How to Craft Killer Dialogue for Fiction & Creative Non-Fiction


Book Description

GREAT DIALOGUE CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BESTSELLER AND A BOMB! Sharpen your storytelling by learning How to Craft Killer Dialogue. Ever wondered what techniques Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarantino use to conjure the dialogue for their slick and highly quotable crime stories? Want to create the same heart-warming introspection found in the minds of characters by Judy Blume? Or would you prefer to plumb the depths of layered subtext as powerfully displayed in the works of artists like Toni Morrison? With this comprehensive guide, you will accomplish all those goals and master these techniques: Enhancing characterization through vivid dialogue Employing dialogue to create tension and advance the plot Representing accents and dialects effectively Incorporating aspects of the setting into dialogue Utilizing dialogue to establish tone and build subtext Developing a unique style and cadence for each characterization Recognizing the difference between direct and indirect dialogue . . . and so much more! Whether you’re writing screenplays, short fiction, long fiction, creative non-fiction, or something in between, How to Craft Killer Dialogue is your go-to guide for drafting, revising, and perfecting conversations that readers will quote for years to come. From the author of How to Craft a Killer Cozy Mystery and Mastering the Art of Suspense.




Dialogue (Write Great Fiction)


Book Description

Craft Compelling Dialogue When 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 a character who speaks without 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 instruction designed to teach you how to: • Create dialogue that drives the story • Weave dialogue with narrative and action • Write dialogue that fits specific genres • Avoid the common pitfalls of writing dialogue • Make dialogue unique for each character Along with dozens of dialogue excerpts from today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Dialogue gives you the edge you need to make your story stand out from the rest.




Youthful Aging Secrets


Book Description

Are you afraid of aging? What if you could stop or even reverse the process of aging? Recent scientific research in rejuvenation biotechnology shows we can reset the clock. The new paradigm of youthful aging is a revolution in the making. This book will change the trajectory of your life. You will end up with a completely new vision of what your mature years can be like. The new paradigm of youthful aging will help you to bloom into full glory, at any stage of your life. In Youthful Aging Secrets, you




Fight Write


Book Description

Whether a side-street skirmish or an all-out war, fight scenes bring action to the pages of every kind of fiction. 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: How would a character fight from a prone position versus being attacked in 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.




You Can't Make This Stuff Up


Book Description

From "the godfather behind creative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair) comes this indispensable how-to for nonfiction writers of all levels and genres, "reminiscent of Stephen King's fiction handbook On Writing" (Kirkus). Whether you're writing a rags-to-riches tell-all memoir or literary journalism, telling true stories well is hard work. In You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Lee Gutkind, the go-to expert for all things creative nonfiction, offers his unvarnished wisdom to help you craft the best writing possible. Frank, to-the-point, and always entertaining, Gutkind describes and illustrates every aspect of the genre. Invaluable tools and exercises illuminate key steps, from defining a concept and establishing a writing process to the final product. Offering new ways of understanding the genre, this practical guidebook will help you thoroughly expand and stylize your work.




True Stories, Well Told


Book Description

Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of jazz: it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques—some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live.




Forever Fat


Book Description

Dubbed?some would say drubbed?the ?godfather behind creative nonfiction? by Vanity Fair, Lee Gutkind takes the opportunity of these essays, and the rich material of his own life, to define, defend, and further expand the genre he has done so much to shape. The result is an explosive and hilarious memoir of Gutkind?s colorful life as a motorcyclist, a medical insider, a sailor, a college professor, an over-aged insecure father, and a literary whipping boy. ø In Forever Fat Gutkind battles his weight, his ex-wives, his father, his rabbi, his psychiatrist, and his critics in a lifelong cross-country, cross-cultural search for stability and identity. And from Gutkind?s battles, the reader emerges a winner, treated to a sometimes poignant, sometimes harrowing, sometimes uproarious, and always engrossing story of the simultaneous awakening of a man and his mission, and of the constant struggle, in literature and in life, to sort out memory and imagination. Here, enacted in technicolor terms, is the universal, symbolic truth that no matter how far you travel, over how many years, you will never completely shed the weighty baggage of adolescence. Yet, as Gutkind proves again and again, he has learned to describe his burden with an ever-lightening brilliance.




The Routledge Handbook of Magazine Research


Book Description

Scholarly engagement with the magazine form has, in the last two decades, produced a substantial amount of valuable research. Authored by leading academic authorities in the study of magazines, the chapters in The Routledge Handbook of Magazine Research not only create an architecture to organize and archive the developing field of magazine research, but also suggest new avenues of future investigation. Each of 33 chapters surveys the last 20 years of scholarship in its subject area, identifying the major research themes, theoretical developments and interpretive breakthroughs. Exploration of the digital challenges and opportunities which currently face the magazine world are woven throughout, offering readers a deeper understanding of the magazine form, as well as of the sociocultural realities it both mirrors and influences. The book includes six sections: -Methodologies and structures presents theories and models for magazine research in an evolving, global context. -Magazine publishing: the people and the work introduces the roles and practices of those involved in the editorial and business sides of magazine publishing. -Magazines as textual communication surveys the field of contemporary magazines across a range of theoretical perspectives, subjects, genre and format questions. -Magazines as visual communication explores cover design, photography, illustrations and interactivity. -Pedagogical and curricular perspectives offers insights on undergraduate and graduate teaching topics in magazine research. -The future of the magazine form speculates on the changing nature of magazine research via its environmental effects, audience, and transforming platforms.




Brothers on Three


Book Description

**Winner of the 2021 Montana Book Award** **Winner of the 2021 New Mexico-Arizona General Nonfiction Book Award** **Finalist for the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Nonfiction** **A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick** "A heart-stomping, heart-stopping read. Unsentimental. Unforgettable. Astonishing. Brothers on Three captures the roar of a community spirit powered by blood history, loyalty, and ferocious love." —Debra Magpie Earling, author of Perma Red From journalist Abe Streep, a story of coming-of-age on a reservation in the American West and a team uniting a community March 11, 2017, was a night to remember: in front of the hopeful eyes of thousands of friends, family members, and fans, the Arlee Warriors would finally bring the high school basketball state championship title home to the Flathead Indian Reservation. The game would become the stuff of legend, with the boys revered as local heroes. The team’s place in Montana history was now cemented, but for starters Will Mesteth, Jr. and Phillip Malatare, life would keep moving on—senior year was just beginning. In Brothers on Three, we follow Phil and Will, along with their teammates, coaches, and families, as they balance the pressures of adolescence, shoulder the dreams of their community, and chart their own individual courses for the future. Brothers on Three is not simply a story about high school basketball, state championships, and a winning team. It is a book about community, and it is about boys on the cusp of adulthood finding their way through the intersecting worlds they inhabit and forging their own paths to personhood.




On Writing Fiction


Book Description

The pieces of a satisfying novel or story seem to fit together so effortlessly, so seamlessly, that it's easy to find yourself wondering, "How on earth did the author do this?" The answer is simple: He sat alone at his desk, considered an array of options, and made smart, careful choices. In On Writing Fiction, award-winning author and respected creative writing professor David Jauss offers practical information and advice that will help you make smart creative and technical decisions about such topics as: • Writing prose with syntax and rhythm to create a "soundtrack" for the narrative • Choosing the right point of view to create the appropriate degree of "distance" between your characters and the reader • Harnessing the power of contradiction in the creative process In one thought-provoking essay after another, Jauss sorts through unique fiction-writing conundrums, including how to create those exquisite intersections between truth and fabrication that make all great works of fiction so much more resonant than fiction that follows the "write what you know" approach that's so often used.