Kategoria BISAC: Language Arts & Disciplines >> Writing - Composition

Here's your ticket to the greatest mystery-writing workshop ever

In this extraordinary compilation, more than three dozen members of the Mystery Writers of America share insights and advice that can help make your writing dreams a reality.

You'll learn how to:

• Develop unique ideas
• Construct an airtight plot packed with intrigue and suspense
• Create compelling characters and atmospheric settings
• Develop a writing style all your own
• Write convincing dialogue
• Choose the appropriate point of view
• Work with an...

Take your fiction to the next level

Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list limbo. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel - one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists.

Maass details the elements that all breakout novels share - regardless of genre - then shows you writing techniques that can make your own books stand out and succeed in a...

Craft an Engaging Plot

How does plot influence story structure? What's the difference between plotting for commercial and literary fiction? How do you revise a plot or structure that's gone off course?

With Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, you'll discover the answers to these questions and more. Award-winning author James Scott Bell offers clear, concise information that will help you create a believable and memorable plot, including:

• Techniques for crafting strong beginnings, middles, and ends
• Easy-to-understand plotting diagrams and...

Build a Timeless, Original Story Using Hundreds of Classic Story Motifs

It's been said that there are no new ideas; but there are proven ideas that have worked again and again for all writers for hundreds of years.

Story Structure Architect is your comprehensive reference to the classic recurring story structures used by every great author throughout the ages. You'll find master models for characters, plots, and complication motifs, along with guidelines for combining them to create unique short stories, novels, scripts, or plays. You'll also learn how to:...

In Your First Novel, novelist Laura Whitcomb and seasoned literary agent Ann Rittenberg team up to provide you with the skills you need to write your dream novel and the savvy business know-how to get it published. In this all-in-one resource, you'll discover essential novel-writing techniques, such as:

• How to best structure your research so that you can save time later
• How to card your story before you start writing
• What to consider when developing your cast of characters
• How to adapt classic story structures to fit your own...

Effective storytelling stems from many elements, the most crucial of which are unseen or blended in so unobtrusively that they are difficult to spot and analyze. Still, they are necessary to the wholeness and coherence of a story–to create a work that lingers and resonates in the reader's imagination.

• Using emotional bombshells, surprises, and interruptions to intensify...

The masters of horror have united to teach you the secrets of success in the scariest genre of all

In On Writing Horror, Second Edition, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Harlan Ellison, David Morrell, Jack Ketchum, and many others tell you everything you need to know to successfully write and publish horror novels and short stories.

Edited by the Horror Writers Association (HWA), a worldwide organization of writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting dark literature, On Writing Horror includes exclusive information and guidance from 58 of the...

Jeffrey Hatcher knows the nuts and bolts of writing for the theater. Here, he shares his views on it all--from building tension and plotting a scene, right down to moving a character from one side of the stage to the other. From crafting an intriguing beginning to delivering a satisfying ending.

In Hatcher's one-on-one discussions with acclaimed American playwrights Lee Blessing, Marsha Norman and Jose Rivera, you'll find a wealth of practical advice, tricks of the trade and insight that will help you in your own creative efforts.

Master the Power of Story

When you consider the thousands of years of storytelling that comprise our literary tradition, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the shadow of so many works. But there are common threads that link all stories--from "Beowulf" and "Hamlet" to "Gone With the Wind" and "The Godfather" to the story you're drafting right now in your head. These threads form the foundation that supports story--a foundation Nancy Lamb shows you how to access and master.

Whether you're writing a novel, a memoir, or a screenplay, "The Art and Craft of Storytelling" offers time-tested...

Compelling stories have the power to generate infinite wonder: It's nearly impossible to imagine how the author began, and yet we sense there's much more beyond the final word. It's this mystery–a combination of inspiration and craft, smoke and mirrors–that makes writing feel momentous. But it can also feel overwhelming, causing us to become small, scared, not quite ready for the "big" rides, such as finishing that story, that novel, and finding the courage to share it with the world.

In You Must Be This Tall to Ride, you'll find 20 works of fiction and nonfiction by...

Discover the Difference Between a So-So Manuscript and a Novel Readers Can't Forget

We've all read them: novels by our favorite authors that disappoint. Uninspired and lifeless, we wonder what happened. Was the author in a hurry? Did she have a bad year? Has he lost interest altogether?

Something similar is true of a great many unpublished manuscripts. They are okay stories that never take flight. They don't grip the imagination, let alone the heart. They merit only a shrug and a polite dismissal by agents and editors.

It doesn't have to be that way. In The Fire...

The Fiction Writer's Guide to Creative Success

From that first story idea to publication and beyond, being a novelist is an evolving process. The Constant Art of Being a Writer helps you discover the mindset and skills you need to confidently approach each aspect of writing and publishing.

Award-winning novelist and short story writer N.M. Kelby explores core fiction writing techniques like idea generation, outlining, character development, and the use of black comedic moments and magic realism, as well as essential business-related topics like getting an...

Write vibrant scenes and essential summaries

"Show--don't tell." How many times have you heard this standard bit of writing advice? It's so common in writing courses and critiques that it has become a cliche. Writers are often told to write scenes, dramatize, cut exposition, cut summary--but it's misguided advice. The truth is good writing almost always requires both showing and telling. The trick is finding the right balance of scene and summary--the two basic components of creative prose.

Showing and Telling shows you how to employ each of these essential...

Fasten your seat belt for a crash course in careful usage.... Just like automobile accidents, accidents of style occur all over the English-speaking world, in print and on the Internet, thousands of times every day. They range from minor fender benders, such as confusing their and there, to serious smashups, such as misusing sensual for sensuous or writing loathe when you mean loath.

Charles Harrington Elster shows you how to navigate the hairpin turns of grammar, diction, spelling, and punctuation with an entertaining driver's manual...