From story concept to character development to scene construction and beyond, this title helps you learn the big picture of storytelling at a professional level through a fresh approach that shows how to combine six core competencies: the four elemental competencies of concept, character, theme, and story structure (plot).

    For more than thirty years, Simon's wry and astute observations on life, love, and the human condition have been making audiences laugh uproariously even as his beautifully realized characters touch their hearts. These five plays, including the Pulitzer- and Tony-award-winning Lost in Yonkers, show Simon at the pinnacle of his extraordinary career. Rumors Lost in Yonkers Jake's Women Laughter on the 23rd Floor London Suite Including the author's introduction: "How to Stop Writing and Other Impossibilities"

    Kama Pootra is the ultimate poop gag gift for adults.The average human performs approximately 25,000 bowel movements in their lifetime. Sadly, most people never depart from the first poop position they were taught as children. However, there exists another way — fifty-two, in fact!The Kama Pootra is the authoritative educational guide for a new and exciting pooping experience, a governing handbook of free-thinking bathroom conduct. Within these pages, students will find new positions for home or work, alone or with friends, with or without the use of common household items. These lessons are the first step on the tiled path to an enlightened bathroom experience.Place it on the porcelain throne in your guest bathroom for a laugh or give it as a raunchy white elephant gift to a family member. Either way, the Kama Pootra is the perfect poop gag gift for men — or anyone who can't help but giggle at funny poop gifts. There's an entire world of poo-sitions to explore!

    Apparently it’s fine for Scrimshaw Travel to make last minute amendments to the holiday without incurring any penalties or reducing the price in any way. That’s what the indifferent courier tells him on day one of the tour as she arrives in a clapped-out, old coach being driven by a partially-sighted driver. With the spa hotel replaced by a rundown guest house staffed by a neurotic manager, decrepit waitress and under-sexed, Italian waiter there doesn’t appear to be much of the brochure-described holiday left. Thank goodness for Angela, the rather lovely woman Derek pals up with on the journey down. She might just make the trip bearable. If only the other members of the group would leave them alone long enough to get to know each other, but Derek has always had the ability to attract the eccentric characters to him and he can’t escape them. Still, perhaps they’ll surprise him as he learns about their lives and secrets as they move from one hilarious excursion to another. And maybe Angela will provide one or two surprises herself. Driven to Distraction is a fun romp through the English countryside with characters finding love and friendship while travelling at twenty miles an hour. (Well, it is a clapped-out, old coach).

    Whether you’re a jaded producer of media or a nitpicking consumer of it, this book will help you to embrace, not resist, the lowering of standards for the written word! Part dictionary, part journalism textbook, part grammar and writing manual, Write More Good is a “comprehensive” “guide” to today’s “media,” in all its ambulance-chasing, story-fabricating, money-hemorrhaging glory. (LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The authors are not responsible for consequences that may result from actually using this book as a dictionary, textbook, or grammar and writing manual.)Let The Bureau Chiefs, the ritin’ and reportin’ geniuses behind the Twitter phenomenon @FakeAPStylebook, teach you about:* Proper usage!“World War” should be used only for conflicts involving countries on at least three continents. For large-scale battles against clones, killer tomatoes, or a fifty-foot woman, use “attack” instead.* Entertainment Journalism!When writing about a celebrity for an online audience, save your readers time by linking directly to nude photos of him or her.* Science Reporting!When writing about those robots that seek out and consume houseflies for energy, the parenthetical aside “(OH GOD, WE’RE DOOMED!)” is implied and is therefore not necessary to include in your story.And much, much, more!

    I alone have heard your silent screams, so I have written this book to help you achieve what everyone who has the courage to live the creative life deserves: complete, utter, slavish adoration and worship. Also: incalculable wealth that insulates you from the concerns of ordinary people." And there you have it. Fondling Your Muse is John Warner's innovative and slightly insane book of instruction for those who want to write, and those who think they already can. It's packed with quirky (possibly deranged) advice guaranteed to make you laugh out loud in the most embarrassing fashion possible. You know what we mean. It also includes a special chapter entitled "Everything Stephen King Knows About Writing Successfully: Plus Some Things I Know That He Doesn't Because He Isn't That Special." No other book currently available has this chapter! And Fondling Your Muse provides the kind of wise, insightful guidance that's missing from all of those self-serious, mind-numbingly awful books that promise riches and fame by writing only 20 minutes a day. Let's say you're looking for a tried-and-true recipe for literary success. Warner reveals all of the best ones, including these succulent concoctions: * Contemporary Romance Quiche al la Nicholas Sparks ("Tasty with a side of hackneyed potatoes.") * Tom Clancy Techno-Thriller Surprise ("Preparation is usually subcontracted to others.") * Chick-Lit Cacciatore ("Satisfies many, every single time. I can't explain how either.") * Harlequin Romance Salad ("Thoroughly rip bodices, pound prose until purple, and combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.") * John Grisham's Legal Thriller Stew ("Boil in pot until ingredients bubble over line of believability.") * Comtemporary American Literary Fiction Flambé ("Served in smaller and smaller quantities as the years go by.") Mmmm...tasty. Even really famous people endorse Warner's work: "Fondling Your Muse is brilliant in the same way the most distant stars in the galaxy are brilliant. If it's a really clear night and you tilt your head to the side and squint, you sort of see it." -- Dave Eggers It doesn't get any better than that. So go ahead - get Fondling today!

    A lifetime member of the Writer's Guild of America who has had three feature films produced from his screenplays, Akers offers beginning writers the tools they need to get their screenplay noticed.

    As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with--specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable--and essential--to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction.

    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.

    We all know one! They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. Whether it is queues at the supermarket, the state of the health system, the price of a pint these days, the hairstyles of teenagers, or the number of Maltesers you actually get in a bag, there is always something that will get their goat. 'The Grumpy Old Git's Guide to Life' is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.

    Many of us love to tell them, and even dream of making a living from it too. But what is a story? Hundreds of books about screenwriting and storytelling have been written, but none of them ask 'Why?' Why do we tell stories? And why do all stories function in an eerily similar way? John Yorke has been telling stories almost his entire adult life, and the more he has done it, the more he has asked himself why? Every great thinker or writer has their theories: Aristotle, David Hare, Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, Gustav Freytag, David Mamet, Christopher Booker, Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and Aaron Sorkin - all have offered insightful and illuminating answers. Here, John Yorke draws on these figures and more as he takes us on a historical, philosophical, scientific and psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling.What he reveals is that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative - one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within. Much more than a 'how to write' book, Into the Woods is an exploration of this fundamental structure underneath all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing. With astonishing detail and wisdom, John Yorke explains to us a phenomenon that, whether it is as a simple fable, or a big-budget 3D blockbuster, most of us experience almost every day of our lives.

    Flinn's book will teach the reader how to avoid the pitfalls of bad screenwriting and arrive at one's own destination intact.

    As soon as you name an emotion, readers go into thinking mode. And when they think about an emotion, they distance themselves from feeling it. A great way to show anger, fear, indifference, and the whole range of emotions that characterize the human experience, is through beats. These action snippets that pepper dialogue can help describe a wide range of emotions while avoiding lazy writing. The power of beats lies in their innate ability to create richer, more immediate, deeper writing. This emotional thesaurus includes hundreds of examples that you can use for your inspiration, so that you, too, can harness this technique to easily convert your writing into palpable feelings. Genre fiction authors can use Emotional Beat as a feeling thesaurus and watch their writing take off! Emotional Beats was an award-winning Finalist in the IPA 2017 Awards.

    And it is Modi-led India that has this high honour. Prime Minister Modi rolls out the red carpet for the aliens. He receives them at the airport, shows them the sights in Delhi and convinces them to invest in the Make in India campaign. The leader of the alien delegation even holds a broom to promote Swachh Bharat. But what is the real reason the aliens have come to India? Are they friends? Or will they turn foes? Read this hilarious, rib-tickling novel from the author of Unreal Elections to find out.

    They make you cringe, they make you groan but the one thing they have in common is they come from dad. Be it during a wedding toast or when introducing your dad to someone you want to impress, dad never fails to insert a dad joke wherever he can.This dad joke book makes a great gift for the dad who has everything and has heard everything. Or maybe you want to buy it for yourself and come prepared the next time dad wants to have a joke off.In any event, 101 So Bad, They're Good Dad Jokes will have your eyes rolling into the back of your head faster than dad can strip to his tighty-whities on a hot summer day!* Week of June 10, 2018