In Beyond the First Draft he offers essential and original insights into the art of writing—and rewriting—fiction.Through anecdotes about other writers’ methods and habits (as well as his own) and close readings of literature from Aristotle to Zola, the essays in this collection offer “suggestions about things to do, things to think about when your writing has got you lost in the woods.” In “Dogma and Anti-dogma” Casey sets out the tried-and-true advice and then comments on when to apply it and when to ignore it. In “What's Funny” he considers the range of comedy from pratfalls to elegant wit. In “In Other Words” he discusses translations and the surprising effects that translating can have on one’s native language. In “Mentors” he pays tribute to those who have guided him and other writers. Throughout the fourteen essays there are notes on voice, point of view, structure, and other crucial elements. This book is an invaluable resource for aspiring writers and a revitalizing companion for seasoned ones.

    Brimming with examples, quotes, and case studies that include an illuminating discussion of Max Perkins's editorial collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby, this book proves how fundamental editing is to great writing. Bell also offers strategic tips and exercises for self-editing, and a series of remarkable interviews, that take us into the studios of established authors such as Michael Ondaatje, Tracy Kidder, and Ann Patchett to learn from their various approaches to shaping their work after its initial creation. Much more than a manual, The Artful Edit inspires readers to think about both the discipline and the creativity of editing and how editing can enhance their work. A vigorous investigation into the history and meaning of the edit, this book, like The Triggering Town and The Elements of Style, is a must-have companion for every writer.

    Full of helpful lists, plot maps, character Q&As, field trips, writing exercises, inspiring quotes, and plenty of space to write and outline, Ready, Set, Novel! provides ample inspiration and guidance to first-time novelists and more seasoned scribes alike.

    Insight and creativity - the desire to push the boundaries of your writing - strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act: in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night.The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write, and revise like never before - without having to wait for creative inspiration. Brian Kiteley, noted author and director of the University of Denver's creative writing program, has crafted and refined these exercises through 15 years of teaching experience.You'll learn how to:Transform staid and stale writing patterns into exciting experiments in fictionShed the anxieties that keep you from reaching your full potential as a writerCraft unique ideas by combining personal experience with unrestricted imaginationExamine and overcome all of your fiction writing concerns, from getting started to writer's blockOpen the book, select an exercise, and give it a try. It's just what you need to craft refreshing new fiction, discover bold new insights, and explore what it means to be a writer.It's never too early to start--not even 3 A.M.

    Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it.   Zapruder explores what poems are, and how we can read them, so that we can, as Whitman wrote, “possess the origin of all poems,” without the aid of any teacher or expert. Most important, he asks how reading poetry can help us to lead our lives with greater meaning and purpose. Anchored in poetic analysis and steered through Zapruder’s personal experience of coming to the form, Why Poetry is engaging and conversational, even as it makes a passionate argument for the necessity of poetry in an age when information is constantly being mistaken for knowledge. While he provides a simple reading method for approaching poems and illuminates concepts like associative movement, metaphor, and negative capability, Zapruder explicitly confronts the obstacles that readers face when they encounter poetry to show us that poetry can be read, and enjoyed, by anyone.

    Includes writing exercises and advice. A Hugo and Locus award winner.

    Richard Skinner believes it is your duty as a novelist to bring your whole self to the page; to find your story, not force it; to meet your reader in a spirit of openness. In Writing a Novel he offers up frameworks, strategies and stimuli to help you meet that duty, drawingon his deep experience as one of the UK's leading creative writing teachers. He covers the essentials - narrators, character, setting - with charm and rigour. But Writing a Novel is not a set of instructions: it is a way of thinking, a conversation, a relationship in itself.

    Cain's hard-nosed observation that "writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational," to Joan Didion's account of how she composes a book--"I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm"--The Paris Review has elicited some of the most revelatory and revealing thoughts from the literary masters of our age. For more than half a century, the magazine has spoken with most of our leading novelists, poets, and playwrights, and the interviews themselves have come to be recognized as classic works of literature, an essential and definitive record of the writing life. They have won the coveted George Polk Award and have been a contender for the Pulitzer Prize. Now, Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch introduces an entirely original selection of sixteen of the most celebrated interviews. Often startling, always engaging, these encounters contain an immense scope of intelligence, personality, experience, and wit from the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Rebecca West, and Billy Wilder. This is an indispensable book for all writers and readers.

    Unlike most  writers' guides, this one had as much to do with how  writers live as with mastering the tools of their  trade. Rita Mae Brown begins with a very personal  account of her own career, from her days as a young  poet who had written a novel no publisher wanted  to take a chance on, right up to her recent  adventures as a Hollywood screenwriter. In a sassy style  that makes her outspoken advice as entertaining as  it is useful, she provides straight talk about  paying the rent while maintaining the energy to  write; and dealing with agents, publishers, critics,  and the publicity circus; about pursuingj  ournalisim, academia, or screen-writing; and about rejecting  the Hemingway myth of the hard-living,  hard-drinking genius. In addition Brown, a former teacher or  writing, offers a serious examination of the  writer's tool--language, plotting, characters,  symbolism--plus exercises to sharpen the ear for dialogue,  and a fascinating, annoted reading list of  important works from the seventh century to the late  twentieth.

    They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions, and shape our politics and beliefs. We use them to construct our relationships, to keep order in our law courts, to interpret events in our newspapers and social media. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human.There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story – from Joseph Campbell’s well-worn theories about myth and archetype to recent attempts to crack the ‘Bestseller Code’. But few have used a scientific approach. This is curious, for if we are to truly understand storytelling in its grandest sense, we must first come to understand the ultimate storyteller – the human brain.In this scalpel-sharp, thought-provoking book, Will Storr demonstrates how master storytellers manipulate and compel us, leading us on a journey from the Hebrew scriptures to Mr Men, from Booker Prize-winning literature to box set TV. Applying dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to the foundations of our myths and archetypes, he shows how we can use these tools to tell better stories – and make sense of our chaotic modern world.

    Yet almost nothing in our culture prepares us for reflection on the great themes of existence: courage, friendship, listening, dignity—those everyday virtues that can transform our world. Because AARP believes it’s never too late (or too early) to learn, they, together with Sterling Publishing, have created the About Living series to address these crucial issues. Each entry will be written by only the best authors and thinkers.Thinking About Memoir, the first of these volumes, helps adults look back at their past and use writing as a means of figuring out who they used to be and how they became who they are today. It’s written by Abigail Thomas, whose own memoir A Three Dog Life was selected as one of the Best Books of 2006 by the LA Times and the Washington Post and called “perfectly honed” (Newsweek), “bracingly honest” (Vanity Fair), and “stunning” by the Los Angeles Book Review. Thomas writes that memoir can consist of looking back at a single summer or the span of a whole life. Through her experience as a writing teacher, she knows how difficult that can be; this book is about the habit of writing as a way to keep track of what’s going on in the front and the back of your mind. It inspires different ways for us to look at the moment we’re in right now and will help would-be memoirists find their own “side door” into a subject. Thomas writes eloquently about how to get started and find that jumping-off point for your work, and provides exercises that liberate our creativity, enable us to get the distance and perspective we need, and open our eyes to possibilities that may not at first seem obvious.Whether your words are for publication, for your loved ones, or for you alone, Thomas makes the process fulfilling, thoughtful, and even fun.

    This brief edition of the most widely adopted book of its kind offers all of the editorial features of the longer book with about half the stories and writer commentaries in a shorter, less expensive format.

    The best authors put painstaking--sometimes obsessive--effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view.What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use first-person narration in The Great Gatsby? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road? Veteran editor and teacher Richard Cohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime's reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. Here are Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez's thoughts on how to start a novel ("In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book"); Virginia Woolf offering her definition of style ("It is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words"); and Vladimir Nabokov on the nature of fiction ("All great novels are great fairy tales").Cohen has researched the published works and private utterances of our greatest authors to discover the elements that made their prose memorable. The result is a unique exploration of the act and art of writing that enriches our experience of reading both the classics and the best modern fiction. Evoking the marvelous, the famous, and the irreverent, he reveals the challenges that even the greatest writers faced--and shows us how they surmounted them.Praise for How to Write Like Tolstoy"The highest compliment one can pay How to Write Like Tolstoy is that it provokes an overwhelming urge to read and write, to be in dialogue or even doomed competition with the greatest creative minds . . . . That Mr. Cohen is an editor, that his love of literature comes in large part from awe in the presence of better writers than he, is no small matter. His love is infectious, and regardless of how well he ends up teaching us to write, that is miracle enough."--Wall Street Journal"[A] perfect tasting menu . . . the homage of a passionate reader to the writers who have provided his 'main pastime.' "--The Sunday Times (U.K.)"This book is a wry, critical friend to both writer and reader. It is filled with cogent examples and provoking statements. You will agree or quarrel with each page, and be a sharper writer and reader by the end."--Hilary Mantel "These twelve essays are like twelve perfect university lectures on the craft of writing fiction. The professor--or, in this case, author--succeeds in being not only knowledgeable but also interesting, charming, and engaging."--Library Journal (starred review)"Insightful . . . [Cohen] escorts his readers to Iris Murdoch for sage counsel on launching a novel, to Salman Rushdie for shrewd guidance on developing an unreliable narrator, to Rudyard Kipling for a cagey hint on creating memorable minor characters, and to Leo Tolstoy for a master's help in transforming personal experience into fictional art."--Booklist

    And all of them are phonies. Well, not completely. There are real, applicable techniques and strategies in any writing reference to help you. But the idea that there's only one way of writing? Nuts! With unconventional approaches to the craft, fresh angles on novel writing and selling, a healthy dose of humor, and no promise of refunds, Writing Without Rules is for those writers who have tried and tried again--and are ready to success on their own terms. In these pages, accomplished author Jeff Somers will show you:The key to a successful writing career is doing the actual writing, no matter the circumstances.Fantastic ideas are available everywhere--you just need to know how to tap into sources through a variety of approaches.Important craft aspects that you should focus on, such as characters and dialogue, while spending less time on others, like setting.Effective ways to get published--whether it's traditional or self-publishing--and how to supplement your income.Whether you're a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in-between, Writing Without Rules is for those writers who are looking for a fresh take on tackling the challenge of writing and selling a novel, and building a career. As Somers will show you, it's less about being perfect in everything, and more about having the confidence to complete everything.

    The contributors include Pat Conroy, Norman Mailor, Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace.