In this all-in-one resource, you'll discover essential novel-writing techniques, such as:How to best structure your research so that you can save time laterHow to card your story before you start writingWhat to consider when developing your cast of charactersHow to adapt classic story structures to fit your own ideas...and insider information on what it takes to get published, including:What agents do at those three-hour power lunches--and how it affects youWhat makes an agent instantly reject a manuscriptHow to correctly translate submission guidelinesWhat happens if you get multiple offers--or no offers at allPlus, learn about the publishing process from the firsthand accounts of such noted authors as Dennis Lehane, Kathryn Harrison, Jim Fusilli, Kathleen George, and others!

    It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.Writers are just like everyone else—except for one big difference. Most people go through life experiencing daily thoughts and feelings, noticing and observing the world around them. But writers record these thoughts and observations. They react. And they need a special place to record those reactions.  Perfect for classrooms, A Writer’s Notebook gives budding writers a place to keep track of all the little things they notice every day. Young writers will love these useful tips for how to use notes and jottings to create stories and poems of their own.

    Includes interviews with hundreds of publishing insiders and authors, including Seth Godin, Neil Gaiman, Amy Bloom, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Lopate, plus agents, editors, and booksellers; sidebars featuring real-life publishing success stories; sample proposals, query letters, and an entirely updated resources and publishers directory.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Punctuation reveals the writer: haphazard commas, for example, reveal haphazard thinking; clear, lucid breaks reveal clear, lucid thinking. Punctuation can be used to teach the writer how to think and how to write. This short, practical book shows authors the benefits that can be reaped from mastering punctuation: the art of style, sentence length, meaning, and economy of words. There are full-length chapters devoted to the period, the comma, the semicolon, the colon, quotation marks, the dash and parentheses, the paragraph and section break, and a cumulative chapter on integrating them all into "The Symphony of Punctuation." Filled with exercises and examples from literary masters (Why did Poe and Melville rely on the semicolon? Why did Hemingway embrace the period?), A Dash of Style is interactive, highly engaging, and a necessity for creative writers as well as for anyone looking to make punctuation their friend instead of their mysterious foe.

    His 1990 National Book Award-winning novel Middle Passage is a modern classic, revered as much for its daring plot as its philosophical underpinnings. For thirty-three years, Johnson taught and mentored students in the art and craft of creative writing. The Way of the Writer is his record of those years, and the coda to a kaleidoscopic, boundary-shattering career. Organized into six accessible, easy-to-navigate sections, The Way of the Writer is both a literary reflection on the creative impulse and a utilitarian guide to the writing process. Johnson shares his lessons and exercises from the classroom, starting with word choice, sentence structure, and narrative voice, and delving into the mechanics of scene, dialogue, plot and storytelling before exploring the larger questions at stake for the serious writer. What separates literature from industrial fiction? What lies at the heart of the creative impulse? How does one navigate the literary world? And how are philosophy and fiction concomitant? Luminous, inspiring, and imminently accessible, The Way of the Writer is a revelatory glimpse into the mind of the writer and an essential guide for anyone with a story to tell.

    Non-fiction, writing, how-to book.

    In his highly personal and compelling style, DeMarinis shares advice, classic examples and exercises in this definitive book on the short story.

    Letters, photographs, drawings, even candy wrappers, phone bills, and other scattered mementos will be strikingly presented in this smartly designed volume. Using the same research team that previously published the unknown letters of Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Dickens's notebook, Harold Pinter's blues lyrics, and a nude shot of Alan Ginsberg, How I Write offers unpublished and unseen material illuminating the secret lives of authors. A must-have for the growing fan base of McSweeny's and other literary magazines, the book, designed by legendary and award-winning art director Vince Frost, will also be a perfect gift for all writers, readers, and anyone interested in books, ideas, and design.

    There's more to it than just a detective, a dead body, and Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the candlestick. Fortunately, Larry Beinhart--Edgar Award-winning author of You Get What You Pay For, Foreign Exchange, and American Hero--has taken a break from writing smart, suspenseful thrillers to act as your guide through all the twists and turns of creating the twists and turns of a good mystery. Drawing on advice and examples from a host of the best names in mystery writing--from Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane to Scott Turow and Thomas Harris--plus some of his own prime plots, Larry Beinhart introduces you to your most indispensable partners in crime: *Character, plot, and procedure * The secrets to creating heroes, heroines, and villains ("All writers draw upon themselves and their experience. While the whole of yourself might not be capable of being either a serial killer or an FBI agent, there are parts in each of us that are capable of almost anything.") * The fine art of scripting the sex scene *The low-down on violence ("A crime novel without violence is like smoking pot without inhaling, sex without orgasm, or a hug without a squeeze." ) *And much more!From the opening hook to the final denouement, Larry Beinhart takes the mystery out of being a mystery writer.

    As soon as you name an emotion, readers go into thinking mode. And when they think about an emotion, they distance themselves from feeling it. A great way to show anger, fear, indifference, and the whole range of emotions that characterize the human experience, is through beats. These action snippets that pepper dialogue can help describe a wide range of emotions while avoiding lazy writing. The power of beats lies in their innate ability to create richer, more immediate, deeper writing. This emotional thesaurus includes hundreds of examples that you can use for your inspiration, so that you, too, can harness this technique to easily convert your writing into palpable feelings. Genre fiction authors can use Emotional Beat as a feeling thesaurus and watch their writing take off! Emotional Beats was an award-winning Finalist in the IPA 2017 Awards.

    The journey from beginning to end is rife with forks in the road and dead ends that lead many writers off course. With Writing Your Novel from Start to Finish: A Guidebook for the Journey, you'll navigate the intricacies of crafting a complex work of fiction and complete the journey with confidence and precision.To maximize your creativity and forward momentum, each chapter offers:Techniques to break down the elements of the novel--from character-building to plotting and pacingMile Markers to anticipate and overcome roadblocks like ineffective dialogue and "the unchanged protagonist"Guidelines for Going Deeper to explore and implement more nuanced aspects of storytelling, such as finding your voice and the role of themeTry-It-Out Exercises and 27 interactive worksheets that help elevate your writing.No matter your level of experience or where you are in your project, Writing Your Novel from Start to Finish provides the instruction, inspiration, and guidance you need to complete your journey successfully.

    In Part One, she defines the genre, concentrating on core elements of the category, from developing ideas and building character profiles to researching crimes and selecting point of view. Following her examples and exercises, readers will begin to create their own story as they construct an outline filled with hooks, cliffhangers, intriguing characters and red herrings. In Part Two, she offers expert advice for editing, revising and submitting a top-notch manuscript.

    This practical book is a step-by-step guide to becoming a successful graphic storyteller, showing how to create exciting plots and engaging characters that will delight young readers.Topics feature a wide range of genres, from fantasy and fairy tales to action-packed adventure, and offers guidance on how to tailor work to suit different age groups. The Encyclopedia of Writing and Illustrating Children's Books also features a special section on the commercial realities of the children's publishing industry, with tips on presenting and promoting work, and includes a gallery of inspirational examples from renowned children's writers and illustrators.

    Stephen King, Hemingway, Vonnegut, and Orwell detest it. Herman Melville, Henry James, and Rebecca Solnit love it. But why? When is it effective? Have we been misusing it? Should we even care?In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark, which for years was the trendiest one in the world of letters. But in the nineteenth century, as grammar books became all the rage, the rules of how we use language became both stricter and more confusing, with the semicolon a prime victim. Taking us on a breezy journey through a range of examples—from Milton’s manuscripts to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep—Watson reveals how traditional grammar rules make us less successful at communicating with each other than we’d think. Even the most die-hard grammar fanatics would be better served by tossing the rule books and learning a better way to engage with language.Through her rollicking biography of the semicolon, Watson writes a guide to grammar that explains why we don’t need guides at all, and refocuses our attention on the deepest, most primary value of language: true communication.