This nuts-and-bolts guide - complete with practical exercises at the end of each chapter - gives you all the tips and techniques you need to:Establish a realistic sense of time and placeUse description and setting to drive your storyCraft effective description and setting for different genresSkillfully master showing vs. tellingWith dozens of excerpts from some of today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Description & Setting gives you all the information you need to create a sharp and believable world of people, places, events, and actions.

    Featuring timeless, innovative, and concise writing strategies and focused exercises, this book is the ultimate battle plan and more - it's Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" for novelists. Tactics and exercises are provided on idea generation and development, character building, plotting, drafting, querying and submitting, dealing with rejection, coping with envy and unrealistic expectations, and much more.

    Weiland With over 300 pages of step-by-step guidance, these two individual books have 440+ five star reviews on Amazon and have helped thousands of authors write better books. Can Outlining Help You Write a Better Story? These bestselling guides will help you choose the right type of outline to unleash your creativity, guide you in brainstorming plot ideas, and aid you in discovering your characters. --OUTLINING YOUR NOVEL-- Award-winning author K.M. Weiland’s bestselling Outlining Your Novel shows you how to embrace outlines in a way that makes the writing process fun, inspiring, and easy. Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal. Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success will help you choose the right type of outline for you, guide you in brainstorming plot ideas, aid you in discovering your characters, show you how to structure your scenes, explain how to format your finished outline, instruct you in how to use your outline when writing the first draft, reveal the benefits of outlining, and dispel the misconceptions. --OUTLINING YOUR NOVEL WORKBOOK— Now it’s time to put those lessons to use! The Outlining Your Novel Workbook presents a guided approach to getting the bones of your story down on paper, identifying plot holes, and brainstorming exciting new possibilities. Containing hundreds of incisive questions and imagination-revving exercises, this valuable resource will show you how to: Create your own personalized outlining process Brainstorm premise and plot ideas Discover your characters Choose and create the right settings Organize your scenes And so much more! This accessible and streamlined workbook will empower you to create a powerful outline—and an outstanding novel. Start writing your best book today!

    Returning to the USA, he pursued even more intense study, becoming a live in apprentice to a Japanese Jujutsu and Aikido master. This is a recollection of a life changing journey, the lessons learned by living in a dojo, and his introduction to the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

    Keep them tight and crisp throughout. Conclude them with a wallop.Is the story or novel you've been carrying around in your head the same one you see on the page? Or does the dialogue suddenly sound flat and predictable? Do the events seem to ramble?Translating a flash of inspiration into a compelling story requires careful crafting. The words you choose, how you describe characters, and the way you orchestrate conflict all make the difference--the difference between a story that is slow to begin, flounders midway, or trails off at the end--and one that holds the interest of readers and editors to the final page.By demonstrating effective solutions for potential problems at each stage of your story, Nancy Kress will help you...hook the editor on the first three paragraphs make--and keep--your story's "implicit promise"build drama and credibility by controlling your prose Dozens of exercises help you strengthen your short story or novel. Plus, you'll sharpen skills and gain new insight into...the price a writer pays for flashbacks six ways characters should "reveal" themselves techniques for writing--and rewriting Let this working resource be your guide to successful stories--from beginning to end.

    The more we interact online, the more we crave intimacy. The more filtered our lives become, the harder it is to be real.It’s time to refresh and rediscover what it means to be “like Jesus” and find true authenticity, a healthy self-image, and compassion for others in an age when we relate to each other so differently than ever before. Groeschel taps into some of the most leading-edge studies on the effects of social media on our emotions and friendships. He offers real-life examples of how we struggle with screens and likes, how these things mask our struggles with who we really are, and how we can reclaim a Christ-centered life.Packed with helpful topics like the “10 Commandments of Using Social Media to Strengthen Your Faith” and “Creating Safeguards for Your Digital Devices,” readers from ages sixteen to sixty will find Liking Jesus to be just the guide to bring balance and real-world engagement to everyday life.

    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

    How to Read Literature is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature and for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding and enriching their reading experience. In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, and other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, and the tension between what works of literature say and what they show. Unfailingly authoritative and cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism and postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Samuel Beckett and J. K. Rowling.

    Its hands-on, completely accessible approach walks writers through each stage of the creative process, from the initial triggering idea to the revision of the final manuscript. It is unique in combing the three main aspects of creative writing instruction: process (finding inspiration, getting ideas on the page), craft (specific techniques like characterization), and anthology (learning by reading masters of the form). Succinct, clear definitions of basic terms of fiction are accompanied by examples, including excerpts from masterpieces of short fiction and essays as well as contemporary novels. A special highlight is Alice LaPlante's systematic debunking of many of the so-called rules of creative writing. This book is perfect for writers working alone as well as for creative writing classes, both introductory and advanced.

    These fifteen poems, including “Death of a Lady’s Man,” “On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken,” and “The Embrace,” are drawn from across his remarkable career and appear here for the first time with his illustrations. With its lyrical intensity and sensual immediacy, Fifteen Poems offers a potent distillation of the genre-crossing genius of one of the most admired artists of our time.

    What really happened to Cheryl and Rob before, during and after Cheryl Pierson, a sixteen-year-old sexually, physically and mentally abused teen, hired a classmate to kill her father for $1,000 in 1986?The case was in the national media for many years. In 1988 a New York Times reporter wrote A Deadly Silence, a successful true crime book about this case using an investigative journalism style. It also became a TV movie. As a traumatized sixteen year old, Cheryl only gave one short interview 30 years ago, so much of what was reported in the media, book and movie was fabrication and speculation. Some accounts implied she lied about the abuse, others that she did it for her father’s insurance, but Cheryl remained silent for years—too young and destroyed to fight back against the speculation and frequent falsehoods or to discuss the true dark nature of the nightmare she lived every day of her young life. After her release from jail, she and her high school boyfriend, Rob Cuccio were married, they had two daughters and led as normal a life as possible. Most friends and neighbors had no idea of her past.Throughout her life, Cheryl has suffered from PTSD and other symptoms as a result of her father’s abuse and his subsequent murder, but the story doesn’t end there. People often wonder what happened next, or where are they now, because this case continues to hold a fascination. Two episodes are scheduled on Discovery ID channel in early 2017.This is not fiction and is not sugar-coated. It is the story of their life to the present, and everything is backed by documentation. Cheryl hopes through finally telling the truth about what drove her to murder in her own words, it will help other abuse victims and encourage them to speak out.On Cheryl’s forty-third birthday, May 14, 2012, after months of misdiagnosed chest pain and other symptoms, Rob Cuccio, her husband of 25 years, suffered a fatal heart attack. Doctors pronounced him dead after thirty minutes, but he’d saved Cheryl’s life for so many years, even when she wanted to commit suicide, that now she knew in her heart she couldn’t live without him. She had to do everything possible to save him. Over the years through Rob’s love, understanding and support she had come a long way from the abused teenage victim. She refused to accept that he was dead, because something inside told her he was clinging to a remnant of life.She begged doctors to keep trying and wouldn’t give up. The doctor finally said, “We’ll try for ten minutes more, but after that you have to let him go.” Then she prayed to everyone she could think of, even to the father she paid to have killed.With only two minutes of the ten left, forty-three minutes after his heart ceased to beat and supply oxygen to his brain, there was a faint pulse and Rob came back to life. It was called a miracle. The doctors never had a case where the patient was dead for so long and did not sustain massive brain damage. Everything Cheryl endured during her life had given her the strength to demand they keep trying to save her husband.Cheryl and Rob brought a malpractice suit against the cardiologist who had treated Rob for chest pain and other classic symptoms. Over at least a six month period, instead of diagnosing that Rob’s arteries were blocked and his heart was dying, the doctor never ordered tests like an angiogram, and instead told him repeatedly nothing was wrong—it was only anxiety. The malpractice case was proven, but a travesty of justice occurred in an astounding jury verdict—the doctor won the case. Some of the doctor’s testimony is included in the book.***In writing their dramatic book, they want to illustrate that damaged lives can be rebuilt. The book has a photo and media reprint section.

    Some are arcane, some simply hilarious—and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one of them. All too often she notes a classic author-editor standoff, wherein both parties refuse to compromise on the "rights" and "wrongs" of prose styling: "This author is giving me a fit." "I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma at all times." "My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face."In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller casts aside this adversarial view and suggests new strategies for keeping the peace. Emphasizing habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility, she shows copy editors how to build an environment of trust and cooperation. One chapter takes on the difficult author; another speaks to writers themselves. Throughout, the focus is on serving the reader, even if it means breaking "rules" along the way. Saller’s own foibles and misadventures provide ample material: "I mess up all the time," she confesses. "It’s how I know things."Writers, Saller acknowledges, are only half the challenge, as copy editors can also make trouble for themselves. (Does any other book have an index entry that says "terrorists. See copy editors"?) The book includes helpful sections on e-mail etiquette, work-flow management, prioritizing, and organizing computer files. One chapter even addresses the special concerns of freelance editors.Saller’s emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many copy editors who have absorbed, along with the dos and don’ts of their stylebooks, an attitude that their way is the right way. In encouraging copy editors to banish their ignorance and disorganization, insecurities and compulsions, the Chicago Q&A presents itself as a kind of alter ego to the comparatively staid Manual of Style. In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller continues her mission with audacity and good humor.

    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

    I can call you friend because we've just built up a rapport with my rhetorical questions. This is a book chock full of writing prompts. These are little things that will help you along to writing some amazing stuff that spills out of your mind. You're wondering: "But what kind of prompts are they? I've seen writing prompts before, but they're all lame." That's a good thing to be wondering, friend. I've crafted and homebrewed only the finest of prompts for your pleasure. You won't be confined to any one genre, you'll find a limitless amount of prompts ranging from comedy to serious to horror. I say limitless, but I meant 1,000 prompts precisely. I said 1,000 precisely, but there's slightly more if you count the introduction. Listen, friend, I promise not to fib from this point on. The book is split into a few sections: Beginners Writing Prompts (it's a super short section, don't worry); Constrained Writing (that's where you are forced into absolutely specific criteria for the prompt); Flash Fiction (either a word count or a time count is imposed upon you); Ripper Prompts (you are given a list of items for "Random Item Prompts"); and the bulk of the book ends with basic writing prompts with which you can write as much as you please with no tricks! If you're still reading this description, allow me to tell you more uses for this book: Creative writing classes! Yes, teachers, I've done the work for you. I'll even let you lie and say the prompts were crafted in your mind. Corporate synergy teams! That's right, group building exercise makers, you can relax in your fine leather chair and state that you know just how to get the company working together. Present some of these writing prompts and you'll be a hit. Temporarily disenfranchised millionaire authors in waiting! Your hit novel is contained in one of these prompts, I'm certain of it! Use this book for scripts, for blogs, for journals, for impressing potential clients. Sorry it's not a physical book, otherwise I am sure it would make an attractive door wedge! Have I used enough exclamation marks to convince you? No? Read the free preview then and be dazzled! Section Information: Section 1: Beginners Writing Prompts (20 Prompts) Section 2: Flash Fiction Prompts (80 Prompts) Section 3: Random Items Prompts AKA Rippers (20 Prompts - List of 26 random items) Section 4: Constrained Writing (30 Prompts) Section 5: Writing Prompts (850 Prompts)

    Benson’s goal with this memoir is to help patients and their loved ones get through surgery and recovery with knowledge and humor. Robby Benson wrote the book to “help readers and their families deal with all kinds of illnesses – it’s not heart specific. As baby boomers, our parents, and now our friends, loved ones and contemporaries are dealing with life-changing diagnoses – it’s a new chaos in our lives that we have to deal with. I hope to make readers laugh when at times it seems the events in our lives are overwhelming.”