Stone, a former assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, draws on his experience as novelist, writing instructor, and military officer to help get you and your writing into tip-top shape.This boot-camp-in-a-book includes 101 carefully crafted drills designed to show you how to:Identify and develop story ideas with laser-like perceptionCreate realistic "alpha" characters who can take charge of any sceneKnow what motivates your protagonist's enemy so that you can amp up the conflictOutline your story to avoid sneak attacks from flawed plot twistsDodge the land mines of bad writing like Deadly Modifier Buildup (DMBU)Triage your scenes to ensure a thorough and precise revision processPlus, there's a twelve-week boot camp battle plan that you can use to stay the course and finish your novel.Novelist's Boot Camp provides you with all the ammunition you need to approach your work with dedication, confidence, and skill. Now, report for duty and start writing that bestseller!

    A LOT OF THESE SCREENWRITING BOOKS LIKE TO FILL YOUR HEAD WITH FALSE PROMISES AND EASY TRICKS. BUT IT’S SO DAMN FAR FROM THE OBVIOUS TRUTH: BECOMING A TALENTED WRITER TAKES A LONG TIME AND A LOT OF HARD WORK. THEY ALSO CONVENIENTLY FORGET TO MENTION THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU. THERE ARE OVER A MILLION SCRIPTS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD. HULK HAS READ, OH... A COUPLE THOUSAND OF THEM. AND NEARLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON HULK MEETS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY ALREADY HAS A SCRIPT OF SOME SORT. NOT ONLY DOES THE SHEER VOLUME OF SCRIPTS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH ONESELF IN THIS CLIMATE, BUT SO DOES THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALREADY A VAST NUMBER OF TALENTED, PROFESSIONAL WRITERS IN NEED OF WORK. SO GIVEN ALL THESE CRIPPLING ODDS, WE SHOULD ALL JUST GIVE UP, RIGHT? WELL, NO. YOU’RE NOT HERE READING THIS BECAUSE THAT REALITY BOTHERS YOU. AND THAT’S THE THING ABOUT THE MOVIES: THEY’RE WONDERFUL. THEY’RE THE IMAGINATION OF STORYTELLING MADE TANGIBLE. THEY’RE OUR DREAMS MADE REAL. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF ALL THAT? FILM CRIT HULK WAS CREATED IN A CHAOTIC LAB EXPERIMENT INVOLVING GAMMA RADIATION, THE GHOST OF PAULINE KAEL, AND TELEPODS FOR SOME REASON. NOW HULK HAS A DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE OF CINEMA WHEREIN HULK RECOGNIZES THE INHERENT VALUES OF POPULAR, NARRATIVE, OR EXPERIMENTAL STYLES! THROUGH A UNIQUE JOURNEY, HULK HAS ENDED UP WORKING IN HOLLYWOOD FOR OVER A DECADE AND NOW WRITES ABOUT CINEMA AND STORYTELLING IN THOROUGHLY HULK-SIZED FASHION. AND NOW YOU HOLD IN YOUR HANDS / HAVE ON YOUR SCREEN / WHATEVER IN YOUR WHATEVER, THE FIRST EBOOK BY FILM CRIT HULK. THE ONLY THING IT MEANS TO BE IS HELPFUL. Free sentence case version included!

    In  Revision Decisions: Talking Through Sentences and Beyond,  authors Jeff Anderson and Deborah Dean create a book to help teachers simplify the revision process and start building students' writing and reading skills.In this book, Anderson and Dean use mentor texts to show the myriad possibilities that exist for revision. You will also find:How students find the "why" by talking through revisions during group and classroom discussions Easy-to-follow lessons and exercises to lead student discourse during rewrites and make challenging writing processes accessibleTeacher Tips to help apply new knowledge and develop both the writer and the writingReading and writing practices that keep the goals of Common Core and other standards in mindThe noted language arts teacher James Britton once said that good writing “floats on a sea of talk.” Revision Decisions supports those genuine conversations we naturally have as readers and writers, leading the way to the essential goal of making meaning.

    In a series of first-person letters, essays, manifestos, and notes to the reader, Kim Stafford shows what might happen at the creative boundary he calls "what we almost know." On the boundary's far side is our story, our poem, our song. On this side are the resonant hunches, griefs, secrets, and confusions from which our writing will emerge. Guiding us from such glimmerings through to a finished piece are a wealth of experiments, assignments, and tricks of the trade that Stafford has perfected over thirty years of classes, workshops, and other gatherings of writers.Informing The Muses Among Us are Stafford's own convictions about writing--principles to which he returns again and again. We must, Stafford says, honor the fragments, utterances, and half-discovered truths voiced around us, for their speakers are the prophets to whom writers are scribes. Such filaments of wisdom, either by themselves or alloyed with others, give rise to our poems, stories, and essays. In addition, as Stafford writes, "all pleasure in writing begins with a sense of abundance--rich knowledge and boundless curiosity." By recommending ways for students to seek beyond the self for material, Stafford demystifies the process of writing and claims for it a Whitmanesque quality of participation and community.

    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

    The truth about the act of writing is much more varied, even violent. In fact, there seem to be as many contradictory admonitions about how to go about doing it as there are writers themselves.With that in mind, writer Sophy Burnham has collected the thoughts of some of the greatest writers and laced them with her own observations and experiences of the writer's life. With an emphasis on the emotions that writing wrings from those who practice it, Burnham writes about beginning a work prematurely, the ecstasy when the writing is really flowing, the crash that can follow the flight and how to pick yourself up and continue.Here you will find the motto Zola kept in his workroom (No day without lines), where Agatha Christie plotted her books (in the bathtub eating apples), and what James Thurber's wife replied when a dinner guest observed a strange expression on her husband's face (Don't be concerned. He's only writing). Most of all, you will be reassured, enlightened, and inspired to learn that, in your own writing struggles, you are not alone.

    Both an introduction to film study and a practical writing guide, this brief text introduces students to film terms and the major film theories, enabling them to write more critically. With numerous student and professional examples along the way, this engaging and practical guide progresses from taking notes and writing first drafts to creating polished essays and comprehensive research projects. Moving from movie reviews to theoretical and critical essays, the text demonstrates how an analysis of a film becomes more subtle and rigorous as part of a compositional process.

    Try a little Second Sight. In this collection of talks, a professional editor offers insights from the other side of the publishing desk on a wide range of writerly topics: * Terrific first lines and how they got that way * What makes a strong picture book manuscript * Why the Harry Potter series was such a tremendous success * Finding the emotional heart of your story * Worksheets and checklists for building characters and bolstering plot * The Annotated Query Letter from Hell * And an Annotated Query Letter That Does It Right With its wit, intelligence, and practical tools for analyzing and revising your work, Second Sight will be a first resource for writers of children's and young adult fiction. This book has not been endorsed or approved by J. K. Rowling or any of her publishers or representatives, and all thoughts expressed here on all matters, including the Harry Potter series, are solely Cheryl B. Klein's own, and should not be taken as the official opinions, intentions, or interpretations of any of the writers or publishers mentioned.

    Even so, many writers are stymied in getting their books published, never mind gaining significant attention for their ideas—and substantial sales. This is the book editors have been recommending to would-be authors. Filled with trade secrets, Thinking Like Your Editor explains:• why every proposal should ask and answer five key questions;• how to tailor academic writing to a general reader, without losing ideas or dumbing down your work;• how to write a proposal that editors cannot ignore;• why the most important chapter is your introduction;• why "simple structure, complex ideas" is the mantra for creating serious nonfiction;• why smart nonfiction editors regularly reject great writing but find new arguments irresistible.Whatever the topic, from history to business, science to philosophy, law, or gender studies, this book is vital to every serious nonfiction writer.

    The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, motivation/obstacle/conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. He includes guides for discovering what the playwright considers the play’s most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details.Using Hamlet as illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for illustrating script-reading techniques as well as examples of the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists) Backwards and Forwards is also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.

    Want to sell more books on the world's biggest retailer? Fancy Amazon doing the selling for you instead? Amazon Decoded: A Marketing Guide to the Kindle Store will show you how.*Learn what Visibility Marketing is and how understanding Amazon's philosophy can boost your sales.*Discover the algorithms that really go into Sales Rank and dispel some remarkably common myths.*Decode the ways Amazon recommends millions of books to readers every single day.*Implement proven marketing plans, optimized for maximum Amazon visibility.Whether you are exclusive to Amazon and chasing those page reads, or a wide author trying to survive the onslaught of Kindle Unlimited titles, Amazon Decoded will share the secrets of the Kindle Store and how you can sell more books.

    An accurate and accessible survey of modern psychological theory and practice, this reference offers professional writers practical advice for incorporating psychological elements into their work.

    Brian McDonald, an award winning screenwriter who has taught his craft at several major studios, supplies writers with tools to make their work more effective and provides readers and audiences a deeper understanding of the storyteller's art. When people think of a screenplay, they usually think about dialogue-the "visible ink" that is readily accessible to the listener, reader, or viewer. But a successful screenplay needs Invisible Ink as well, the craft below the surface of words. Invisible Ink lays out the essential elements of screenplay structure, using vivid examples from famous moments in popular movies as well as from one of his own popular scripts. You will learn techniques for building a compelling story around a theme, making your writing engage audiences, creating appealing characters, and much more. Praise for Invisible Ink: ..".If I manage to reach the summit of my next story it will be in no small part due to having read Invisible Ink." -Andrew Stanton (cowriter Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and cowriter/director Finding Nemo and WALL-E) ..".Brian McDonald uses his deep understanding of story and character to pass on essential truths about dramatic writing. Ignore him at your peril." -Jim Taylor (Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Sideways and Election) ..". I recommend this fine handbook on craft to any writer, apprentice or professional, working in any genre or form." -Dr. Charles Johnson (National Book Award-winning author of Middle Passage) "If you want to write scripts, listen to Brian. The guy knows what he's talking about." -Paul Feig (creator of NBC's Freaks and Geeks, co-executive producer The Office) "With Invisible Ink Brian McDonald has written us a book to keep and heed forever because through the simple, graceful, graspable, original wisdom of it, we might just save our screenwriting lives." -Stewart Stern (Screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause)

    Silent-film comedy pioneer Mack Sennett forbade his screenwriters from writing anything down, for fear they’d get inflated ideas about themselves as creative artists. The great midcentury director John Ford was known to answer studio executives’ complaints that he was behind schedule by tearing a handful of random pages from his script and tossing them over his shoulder. And Ken Russell was so contemptuous of Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay for Altered States that Chayefsky insisted on having his name removed from the credits.Of course, popular impressions aside, screenwriters have been central to moviemaking since the first motion picture audiences got past the sheer novelty of seeing pictures that moved at all. Soon they wanted to know: What happens next? In this truly fresh perspective on the movies, veteran Oscar-winning screenwriter Marc Norman gives us the first comprehensive history of the men and women who have answered that question, from Anita Loos, the highest-paid screenwriter of her day, to Robert Towne, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman, and other paradigm-busting talents reimagining movies for the new century.The whole rich story is here: Herman Mankiewicz and the telegram he sent from Hollywood to his friend Ben Hecht in New York: “Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.” The unlikely sojourns of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner as Hollywood screenwriters. The imposition of the Production Code in the early 1930s and the ingenious attempts of screenwriters to outwit the censors. How the script for Casablanca, “a disaster from start to finish,” based on what James Agee judged to be “one of the world’s worst plays,” took shape in a chaotic frenzy of writing and rewriting—and how one of the most famous denouements in motion picture history wasn’t scripted until a week after the last scheduled day of shooting—because they had to end the movie somehow.Norman explores the dark days of the Hollywood blacklist that devastated and divided Hollywood’s screenwriting community. He charts the rise of the writer-director in the early 1970s with names like Coppola, Lucas, and Allen and the disaster of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate that led the studios to retake control. He offers priceless portraits of the young William Hurt, Steven Spielberg, and Steven Soderbergh. And he describes the scare of 2005 when new technologies seemed to dry up the audience for movies, and the industry—along with its screenwriters—faced the necessity of reinventing itself as it had done before in the face of sound recording, color, widescreen, television, and other technological revolutions.Impeccably researched, erudite, and filled with unforgettable stories of the too often overlooked, maligned, and abused men and women who devised the ideas that others brought to life in action and words on-screen, this is a unique and engrossing history of the quintessential art form of our time.

    Read along as:Frank Darabont explains why he sacrificed his salary to preserve the integrity of his hard-hitting adapta-tion of Stephen King's novella The Mist.William Goldman reveals why he's never had any interest in directing movies, despite having won Oscars for writing All the President's Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Ron Shelton explains why he nearly cut the spectacular speech that helped cement Kevin Costner's stardom in Bull Durham.Josh Friedman describes the bizarre experience of getting hired by Steven Spielberg to adapt H. G. Wells's classic novel War of the Worlds—even though Spielberg hated Friedman's take on the material.Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) analyzes his legendary relationship with Martin Scorsese.Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) reveals why the unrelenting hype around his multimillion-dollar script sales caused him to retreat from public life for several years.Tales from the Script is a must for movie buffs who savor behind-the-scenes stories—and a master class for all those who dream of writing the Great American Screenplay, taught by those who made that dream come true.