Portland Willamette Writers Presents

From an Editor’s Desk with Jessica Morrell

Place: Tabor Space, 5441 SE Belmont St, Portland, OR 97215

Writers are told to read a lot and write a lot. Naturally, this is excellent advice. But what if your writing isn’t progressing or your publishing dreams are withering? This presentation by editor Jessica Morrell on June 4th at Tabor Space, 7:00 pm (Doors open at 6:45 pm), will outline techniques a developmental editor uses to help writers launch from unpublished to published, midlist author to best-selling author, along with successfully breaking into new genres, and keeping a fiction series cohesive and progressing.

It will cover foundational techniques like a bold beginning and an unexpected ending but will also stress how the inner rationale needs to be airtight and the central dramatic question looming throughout. We’ll delve into how to create a cinematic reality including props, and how tension needs to simmer on every page to involve readers amid today’s complicated media environment. Because readers want to walk with, weep with, and triumph with potent characters we’ll cover how to give readers powerful emotional experiences. It all starts at the word level, making robust choices for resonance, potency, and an immersive reality.

About Jessica Morrell

Jessica Morrell juggles gigs as an author, developmental editor, and instructor. She understands both sides of the editorial desk as an author and developmental editor-slash-story whisperer. Her clients include best-selling authors and she brings a deeply practical approach to teaching and writes with depth, wit, and clarity on topics related to writing. Morrell is the author of Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us, A (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing is Being Rejected; Bullies, Bastards & Bitches, How to Write the Bad Guys in Fiction; The Writer’s I Ching: Wisdom for the Creative Life; Voices from the Street; Between the Lines: Master The Subtle Elements Of Fiction Writing; and Writing Out the Storm. Her work also appears in magazines and was featured in nine anthologies. Morrell is a popular speaker at writers’ conferences in North America and Ireland.

Morrell lives not far from Portland, Oregon, where she is surrounded by writers, rivers, and mountains. She gardens, hikes, and watches the sky in all its moods.

Two of the books by Jessica Morrell:

https://twitter.com/JessicaPMorrell

About Your Chapter Meeting

Willamette Writers meetings are free and open to all writers, 18 and up. Guests are welcome to make a donation at https://willamettewriters.org/donations/ to help support the cost of the meetings. For information on how to become a Willamette Writers member, click here: https://willamettewriters.org/register/individual/

Wellness

Willamette Writers continue to encourage mask-wearing at our in-person, indoor meetings. If you feel sick, please stay home and join us at one of our online Chapter Meetings.

Young Writers

Young writers are encouraged to join our Young Willamette Writers meetings. Sign Up! Any high school or middle-grade writers are welcome to join us. Sign up for our email list at: http://eepurl.com/hRubBf. A registration link will be sent to our email list before our next meeting.

See you there!