Interviews other writers
a. Getting first book published?
b. Getting first short story published?


Miscellaneous Tips on Writing:

1) Start with Action
a. Unpublished writers don’t have option of going slow
2) Setting from beginning – establish mood
3) Beginning must foreshadow ending.
a. Need causality
i. Story not a random sequence of events
4) Need every word you write to count
a. Big vocabulary
b. More precise better than general
5) Give immediacy
6) Write what you like to read
7) Hint of things to come.
8) Everything has to be resolved
a. All subplots
b. All Questions
c. Ambiguous endings not good.
9) The shorter the story the more important each word
10) Short Stories – tie up as much as possible
11) Keep it simple
12) Write a lot of quantity -> Transform to Quality
13) Be unique and unpredictable
14) The more you write, the stronger your voice becomes
a. Voice is in harmony with your roots
15) Needs theme
16) Needs a single dramatic question
17) Needs a premise – about life
a. A Question or a Statement
18) Weave secrets into plot.
a. Have characters have secrets.
i. Secrets are good
ii. Something about a character we don’t learn until later
b. Best place to reveal secrets is 2/3 of the way through novel
19) Protagonist and Antagonist
a. Protagonist will change first
i. Antagonist is one who will force protagonist to change
1. Antagonist does not necessarily have to be a villain
20) Good Storytelling:
a. Know Why of Story
b. Know How it Ends
c. Whose story is it?
i. Who will readers care about most?
1. (The more characters the harder it is upon the reader)
21) The more intense things/emotions are, the more restrained you should be
22) Take risks and think differently
a. Give self writing exercises
23) Almost never use exclamation points.
24) Read over
a. Be in a good time and space for
b. Be your own first reader


Fiction is about change. Good fiction takes (readers/characters?) into new emotional and physical territories. Change in how they see the world – an experience

Characters:
1) Starting out – Protagonist world isn’t perfect.
2) Inciting Incident -> Rocks their world.
3) Fiction: Character Unbalanced and World Unbalanced
4) Main characters have opposing agendas
a. Creates conflict
5) Have to have change/s in characters.
Aside: Serial Characters don’t change nearly as much

Exercise:
1) Trace events that cause changes.
a. List causes and effects
b. List plot points
c. List causality
2) Look at things that threaten characters
a. Do threats increase?
i. They should
3) Threats and events:
a. Must be sufficient to induce change
i. Must be possible
ii. Better if scary

Novel – Ingredients:

Single Dramatic Question of Story:
1) (Can you describe story in 25 words or less?)
a. If not, your story may meander too much
2) Do all your major characters have an agenda? Don’t state, imply.
3) How many flashbacks do you have?
a. Need at least 2 or 3
4) Backstory: Can do many things (Not same as flashbacks).
5) Setting:
a. How many locales do you have?
i. Want vivid and colorful locales
1. (And more than one).
b. Should bring out emotion, mood and atmosphere
6) Need the reader to see theme and foreshadows
a. Make everything connect


2nd Draft:
1) Define and deepen characters
a. Give them enough character quirks
2) Voice very important
3) Clean up inconsistencies
4) Are scenes in the best order?
a. Don’t violate causality.
5) Write subplots by themselves?
a. Novels need at least 2 subplots.
b. Have/In? Beginning, Middle and end.
i. But don’t digress or go off on tangents.;
6) Work on tension.
a. Make protagonist as uncomfortable as possible most of the time.
i. Torture protagonist.
7) Vary: (but not too much – don’t want “rollercoaster effect”):
a. Fast and slow
b. Condensed and spread out
8) Pacing (want like a good brisk walk).
a. How many surprises?
b. How many cliffhangers?
i. Make them zip
c. Need natural breaks too
i. Where reader can set down the book
9) Clear resolution – aim for heart not head
10) POV’s – only one per scene
11) What does story say about life?


Copy Editing Level: (Need a systematic way to edit and revise)

1) Every word must be great.
2) Prepositions – don’t want to many of
a. Pay attention to
3) Adverbs (“sluts of language”)
a. Almost never
4) Use vivid verbs
5) Don’t use nameless characters
6) Don’t use names in dialog.
7) Dialog
a. Tagging – tags should be invisible in dialog
8) Flashbacks
a. Characters come from beginning with baggage

Aside: Arthur Plotnik (she says he is a genius): Read his book

Aside: Memoirs – Story based on a theme; should cover about 10 years of author’s life
a. Theme – A simple concept about life
i. Connecting thread through story