Discover your story cosmos.
Discover your story cosmos.
Your manuscript reveals pages of a story jam-packed with the blood, sweat, and joys of your imagination. They just don't hold together. Daybreak Lit offers storytelling tools, courses, and community for first-time novelists and writers stuck mid-draft.
You know something is missing.
take the
WRITER's Mirror
quiz
Storytelling can be difficult and incredible. It takes time to do all the things. It’s all in—conducting interviews, researching, outlining, crafting sentences, shaping paragraphs, rewriting, and rewriting some more.
The process goes more smoothly when you develop a framework built from Six Elements: Mood, Power, Pace, Sound, Era, and Culture. It isn't static. and it reveals the heart of what you want to say. This is the amazing story cosmos.
What is a story cosmos?
write from the heart.
The Six Elements
The Six Elements
don't let white space torment you when your start writing. Create a robust story and an unforgettable world.
your dreams are waiting
We enjoy layered stories. Stories you pull apart like stacked frosted cakes and dissect like Mom’s Thanksgiving cornbread dressing. Wonders happen with the stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse.
daybreak lit services
introducing...
What's your writing style?
know yourself as a writer
Six types of writers. One of them may explain where you get stuck in your story process.
take the
WRITER's Mirror
quiz
Ways we can work together...
You're just starting: Join the free Skool community and try the free world-building tool.
You're stuck mid-draft: The $27 Pacing GPT and $97 writing course featuring the Six Elements can pull you out of the messy middle.
You want guidance: 1:1 coaching, manuscript editing, and the Under the Stars live workshops.
Editing services
Daybreak Lit offers a second set of eyes. If you like this metaphor better, we’re the sous chef in your content kitchen. We’ll throw down with the editing like you want it. Mild. Medium. Spicy.
Mild: a free five-page sample edit. See how I work before you commit. (One sample per writer, double-spaced pages.)
Medium: a line edit and copyedit for clarity, flow, and voice.
Spicy: a development edit using the Six Elements.
I've spent my professional career finding what's missing in a story. Reporting taught me how to spot the gaps. Editing made me better at it, and taught me to discover the surprises. Since 2008, I've grown my company, Daybreak Lit, into a space to help writers fill in the gaps and notice the surprises in their own work.
“I am always amazed at how judith guides an author from idea to publication. Her vision is her superpower.”
- publisher
How Daybreak Lit uses AI in storytelling.
Sometimes you write in the dark. A glimmer of ideas guide you before the words cream into an icky mush. It's the birthing of a story and only humans do that.
AI can help you move faster with custom tools developed by Judy Howard Ellis at Daybreak Lit. You can check your pacing, work on your world-building, or use prompts to inspire ideas from the Six Elements.
But the craft of telling a story that runs from soul to page? That's all you.
