Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul.Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options–the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so "real" that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families.You'll learn how to: draw the characters from a variety of sources, including a story's basic idea, real life–even a character's social circumstances make characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual "style" develop characters readers will love–or love to hate distinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk-ons, and develop each one appropriately choose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytelling decide how deeply you should explore your characters' thoughts, emotions and attitudes

    For years, Walter has striven to impose his family values – stairs must be regularly washed, noise kept down, and wheelie bins moved back and forth at the correct times. When Walter is found murdered, there are plenty of suspects among his ungrateful neighbours. Comic book dealer Billy Briggs is estranged from his daughter, with his business in ruins, and Tony Miller is jobless and facing eviction, all because of Walter. Henrietta Quayle, bullied and belittled by the dead man, conceals a murderous obsession beneath her timid exterior. And alcoholic solicitor Gus Mackinnon has even more reason to hate Walter than anyone else. As Close Quarters takes a look back over the years at the various turbulent relationships between Walter and his neighbours, one thing becomes clear: although only one may be the murderer, none of them will mourn his passing.

    Now, with over 10,000 entries, this edition features the latest in expletives, sexual obscenities and lavatorial euphemisms.

    Starring WillFerrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah,and Emma Thompson, Stranger Than Fiction is a heartfelt film,perhaps a comedy, perhaps a tragedy, about love and literatureand death and taxes.

    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.

    This kind of work reminds us: it’s all there, love and disappointment and deep humor, latent in our language and its storehouses; but it takes a keen eye to connect the dots. Jez Burrows is keen indeed.”  —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour BookstoreGenre-bending and wildly inventive, Dictionary Stories is a giddy celebration of the originality, flexibility, and beauty of narrative. Love stories, horror stories, noir mysteries, recipes, eulogies, confessions, thrillers—each one a miniature literary remix of unlikely parts hidden in plain sight, created by flipping through the dictionary and knowing where to stop.

    However, this anecdote is told ninety-nine more times, each in a radically different style, as a sonnet, an opera, in slang, and with many more permutations. This virtuoso set of variations is a linguistic rust-remover, and a guide to literary forms.

    'The Crime Writer's Guide To Police Practice And Procedure' is the detective in your pocket - something you can reach for when you feel your writing needs that short sharp shock of real-life investigating.

    Virgil Marcel is flying to London as a guest of the ancient and mysterious Everlasting Club. Virgil is the obnoxious, spoiled rotten son of Frank Marcel, founder of the Golden Boy chain, Howard Johnson-like restaurants in California; the only work he's done since college is to revamp his father's one fancy restaurant, now the last word in L.A. chic. In London, a black chauffeur, Butterworth, drives Virgil blindfolded to the club, where his host Kingsley, an upper-class twit, explains the club's tradition of ``indulging in excess.'' Virgil eats and drinks with the same swinish abandon as the other members, all male, but gets into trouble when he French-kisses the naked girl who is the motionless table decoration. So begins this story of gastronomic and erotic debauch; Nicholson cuts between England (where Virgil will be kidnapped by the sexy dinner-table centerpiece, then rescued by the God-fearing Butterworth) and California, where Frank, in the course of investigating his wife's supposed infidelity, discovers his prized chef Leo ejaculating into the sauces. Nicholson sustains a tone of campy menace (by now there's a whiff of cannibalism in the air) as he brings all these characters to London in a plot that zigs and zags entertainingly, though with increasing improbability. Even more troubling, though, are the factual accounts of gastronomic and other excesses interspersed throughout. Aside from the borderline tackiness of linking those notorious modern cannibals, the Andean crash survivors, to the high jinks of the club, these passages suggest authorial obsessions run amok. Spicy fare, though some may find the aftertaste disagreeable.

    A chocoholic grizzly bear, a talking Christmas tree, mince pie overdoses and a very bloody murder. Will poor old Saint Nick make it out alive? Sad, strange, funny and gruesome, this overlapping, multi-genre collection of tales has a little something for every reader. Curl up with a mulled wine and some fictional festive misery, and discover what Father Christmas really likes to drink when he wriggles down your chimney. Spoiler: it isn’t milk.

    Romance author Serenity Woods and best selling author Mark Dawson provide ten short tips to help the eager beginner interested in turning their hobby of writing romance stories into a way to earn a living.

    These peculiar outlooks bring to life the unique world of Peter Kay like never before. The Book That's More Than Just a Book - Book invites you into a world of suspect characters and awkward situations. Here you will meet Peter's family, their friends, some familiar faces, and some completely unexpected ones. Chock full of brand new material and crammed with photographs and illustrations, creating one of the funniest books you're ever likely to read.

    The stories recounts the life of times of the hero Domrudhar in colonial India. The protagonist Domrudhar is portrayed as a dishonest man who rises from a lowly shop-assistant to a land owner.

    A hilarious and cutting critique of what not to do, this deliciously wicked essay also lays out what writers should and must do if they wanttheir fiction to live and breathe--as Twain's own fiction always does. In How to Tell a Story, the title piece, Twain takes on such mysteries as the perfectly-timed pause and the uses of the dead-pan mask, and candidly describes his own efforts to hone his platform skills. In What Paul BourgetThinks of Us, Twain lays out a job description for the native novelist that is as fresh and accurate today as when Twain first wrote it. Anyone who cares about storytelling or writing will find Twain's sage suggestions in this volume compelling and engaging.

     Hard-hitting newspaper journalist turned stay-at-home mum and part-time failing food columnist, Marnie is wondering when her life went so wrong. While her husband Matt’s career takes off, she’s left with the impossible task of pairing socks and locating Lego. His late nights at the office are turning into late nights who knows where else and they haven’t had a proper conversation in weeks, sex in months, or a full night’s sleep in years. On the brink of losing everything when a fantasy about movie star Maddox Wolfe leads to a missed deadline and a disastrous case of food poisoning, Marnie becomes Mrs Make Believe: anonymous blogger, secret spiller, and voice of imperfect mums everywhere. However, Marnie Martin could never have imagined that her movie star daydream would walk off the screen and into her reality, turning her already muddled world totally on its head. Will Marnie find happiness in the arms of the (literal) man of her dreams? Or will she find that true love is just make believe?