Book picks similar to
The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction by Robert Boswell
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The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer
Sandra Scofield - 2007
In clear, simple language, Sandra Scofield shows both the beginner and the seasoned writer how to build better scenes, the underpinning of any good narrative.
The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script
David Trottier - 1994
A standard by which other screenwriting books are measured, it has sold over 200,000 copies in its twenty-year life. Always up-to-date and reliable, it contains everything that both the budding ... Available here:blubbu.com/download?i=1935247107The Screenwriter's Bible, 6th Edition: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script (Expanded & Updated) PDF by David TrottierRead The Screenwriter's Bible, 6th Edition: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script (Expanded & Updated) PDF from Silman-James Press,David TrottierDownload David Trottier’s PDF E-book The Screenwriter's Bible, 6th Edition: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script (Expanded & Updated)
Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
Brenda Miller - 2003
A series of lessons on writing and creating non-fiction
5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter
Chris Fox - 2015
5,000 Words Per Hour also has a companion app available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch! The fastest way to succeed as an author is to write more books. How do you do that with a day job, family, school or all your other time commitments? The secret is efficiency. 5K WPH will help you maximize your writing time by building effective habits that both measure and increase your writing speed. - Create an effective writing habit - Track and improve your Words Per Hour - Stop the endless editing and tinkering so you can finish your draft - Use voice dictation software to dramatically increase words per hour. It’s time to shift your writing into high gear.
The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
Lajos Egri - 1942
Lajos Egri's classic, The Art of Dramatic Writing, does just that, with instruction that can be applied equally well to a short story, novel, or screenplay. Examining a play from the inside out, Egri starts with the heart of any drama: its characters. All good dramatic writing hinges on people and their relationships, which serve to move the story forward and give it life, as well as an understanding of human motives - why people act the way that they do. Using examples from everything from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Egri shows how it is essential for the author to have a basic premise - a thesis, demonstrated in terms of human behavior - and to develop the dramatic conflict on the basis of that behavior.Using Egri's ABCs of premise, character, and conflict, The Art of Dramatic Writing is a direct, jargon-free approach to the problem of achieving truth in writing.
The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children
Nancy Lamb - 2001
Nancy Lamb can help you achieve that dream. She mixes insightful advice for mastering storytelling with dozens of examples that illustrate a variety of plot-building techniques.Nancy's instruction covers everything from format and content to setting and characterization. She also draws from a range of children's classics, including "Where the Wild Things Are," "Charlotte's Web" and "Bridge to Tarabithia" to explore and illuminate the unique nature of children's literature.Nancy also shares writing tips and tricks accumulated through years of successful storytelling–invaluable advice for crafting fiction that resonates with children of all ages, from 4 to 14 and beyond.
Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules
Steven James - 2013
With Story Trumps Structure, you can shed those rules - about three-act structure, rising action, outlining, and more - to craft your most powerful, emotional, and gripping stories.Award-winning novelist Steven James explains how to trust the narrative process to make your story believable, compelling, and engaging, and debunks the common myths that hold writers back from creating their best work.
Ditch your outline and learn to write organically.
Set up promises for readers - and deliver on them.
Discover how to craft a satisfying climax.
Master the subtleties of characterization.
Add mind-blowing twists to your fiction.
When you focus on what lies at the heart of story - tension, desire, crisis, escalation, struggle, discovery - rather than plot templates and formulas, you'll begin to break out of the box and write fiction that resonates with your readers. Story Trumps Structure will transform the way you think about stories and the way you write them, forever.
This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World
Kerri Majors - 2013
Maybe you've just discovered your love of words and dream of being a novelist someday. Maybe you've been filling notebooks with science-fiction stories since middle school. Maybe you're contemplating a liberal arts degree, but you don't know what the heck you're going to do with it. The last thing you need is another preachy writing manual telling you how you should write.This book isn't a writing manual. It is a series of candid and irreverent essays on the writing life, from a writer who's lived it. Kerri Majors shares stories from her own life that offer insights on the realities all writers face: developing a writing voice, finding a real job (and yes, you do need to find one), taking criticism, getting published, and dealing with rejection.Don't have enough time to write? Learn how to plan your days to fit it all in. Not sure how your guilty pleasures and bad habits translate into literature? Kerri explains how soap operas and eavesdropping can actually help your writing. Need a reader for your first novel? Find a writing buddy or a writing group that will support you. Nervous about submitting your first piece? Learn from Kerri's own roller coaster journey to find an agent and get published. This Is Not a Writing Manual is the writing memoir for young writers who want to use their talents in the real world.ATTENTION TEACHERS! The Teacher's Edition for This Is Not a Writing Manual is now available! This FREE supplemental PDF includes a series of lesson plans and writing class essentials that will improve the writing of students in middle and high school--and beyond. To access, e-mail us at writersdigest@fwmedia.com to receive your free download, or visit Kerri Majors's website.
Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them)
Marcia Riefer Johnston - 2013
It’s an eclectic collection of essays, more inspiration guide than style guide, complete with three indexes and a satisfyingly chunky glossary of terms related to grammar and usage. Word Up! does what too few books on writing do: it practices while preaching, shows while telling, uses powerful writing to talk about powerful writing.Do you read as much for pleasure as for information? Do you teach or study the craft of writing? If so, this book belongs on your shelf.
The Elements of Story: Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing
Francis Flaherty - 2009
But it could also be of great use to the intelligent common reader, the man or woman who wonders why it’s impossible to finish reading certain stories and why others carry the reader in a vivid rush to the end.”—Pete Hamill, author of A Drinking Life In the spirit of Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, comes The Elements of Story, by Francis Flaherty, longtime story editor at The New York Times. A brilliant blend of memoir and how-to, The Elements of Story offers more than 50 principles that emphasize storytelling aspects rather than simply the mechanics of writing—a relentlessly entertaining, totally accessible writing guide for the novice and the professional alike.
Editor-Proof Your Writing: 21 Steps to the Clear Prose Publishers and Agents Crave
Don McNair - 2013
McNair explains the common mistakes made by most writers and shows how eliminating unnecessary words strengthens action, shorten sentences, and makes writing crackle with life. Containing 21 simple, straightforward principles, Editor-Proof Your Writing teaches how to edit weak verb forms, strip away author intrusions, ban redundancies, eliminate foggy phrases, correct passive-voice sentences, slash misused and overused words, and fix other writing mistakes. A superb addition to any writer’s toolkit, this book will not only make writing clearer and more grammatical, it will also make it more concise, entertaining, and appealing to publishers.
4 A.M. Breakthrough: Unconventional Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction
Brian Kiteley - 2009
Behind the theory of exercises is an attitude of curiosity and expectancy, a desire to ask questions of yourself and of the world, to boldly—or not so boldly—stick a toe into the waters of something fresh, provocative, and exhilarating. To create fiction on the verge.In The 4 A.M. Breakthrough, companion to The 3 A.M. Epiphany, award-winning author and professor Brian Kiteley presents you with another 200 stimulating exercises, designed to help you expand your understanding of the problems and processes of more complex, satisfying fiction and to challenge you to produce works of which you never thought yourself capable.You'll learn how to:Train your writing instincts, so creation becomes a more organic, automatic processTackle challenging concepts and themes, such as Language Games, The Mind, Money & Class, and History, laying a foundation for larger, more significant writing projectsMake your writing process more fun and experimental, so you'll approach your fiction in the spirit of discovery, rather than with anxietyOpen the book. Choose an exercise. Surprise yourself.Anything can happen—even at 4 a.m.
Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular
Lawrence Rust Hills - 1977
Long considered a classic in the field, WRITING IN GENERAL is the product of a lifetime of reflection by one of our best literary minds.
Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing
Elmore Leonard - 2006
From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like "writing" (rewrite).Beautifully designed, filled with free-flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer's—and reader's—gift.
Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor
Lynda Barry - 2014
I had no idea that nearly 40 years later, I would not only still be using it as the most reliable route to the thing I've come to call my work, but I'd also be showing others how to use it too, as a place to practice a physical activity — in this case writing and drawing by hand — with a certain state of mind.This practice can result in what I've come to consider a wonderful side effect: a visual or written image we can call 'a work of art,' although a work of art is not what I'm after when I'm practicing this activity.What am I after? I'm after what Marilyn Frasca called "being present and seeing what's there."This book is a collection of bits and pieces from the many notebooks I kept during my first three years of trying to figure out how to teach this practice to my students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison."