It should be carefully sewn into the fabric of the story to create tension-filled moments that will keep readers turning pages. In Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict, you'll learn how to layer emotional moments and deep connections to create a tapestry filled with conflict, pathos, and genuine feeling.- Create emotional depth, conflict, and tension in your novel by carefully crafting your plot, characters, setting, word choice, and more. - Learn what makes readers "tick"--and what will elicit the strongest emotional responses. - Write believable, emotional scenes and dialogue--and trim away the sappiness.When writing a novel, your ultimate goal is to make readers smile, weep, rage, and laugh right along with your characters. Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict will show you how to evoke a multitude of feelings in your readers--and keep them coming back for more.

     Instead, Nail Your Story attempts to reveal the connections between the various parts of story so that you can more easily build cohesive plots, characters, themes, and settings—without having to stress over the decisions because (surprise!) you’ve probably already made them in another area of your book. Included in the book: - Monica's Smarter Storytelling Framework, which shows you the many layers of a story and how they each relate to each other - Translation guides for building out your story (for example, how you can use character to build your theme, and vice-versa) - The Smarter Storytelling Worksheets to help you plot out all the elements of your story into one cohesive document - Tons of examples from some of the most popular stories of our time, including Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, the Twilight series, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, How To Get Away With Murder, A Song of Ice and Fire, and more. If you’ve struggled to get 5-star reviews on your stories or build an audience of people dying to get your next book, Nail Your Story will help you identify areas of improvement and even show you how a few small tweaks in your currently available content can make a massive difference in your sales!

    Using charts, examples, and movies, the author breaks these key elements down into understandable components and walks the reader through the process of laying this foundation in his or her own work.Learn what causes sagging middles and how to fix them, which goals are important, which aren’t and why, how to get your characters to do what they need for your plot in a believable manner, and how to use conflict to create a good story. GMC can be used not only in plotting, but in character development, sharpening scenes, pitching ideas to an editor, and evaluating whether an idea will work.Be confident your ideas will work before you write 200 pages.Plan a road map to keep your story on track.Discovery why your scenes aren’t working and what to do about it.Create characters that editors and readers will care about.

    

    The Portable MFA gives you all of the essential information you would learn in the MFA program in one book. Covering fiction, memoirs, personal essays, magazine articles, poetry, and playwriting, this book provides you with:Inspiration and tips on revision, stamina, and productivityClear instruction on the craft behind the artDetailed reading lists to expand your literary horizonsExercises to improve your writing endeavorsBy heeding the advice in The Portable MFA, you will gain the wisdom and experience of some of today's greatest teachers, all for just the price of a book.

    Listening to critics and academics - amateur and professional - often strips out the joy of writing. And a failure to recognize writing as a business furthers the potential damage. But Rusch offers hope for writers who have suffered at the hands of critique - external and internal - and outlines a path to healing.

    McNair explains the common mistakes made by most writers and shows how eliminating unnecessary words strengthens action, shorten sentences, and makes writing crackle with life. Containing 21 simple, straightforward principles, Editor-Proof Your Writing teaches how to edit weak verb forms, strip away author intrusions, ban redundancies, eliminate foggy phrases, correct passive-voice sentences, slash misused and overused words, and fix other writing mistakes. A superb addition to any writer’s toolkit, this book will not only make writing clearer and more grammatical, it will also make it more concise, entertaining, and appealing to publishers.

    And once you've got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts. In The Writer's Idea Book, Jack Heffron, former senior editor at Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will help you find the answer. Utilizing over 400 prompts and exercises, you'll generate intriguing ideas and plumb their possibilities to turn them into something amazing. The Writer's Idea Book will give you the insight and the self-awareness to create and refine ideas that demand to be transformed into greater works, the kind of compelling, absorbing writing that will have other writers asking "where do you get those ideas?"

    Of course, he has given us glimpses in his aphorisms, short essays, articles, and speeches. But, never before has an entire book been devoted to Kurt Vonnegut, the teacher. Here is pretty much everything Vonnegut ever said or wrote having to do with the art and craft of writing - Plus - a wonderful, healing/nourishing expedition, of which McConnell has outfitted us for the journey, and in these 37 chapters, covers the waterfront of how one American writer brought himself to the pinnacle of the writing art; and the result only serves to benefit us.Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed - 14 novels, collections of his speeches, his essays, his letters, his plays - so this fresh view of him, written by a former student, is a bonanza for writers, readers, listeners and Vonnegut fans everywhere.©2019 Trust u/w of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (P)2019 Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books

    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.

    Heroic characters can be broken down into sixteen archetypes. By following the guidelines of the archetypes presented in this comprehensive reference work, writers can create extraordinarily memorable characters and elevate their writing to a higher level. Throughout the book, the authors give examples of well-known heroes and heroines from television and film so the reader can picture the archetype in his or her mind.At the very core of a character, every hero can be traced back to one of the eight major archetypes, as can every heroine. The core archetype tells the writer the most basic instincts of heroes or heroines - how they think and feel, what drives them and how they reach their goals. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a novice, The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines will help you improve your own writing and help you create truly memorable characters.

    [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"With this basic instruction always in mind, Anne Lamott returns to offer us a new gift: a step-by-step guide on how to write and on how to manage the writer's life. From "Getting Started,' with "Short Assignments," through "Shitty First Drafts," "Character," "Plot," "Dialogue." all the way from "False Starts" to "How Do You Know When You're Done?" Lamott encourages, instructs, and inspires. She discusses "Writers Block," "Writing Groups," and "Publication." Bracingly honest, she is also one of the funniest people alive.If you have ever wondered what it takes to be a writer, what it means to be a writer, what the contents of your school lunches said about what your parents were really like, this book is for you. From faith, love, and grace to pain, jealousy, and fear, Lamott insists that you keep your eyes open, and then shows you how to survive. And always, from the life of the artist she turns to the art of life.

    But if you're contemplating writing a series, there are plenty of considerations you'll need to make first. Writing the Fiction Series is the complete guide to ensuring your series stays hot after the first, fourth, or even fifteenth book.Inside, you'll learn how to: • Write a series that captures the hearts of readers and stands out in a sea of competition. • Find the focus of your series, develop your idea, and plan ahead. • Hone in on the two most important aspects of series writing: characters and consistency. • Utilize a variety of series organization techniques, complete with downloadable worksheets and checklists. • Market your series effectively and increase your sales.With insights from nearly 100 series authors and publishers, as well as Grow Your Series Muscles" exercises, Writing the Fiction Series is the only book you'll need to write a series that sizzles.Also available: the companion tutorial from Writer’s Digest Tutorials, Writing the Fiction Series:http://tutorials.writersdigest.com/

    The story begins in 1973, in the offices of The Atlantic Monthly, in Boston, where a young freelance writer named Tracy Kidder came looking for an assignment. Richard Todd was the editor who encouraged him. From that article grew a lifelong association. Before long, Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, the first book the two worked on together, had won the Pulitzer Prize. It was a heady moment, but for Kidder and Todd it was only the beginning of an education in the art of nonfiction.Good Prose explores three major nonfiction forms: narratives, essays, and memoirs. Kidder and Todd draw candidly, sometimes comically, on their own experience—their mistakes as well as accomplishments—to demonstrate the pragmatic ways in which creative problems get solved. They also turn to the works of a wide range of writers, novelists as well as nonfiction writers, for models and instruction. They talk about narrative strategies (and about how to find a story, sometimes in surprising places), about the ethical challenges of nonfiction, and about the realities of making a living as a writer. They offer some tart and emphatic opinions on the current state of language. And they take a clear stand against playing loose with the facts. Their advice is always grounded in the practical world of writing and publishing.Good Prose—like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—is a succinct, authoritative, and entertaining arbiter of standards in contemporary writing, offering guidance for the professional writer and the beginner alike. This wise and useful book is the perfect companion for anyone who loves to read good books and longs to write one.

    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.