Author : Nathan Bransford
Publisher : Nathan Bransford
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 13,66 MB
Release : 2019-10-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 173414940X
Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford shares his secrets for creating killer plots, fleshing out your first ideas, crafting compelling characters, and staying sane in the process. Read the guide that New York Times bestselling author Ransom Riggs called "The best how-to-write-a-novel book I've read."
Author : Ariel Sacks
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 38,90 MB
Release : 2023-10-03
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 132405249X
Writing and sharing fiction allows adolescents to glimpse other lives The current curricular emphasis on analytical writing can make it feel risky to teach creative writing in ELA classrooms. But the opportunity to write fiction in school opens many doors for young people: doors the author argues are critical to the development of our students, our education system, and even our democracy. This book will delight English teachers weary of focusing relentlessly on argument and information writing. Veteran teacher Ariel Sacks vividly describes the many academic, social–emotional, and community-building advantages of teaching imaginative writing in the classroom, not least of which is the impact it has on equity for marginalized students. Her book is a teacher-to-teacher text that folds in detailed, practical guidance about how to design lessons and meet standards, while presenting a powerful central argument: that the writing of fiction should be treated not as a luxury for some, but as a center of the English curriculum for all students.
Author : Joel Schwartzberg
Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Page : 129 pages
File Size : 43,11 MB
Release : 2017-10-16
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1523094125
In this indispensable guide for anyone who must communicate in speech or writing, Schwartzberg shows that most of us fail to convince because we don't have a point-a concrete contention that we can argue, defend, illustrate, and prove. He lays out, step-by-step, how to develop one. In Joel's Schwartzberg's ten-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across-one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail-is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. A point is something more. It's a contention you can propose, argue, defend, illustrate, and prove. A point offers a position of potential value. Global warming is real is not a point. Scientific evidence shows that global warming is a real, human-generated problem that will have a devastating environmental and financial impact is a point. When we have a point, our influence snaps into place. We communicate belief, conviction, and urgency. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.
Author : Bill Cheng
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 13,81 MB
Release : 2013-05-07
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0062225030
In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor, Bill Cheng’s Southern Cross the Dog is an epic literary debut in which the bonds between three childhood friends are upended by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In its aftermath, one young man must choose between the lure of the future and the claims of the past. Having lost virtually everything in the fearsome storm—home, family, first love—Robert Chatham embarks on an odyssey that takes him through the deep South, from the desperation of a refugee camp to the fiery and raucous brothel Hotel Beau-Miel and into the Mississippi hinterland, where he joins a crew hired to clear the swamp and build a dam. Along his journey he encounters piano-playing hustlers, ne’er-do-well Klansmen, well-intentioned whores, and a family of fur trappers, the L’Etangs, whose very existence is threatened by the swamp-clearing around them. The L’Etang brothers are fierce and wild but there is something soft about their cousin Frankie, possibly the only woman capable of penetrating Robert’s darkest places and overturning his conviction that he’s marked by the devil. Teeming with language that renders both the savage beauty and complex humanity of our shared past, Southern Cross the Dog is a tour de force that heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.
Author : Randy Ingermanson
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 39,68 MB
Release : 2014-07-18
Category : Creative writing
ISBN : 9781500574055
The Snowflake Method-ten battle-tested steps that jump-start your creativity and help you quickly map out your story.
Author : Kaitlyn Greenidge
Publisher : Algonquin Books
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 25,93 MB
Release : 2017-01-31
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1616206446
A FINALIST FOR THE 2016 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE 2017 YOUNG LIONS AWARD “A terrifically auspicious debut.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Smart, timely and powerful . . . A rich examination of America’s treatment of race, and the ways we attempt to discuss and confront it today.” —The Huffington Post The Freeman family--Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie--have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute’s history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways. The power of this shattering novel resides in Greenidge’s undeniable storytelling talents. What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history’s long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America’s failure to find a language to talk about race. “A magnificently textured, vital, visceral feat of storytelling . . . [by] a sharp, poignant, extraordinary new voice of American literature.” —Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife
Author : Johnny B. Truant
Publisher : Johnny B. Truant
Page : 782 pages
File Size : 37,96 MB
Release :
Category : Fiction
ISBN :
This 250,000-word "full saga" collection includes ALL NINE BOOKS in the Unicorn Western Series! Cast out from the magical kingdom of The Realm and into the dying desert of the Sands beyond, Marshal Clint Gulliver and his unicorn Edward have finally found peace in the small and dusty town of Solace. But when both the fracturing worlds and Clint’s bride-to-be are thrust into peril by an old foe, the gunslinger must come out of retirement and aim his seven-shooters at the dark magic and those who bring it. An epic quest hurls marshal and unicorn across the endless desert in pursuit of the dark rider Dharma Kold and his unicorn of a different color, where they must battle their way back toward The Realm to uncover the truth...and mayhap save the worlds that hang in the balance. From the creators of Yesterday’s Gone (Platt) and Fat Vampire (Truant) comes this reinvention of both the western genre and unicorn lore. Written for children and teens — but complex and awesome enough for adult readers — Unicorn Western is “Harry Potter without wizards but with gunslings, talking unicorns, epic fights, and more turkey pie.”
Author : Randy Ingermanson
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 397 pages
File Size : 12,88 MB
Release : 2009-11-05
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0470585234
A complete guide to writing and selling your novel So you want to write a novel? Great! That’s a worthy goal, no matter what your reason. But don’t settle for just writing a novel. Aim high. Write a novel that you intend to sell to a publisher. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a complete guide designed to coach you every step along the path from beginning writer to royalty-earning author. Here are some things you’ll learn in Writing Fiction for Dummies: Strategic Planning: Pinpoint where you are on the roadmap to publication; discover what every reader desperately wants from a story; home in on a marketable category; choose from among the four most common creative styles; and learn the self-management methods of professional writers. Writing Powerful Fiction: Construct a story world that rings true; create believable, unpredictable characters; build a strong plot with all six layers of complexity of a modern novel; and infuse it all with a strong theme. Self-Editing Your Novel: Psychoanalyze your characters to bring them fully to life; edit your story structure from the top down; fix broken scenes; and polish your action and dialogue. Finding An Agent and Getting Published: Write a query letter, a synopsis, and a proposal; pitch your work to agents and editors without fear. Writing Fiction For Dummies takes you from being a writer to being an author. It can happen—if you have the talent and persistence to do what you need to do.
Author : Chad Harbach
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 48,17 MB
Release : 2014-02-25
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0865478139
Writers write—but what do they do for money? In a widely read essay entitled "MFA vs NYC," bestselling novelist Chad Harbach (The Art of Fielding) argued that the American literary scene has split into two cultures: New York publishing versus university MFA programs. This book brings together established writers, MFA professors and students, and New York editors, publicists, and agents to talk about these overlapping worlds, and the ways writers make (or fail to make) a living within them. Should you seek an advanced degree, or will workshops smother your style? Do you need to move to New York, or will the high cost of living undo you? What's worse—having a day job or not having health insurance? How do agents decide what to represent? Will Big Publishing survive? How has the rise of MFA programs affected American fiction? The expert contributors, including George Saunders, Elif Batuman, and Fredric Jameson, consider all these questions and more, with humor and rigor. MFA vs NYC is a must-read for aspiring writers, and for anyone interested in the present and future of American letters.
Author : Shawn Coyne
Publisher : Black Irish Entertainment LLC
Page : 459 pages
File Size : 48,86 MB
Release : 2015-05-02
Category : Reference
ISBN : 1936891360
WHAT IS THE STORY GRID? The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult). The Story Grid is a tool with many applications: 1. It will tell a writer if a Story ?works? or ?doesn't work. 2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story'the Story) has failed. 3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story's problems. 4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer. 5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.
