In 2012, over 14,000 titles were specified as “New Adult” on Goodreads – and that number only continues to grow. The popularity of NA novels continues to grow and writers must approach the elements of storytelling in a completely different mindset. Join Deborah Halverson to learn the essential information, steps, and techniques to draw in the crossover audience.

    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.

    A chapter on clear e-mail communication and etiquette is brand new in this edition, as are many of the author’s challenging “Brain Ticklers.” Her helpful chapter on how to edit a school paper has also been heavily revised and updated. Barron’s popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve “Brain Tickler” problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

    Do you find punctuation difficult? Are you puzzled by colons and semicolons? Unsure of where commas should go? Confused by hyphens and apostrophes? If so, then this jargon-free and succinct guide is for you.•Contains precise and up-to-date definitions of every type of punctuation mark and shows how each should be used•Gives numerous examples of good and bad usage•Explains the correct use of capital letters, contractions and abbreviations, italics, boldface and the special characters available on a word processor

    His discussions of diction, syntax, tone, meaning, composition, and revision guide the reader through the technique of making the written word clear and agreeable to read. Exercises, model passages both literary and casual, and hundreds of amusing examples of usage gone wrong show how to choose the right path to self-expression in forceful and distinctive words.

     The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces?Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, "When we write fiction, we write the world."

    Complete with self-critique questions to help you assess your work, these exercises challenge you to experiment with the diverse writing styles as you clarify your own.Make the most of Josip Novakovich's insightful, mind-expanding workshop and come away with a stronger voice, a broader perspective and better fiction.

    Therefore: happiness depends at least partly on good grammar.'So writes Mr Gwynne in his small, but perfectly formed new book. Mr Gwynne believes passionately that we must regain our knowledge of the lost science of grammar before it is too late.Formerly a successful businessman, Mr Gwynne has for many years been teaching and tutoring just about every sort of subject to just about every sort of pupil in just about every sort of circumstance. His teaching methods are very much the traditional, common-sense ones, refined over the centuries, that were almost everywhere until they were abolished in the 1960s. Being disappointed in the standards of grammar he encountered in his pupils, Mr Gwynne, over time, wrote this wonderful, succinct and yet comprehensive little book - because nothing quite as suitable already existed.This edition also includes Strunk's classic guide to style, explaining how to write well and the main pitfalls to avoid. Beautifully designed, easy to understand and a joy to read, Gwynne's Grammar may be the best little book you will ever have in your life.

    Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years.This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

    But, after developing the indie author mindset, he was earning $3,500 a day within a matter of weeks.The Indie Author Mindset shows you how simply changing your way of thinking about your writing business can revolutionise your career. Using Adam's personal experiences and examples, you'll be able to think differently about the business side of your writing career and lay down the foundations for long-term success.In The Indie Author Mindset, you'll discover: How to decide who to listen to — and who not to listen to How to unlock the power of residuals How to create more than half a dozen income streams from one book Lessons and advice from Bryan Cohen, David Gaughran, Brian Meeks and Mark Dawson Why almost every writer misunderstands profit and is doing advertising wrong And much, much more! This life-changing book is the motivational kick-up-the-backside all authors need. If you like a non-fiction book with a personal touch, practical tips you can apply every day and all the motivation you need to kick your career on to the next stage, The Indie Author Mindset is for you.

    Yet most of us don’t know how to read body language–and don’t realize how our own physical movements speak to others. Now the world’s foremost experts on the subject share their techniques for reading body language signals to achieve success in every area of life.Drawing upon more than thirty years in the field, as well as cutting-edge research from evolutionary biology, psychology, and medical technologies that demonstrate what happens in the brain, the authors examine each component of body language and give you the basic vocabulary to read attitudes and emotions through behavior. Discover:• How palms and handshakes are used to gain control• The most common gestures of liars• How the legs reveal what the mind wants to do• The most common male and female courtship gestures and signals• The secret signals of cigarettes, glasses, and makeup• The magic of smiles–including smiling advice for women• How to use nonverbal cues and signals to communicate more effectively and get the reactions you wantFilled with fascinating insights, humorous observations, and simple strategies that you can apply to any situation, this intriguing book will enrich your communication with and understanding of others–as well as yourself.

    Suitable for learners of all levels, from the novice to the more advanced, the series is geared specifically for nonnative English speakers and is perfect as supplemental desk references.

    In his witty way, Mr. Safire enlightens us concerning proper usage, correct pronunciation, the roots of our daily discourse, and the vacuous vogue lingo in which "subsume" is co-opting "co-opt," wood-burning stoves become "energy systems," and stores that sell eyeglasses squint out at us as "vision centers."He is aided in his campaign for precision and clarity in language by a legion of word buffs, language lovers, and learned eccentrics--many of them world-class wordsmen in their own right.Here are Mr. Safire's delightful, crotchety, subtly informative, and awesomely informed comments, decisions, and advisories--the best of his famous column in The New York Times. Plus scores of letters written by enthusiastic or furious readers, who glory in nailing an expert to the wall.

    What it does require is some knowledge of the tricks and techniques that make words stick.   In Word Hero, Jay Heinrichs rescues the how-to of verbal artistry from cobwebbed textbooks and makes it entirely fresh – even a little mischievous.  Fear not: on offer here are not dry, abstract ideas couched in academic jargon.  Rather, Heinrichs takes you on an amusing – and amazingly helpful – tour of the mechanisms that make powerful language work.  You’ll learn how to slyly plant your words in people’s heads and draw indelible verbal pictures by employing such tools as “crashing symbols,” “rapid repeaters,” “Russian Dolls” and even the powers of Mr. Potato Head.   With those tools and others tucked in your utility belt, you might not immediately achieve “wordsmith immortality” but you will become a better speaker, writer, and raconteur…and long after people have forgotten everything else, they’ll remember your priceless lines.

    If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning?Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings.