Readers will learn how to adopt those habits on their quest to become novelists. The book will inspire, nourish, and provide the needed kick in the pants to turn the wannabes into doers! The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists is full of "aha" experiences as the reader uncovers the collected wisdom from the cream of today’s fiction writers.

    Whether you’re tinkering with your first one hundred pages or trying to wrestle a complete draft into shape, Horwitz helps you look at your writing with the fresh perspective you need to reach the finish line.Blueprint Your Bestseller introduces the Book Architecture Method, a tested sequence of steps for organizing and revising any manuscript. By breaking a manuscript into manageable scenes, you can determine what is going on in your writing at the structural level—and uncover the underlying flaws and strengths of your narrative.For more than a decade this proven approach to revision has helped authors of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as writers across all media from theater to film to TV.

    But a poorly done or unbelievable fight scene can ruin a great book in an instant.In Fight Write you'll learn practical tips, terminology, and the science behind crafting realistic fight scenes for your fiction. Broken up into "Rounds," trained fighter and writer Carla Hoch guides you through the many factors you'll need to consider when developing battles and brawls.- In Round 1, you will consider how the Who, When, Where, and Why questions affect what type of fight scene you want to craft. - Round 2 delves into the human factors of biology (think fight or flight and adrenaline) and psychology (aggression and response to injuring or killing another person). - Round 3 explores different fighting styles that are appropriate for different situations: What really happens in fights on the street? What is the vocabulary used to describe these styles? - Round 4 considers weaponry and will guide you to select the best weapon for your characters, including nontraditional weapons of opportunity, while also thinking about the nitty-gritty details of using them. - In Round 5, you'll learn how to accurately describe realistic injuries sustained from the fights and certain weapons, and what kind of injuries will kill a character or render them unable to fight further.By taking into account where your character is in the world, when in history the fight is happening, what the character's motivation for fighting is, and much more, you'll be able write fight scenes unique to your plot and characters, all while satisfying your reader's discerning eye.

    Drawing on her own experiences as a British novelist and journalist, Wenham-Jones takes you through the minefield of the writing process, giving advice on everything from how to avoid Writer's Bottom to what to wear to your launch party. Including hot tips from authors, agents, and publishers at the sharp end of the industry.

    Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all.Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to today's writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it.From students and teachers to novelists and poets, Writing with Power reminds us that we can celebrate the uses of mystery, chaos, nonplanning, and magic, while achieving analysis, conscious control, explicitness, and care in whatever it is we set down on paper.

    Now the techniques of this renowned school are available in this book.Here you'll find: The fundamental elements of fiction craft—character, plot, point of view, etc.—explained clearly and completely - Key concepts illustrated with passages from great works of fiction - The complete text of "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver—a masterpiece of contemporary short fiction that is analyzed throughout the book - Exercises that let you immediately apply what you learn to your own writing.Written by Gotham Writers' Workshop expert instructors and edited by Dean of Faculty Alexander Steele, Writing Fiction offers the same methods and exercises that have earned the school international acclaim.Once you've read—and written—your way through this book, you'll have a command of craft that will enable you to turn your ideas into effective short stories and novels. You will be a writer.Gotham Writers' Workshop is America's leading private creative writing school, offering classes in New York City and on the web at WritingClasses.com. The school's interactive online classes, selected "Best of the Web" by Forbes, have attracted thousands of aspiring writers from across the United States and more than sixty countries.

    In over 30 essays, written over 20 years, one of the world's great story-tellers meditates on story-telling. Warm, funny, generous, entertaining, and above all, deeply considered, they offer thoughts on a wide variety of topic, including the origin and composition of Philip's own stories, the craft of writing and the story-tellers who have meant the most to him. The art of story-telling is everywhere present in the essays themselves, in the instantly engaging tone, the vivid imagery and the striking phrases, the resonant anecdotes, the humour and learnedness. Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts.

    Now Karen Elizabeth Gordon has revised and enlarged her classic handbook with fuller explanations of the rules of punctuation, additional whimsical graphics, and further character development and drama -- all the while redeeming punctuation from the perils of boredom. For anyone who has despaired of opening a punctuation handbook (but whose sentences despair without one), THE NEW WELL TEMPERED SENTENCE will teach you clearly and simply where to place a comma and how to use an apostrophe. And as you master the elusive slashes, dots, and dashes that give expression to our most perplexing thoughts, you will find yourself in the grip of a bizarre and beguiling comedy of manners. Long-time fans will delight in the further intrigues of cover girl Loona, the duke and duchess, and the mysterious Rosie and Nimrod. The New Well-Tempered Sentence is sure to entertain while teaching you everything you want to know about punctuation. Never before has punctuation been so much fun!

    Craft Compelling DialogueWhen should your character talk, what should (or shouldn't) he say, and when should he say it? How do you know when dialogue—or the lack thereof—is dragging down your scene? How do you fix character who speaks with the laconic wit of the Terminator?Write Great Fiction: Dialogue by successful author and instructor Gloria Kempton has the answers to all of these questions and more! It's packed with innovative exercises and instructions designed to teach you how to:•Create dialogue that drives the story•Weave dialogue with narrative and action•Use dialogue to pace your story•Write dialogue that fits specific genres•Avoid the common pitfalls of writing dialogue•Make dialogue unique for each characterAlong with dozens of dialogue excerpts form today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Dialogue gives you the edge you need to make your story stand out from the rest.

    

    For example:What would motivate your character to tell a lie–a big lie that may have unintended consequences?Is your character the type who would blow the whistle on a corporate cover-up or would she quietly toe the line?How would your character cope with the loss of a parent with whom he was exceptionally close?How likely would your character be to flirt with an attractive stranger in a hotel bar?Is your character the type who would drop everything–and everyone–for a spontaneous road trip?Plus, find out how to develop each scenario further using corresponding prompts and specific psychological insight into areas such as the role friendship plays in a person's mental and physical health, conflict resolution in intimate relationships, and the connection between time-impatience and free-floating hostility. With "What Would Your Character Do?," you don't have to guess at your character's responses to the important decisions and unexpected challenges he's sure to encounter in your story. Use and reuse these scenarios on each of your characters until you've got a nuanced, distinct cast that readers will never be able to forget!

    185 practical techniques for improving your story or novel

    DeSalvo shows how anyone can use writing as a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life. Contrary to what most self-help books claim, just writing won't help you; in fact, there's abundant evidence that the wrong kind of writing can be damaging. DeSalvo's program is based on the best available and most recent scientific studies about the efficacy of using writing as a restorative tool. With insight and wit, she illuminates how writers, from Virginia Woolf to Henry Miller to Audre Lorde to Isabel Allende, have been transformed by the writing process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.

    But what if you had an attention-grabbing answer that left your audience wanting more? It’s not only possible, it’s simple if you have the right tools.Story consultant Jordan Smith has helped countless storytellers strengthen and pitch their stories. His tool of choice is the logline, a technique for selling screenplays that is little known outside of Hollywood. Jordan has adapted this powerful tool and made it accessible to all storytellers.Not only is a logline useful for answering that frightening question, it’s also handy for keeping your story on track. If you don’t know the core of your story, you run the risk of meandering it into places where it doesn’t belong. With these techniques, you can solve story problems early before they cause you trouble.Inside this book, you’ll find:The Quick-Start Logline Chapter to get you going right awayExercises to build your logline skills one step at a time- The four fundamental logline rules- Useful chapters to dig deeper and handle special cases- More examples than you can shake a stick at- And more! Whether you write novels, movies, comic books, songs, or even operas, this book is for you. Every storyteller should be able to say in one sentence what his story is about. Finding the Core of Your Story will help you learn to do just that.

    While some people persist in the belief that essays are stuffy and antiquated, the truth is that the personal essay is an ever-changing creative medium that provides an ideal vehicle for satisfying the human urge to document truths as we experience them and share them with others--to capture a bit of life on paper.Crafting the Personal Essay is designed to help you explore the flexibility and power of the personal essay in your own writing. This hands-on, creativity-expanding guide will help you infuse your nonfiction with honesty, personality, and energy. You'll discover:- An exploration of the basics of essay writing - Ways to step back and scrutinize your experiences in order to separate out what may be fresh, powerful, surprising or fascinating to a reader - How to move past private journaling and write for an audience - How to write eight different types of essays including memoir, travel, humor, and nature essays among others - Instruction for revision and strategies for getting published Brimming with helpful examples, exercises, and sample essays, this indispensable guide will help your personal essays transcend the merely private to become powerfully universal.