Le Guin generously shares the accumulated wisdom of a lifetime's work.

    Offers advice for would-be science fiction writers, covering such topics as setting, plot, character, and dialogue, as well as the mechanics of grammar, tense, sentence structure, and paragraph transition.

    She’ll reveal in a humorous, yet effective, manner how she keeps her focus and has managed to publish one or two stories each month consistently for over five years. In this easy-to-read book, you’ll learn to retrain how you think and new habits to help you become productive in a few simple ways by: Identifying Your Problem Making a Plan Being Accountable Staying Focused Sticking to a Schedule Staying Productive Using short exercises in each section, you will begin to understand how to put into practice what you’ll learn in this book. **This is a quick and effective 12,000-word guide meant to cut through the fat and get straight to the meat so you can get back to writing!**

     Are you finally committed to writing that novel or screenplay, but have no idea how to get started? Or are you a published author, but know you need some plotting help to move your books and career up to that next level? You CAN write better books and scripts—by learning from the movies. Screenwriting is based on a simple (and powerful) structure that you already know from watching so many movies and television shows in your lifetime. And it's a structure that your reader or audience unconsciously expects, and that is crucial for you to deliver. In this workbook, award-winning author/screenwriter Alexandra Sokoloff shows you how to jump-start your plot and bring your characters and scenes vibrantly alive on the page by watching your favorite movies and learning from the storytelling structure and tricks of great filmmakers: • The High Concept Premise • The Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure • The Storyboard Grid • The Index Card Method of Plotting • The Setpiece Scene • Techniques of film pacing and suspense, character arc and drive, visual storytelling, and building image systems. Based on the internationally acclaimed Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshops and blog, this new e book edition uses an enhanced format and layout, incorporates all the basic information from the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbook and doubles the material, including ten full story breakdowns. Also available in PRINT --- the textbook-quality edition is 8 x 10 inches and lies open flat for easy highlighting and note-taking.

    Also included is a bonus section of 100 free (and almost free) ways to promote your ebook.+ How to write a novella in 24 hours+ How to start building your empire+ How long should a story be?+ How to write a bestselling novel on your iPhone+ The secret to making a book cover (that mostly doesn’t suck) in 10 minutes or less+ Why you're staring at a blank screen+ One Weird Trick to Boost Your Creativity+ Your worst idea may be your greatest+ Managing criticism+ The Curse of a Creative Mind+ 100 free (and almost free) ways to promote you ebook

    Musicians practice. As a writer you need to do the same. Whether you have dreams of writing a novel or a memoir or a collection of poems, or you simply want to improve your everyday writing, this innovative book will show you how to build your skills by way of practice.Through playful and purposeful exercises, you'll develop your natural aptitude for communication, strengthening your ability to come up with things to say, and your ability to get those things into the minds (and the hearts) of readers. You'll learn to:- Train and develop your writer's powers--creativity, memory, observation, imagination, curiosity, and the subconscious - Understand the true nature of the relationship between you and your readers - Find your writer's voice - Get required writing projects done so you have more time for the writing you want to do - And much more Empowering and down-to-earth, How to Be a Writer gives you the tools you need, and tells you what (and how) to practice so that you can become the writer you want to be.

    As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with--specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable--and essential--to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction.

    It keeps readers guessing and characters on their toes. When you've got tension in place, stories leave readers breathless and wanting more. When it's missing, scenes feel inconsequential, plots drag, and characters meander.Learning the craft of writing can sometimes feel like a paint by numbers approach--connect compelling character A to plot event B. To avoid writing that's formulaic, predictable, and slow, How to Write a Page Turner will help you sew the threads of tension tight for an unforgettable story. You'll learn how to:- Recognize the essential tension elements of danger, conflict, uncertainty, and withholding, and add them to your fiction - Create levels of tension in your characters through flaws, dialogue, power struggles, and more - Build tension at energetic markers throughout the plot - Use intimate imagery, strong sentences, and well-chosen words to build tension in expositionWhile this book walks you through the key areas that need tension building, from character to plot, it also delves deeper, analyzing exceptional examples from contemporary fiction's most gripping page-turners. So as you dive into the inner conflicts of a character's deepest psyche, to the mechanics of how you reveal information to the reader, you'll also discover how to craft a story your readers can't put down!

    Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, by professional freelance author, editor, and proofreader Kathy Ide, is the essential go-to tool for aspiring and experienced writers and editors. This book includes all of the material from Ide's popular Polishing the PUGS book (now out of print), with added PUGS guidelines and helpful tips from multi-published authors on how to catch typos and other common mistakes. In Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors, Kathy Ide identifies the industry-standard references for books, magazines, and newspapers (which are different from the guidelines for other types of writing, such as college term papers). Using these official references, she highlights the most common mistakes writers make in the areas of punctuation, usage, grammar, and spelling (for which she uses the acronym PUGS). She also includes guidelines from The Christian Writer's Manual of Style for authors and editors who work in the inspirational market.

    In The Magic Words, editor Cheryl B. Klein guides writers on an enjoyable and practical-minded voyage of their own, from developing a saleable premise for a novel to finding a dream agent. She delves deep into the major elements of fiction—intention, character, plot, and voice—while addressing important topics like diversity, world-building, and the differences between middle-grade and YA novels. In addition, the book’s exercises, questions, and straightforward rules of thumb help writers apply these insights to their own creative works. With its generous tone and useful tools for story analysis and revision, The Magic Words is an essential handbook for writers of children’s and young adult fiction.

    No other writing craft book teaches you the secret of how to "show, don't tell." Best-selling authors of every genre know the secret to hooking readers—by showing, not telling, their story. But writers are not taught how to “show” scenes in a cinematic way. Without a clear, concise, and precise method for constructing dynamic scenes, a writer will likely end up with a flat, lifeless novel. Filmmakers, screenwriters, and movie directors utilize cinematic technique to create visual masterpieces, and novelists can too—by adapting their methods in their fiction writing. By “shooting” your novel, you can supercharge your story! Sol Stein, in his book Stein on Writing said, “Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience . . . is increasingly visual.” Novelists today—regardless of genre—need to learn cinematic storytelling because that's what readers want! Inside, you’ll learn: The real secret to “show, don’t tell” and how it’s all about “the moment” More than a dozen “camera shots” novelists can borrow from screenwriters and directors to create powerful, active scenes Instruction on how to piece camera shots together to create cinematic scene segments Examples from novels and screenplays showcasing each facet of cinematic technique How to devise a thematic image system of key shots, motifs, and images Ways to use colors, shapes, sounds, and angles for purposeful subliminal effect Shooting your novel with a filmmaker’s eye will transform your good novel into a great one and will change forever the way you approach constructing your scenes. No other book gives you such deep, thorough instruction in cinematic storytelling for fiction writing. Here's what some best writing instructors and best-selling authors have to say about this essential novel writing book: “With such an extensive amount of experience in the screenwriting process (since childhood), it comes as no surprise that C. S .Lakin writes with a trustworthy authority and wealth of insight when it comes to the craft of building dynamic scenes within novels. The pace and flow of Shoot Your Novel makes it easy to follow and the various tips and pointers strewn throughout are succinct. Of particular note is the smart curation of novel excerpts, authors, and filmmakers she cites as examples for the tips she suggests. If you have trouble understanding some of the pointers/tips theoretically, the excerpts always make it more clear. Having myself adapted The War of the Roses for both film and stage I can say that I have actually used quite a few of the techniques Lakin discusses and the one I like the most is the use of portraying "daydreaming" when writing from the POV of a character, effectively blending past, present, and future in one single scene—there is a lot of this going on in The War of the Roses and it is one of the aspects of the story flow that has made the rendering of the character a success.

    This simple guide—written by two awardwinning romance novelists—will show readers what it takes to break into this highly competitive market and will provide them the information they need to get their manuscript out of the slush pile and onto the bookshelf. Readers will learn how to do the following techniques: build a story from premise to plot; add a fresh twist to a classic storyline; create compelling characters; write sizzling sex scenes that carry an emotional punch; research agents and markets; write a story that an editor can’t reject; and promote themselves and their work. New writers, and even experienced writers, will find the solid howto information here invaluable. This is a musthave for aspiring writers who want to write the perfect love story.

    This opinion, commonplace among published as well as aspiring writers, struck Nisi as taking the easy way out and spurred her to write an essay addressing the problem of how to write about characters marked by racial and ethnic differences. In the course of writing the essay, however, she realized that similar problems arise when writers try to create characters whose gender, sexual preference, and age differ significantly from their own. Nisi and Cynthia collaborated to develop a workshop that addresses these problems with the aim of both increasing writers' skill and sensitivity in portraying difference in their fiction as well as allaying their anxieties about ''getting it wrong.'' Writing the Other: A Practical Approach is the manual that grew out of their workshop. It discusses basic aspects of characterization and offers elementary techniques, practical exercises, and examples for helping writers create richer and more accurate characters with ''differences.''

    This aspect of romance writing is so often neglected, usually with disastrous results; a novel that reads like a badly written script. Fortunately, there's now a way for any writer, regardless of their experience, to get a huge head-start writing in this profitable genre. It's a secret resource that romance writers don't want you to know about! Dahlia Evans has compiled a romance writing thesaurus unlike anything ever published. This reference book is filled to the brim with words and phrases gathered from hundreds of bestselling romance novels. Using this book you will be able to describe intimate encounters of every kind without breaking a sweat.Inside You'll Discover:# 8,500 words and phrases sorted into 37 categories.# Thousands of words you can use to describe each part of the body.# Words that describe each of the five senses; taste, touch, sight, sound, smell.# Words to describe feelings and emotions.# Words that describe facial expressions.# Hundreds of words to describe intimacy.'Thinking Like A Romance Writer' is the culmination of hundreds of hours of research and is a book destined to become a classic in the field of romance writing instruction.

     Jesse has self-published two books, which are both #1 bestsellers on track to generate $30,000 per year in passive income. Beyond book sales, Jesse has leveraged his books to build a business that earned over six figures in its first year. Other part-time authors are doing far better, earning six, or even seven figures per year. Many have leveraged their books to build multimillion-dollar business ventures. This wasn't possible ten years ago, but the publishing industry has changed. People are finding unparalleled freedom and wealth through writing, and you can too. Authorpreneur will show you how. Inside Authorpreneur, you’ll learn: Why writing a book is the new PhD How a book can make you rich, credible, and immortal The three critical traits to succeed as a writer Why everyone is a salesman The 50% Rule The three approaches to finding a marketable topic to write about How to find contractors for quality book production How to choose a title that doesn’t suck How to get reviews before launching When to launch, and what to do AFTER it’s over ...plus so much more. What are you waiting for? It’s time to write your book.