Fiction Writer’s Workshop

Author: Josip Novakovich
Publisher: Story Press
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
In a clear and lively style, with rich literary references from classic and contemporary fiction, Novakovich teaches you how to: uncover ideas worth writing about; evoke a vivid sense of place and time; invent believable characters for your fiction; support your story with strong organization and structure; tell your story from the best viewpoint; direct your dramatic action; open and close with power and grace; choose expressive details; write with a commanding narrative voice; and transform your first draft into finished, polished fiction. At the end of each chapter, a dozen or more unique writing exercises (each with a clear "objective statement" to focus your efforts) will help you put what you learn into action, while exploring new ideas, approaches and genres. After you complete each exercise, "check" questions will help you review what you've done - so that you may revise or rewrite. Encouraging real improvement over negative self-criticism, Novakovich helps you gain a more productive sense of where you can write one more line that will add life to what you already have down - or where you can delete a line that may obscure your readers' view. He helps you develop day-to-day self-discipline. And perhaps most important, he respects and encourages your development of personal style. "I will give you a lot of advice", he says, "but you need not take it". As a writer, Novakovich knows that the strongest fiction emerges from your own choices and directions. Fiction Writer's Workshop gives you clear, firsthand understanding of the elements of fiction . . . so you can make more informed choices and your fiction more successful.

Writing Fiction

Author: Gotham Writers' Workshop
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9781408101315
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Language, literature and biography.

Craft in the Real World

Author: Matthew Salesses
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1948226812
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Book Description
This national bestseller is "a significant contribution to discussions of the art of fiction and a necessary challenge to received views about whose stories are told, how they are told and for whom they are intended" (Laila Lalami, The New York Times Book Review). The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces? Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, "When we write fiction, we write the world."

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy

Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 158297103X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
Learn to write science fiction and fantasy from a master You've always dreamed of writing science fiction and fantasy tales that pull readers into extraordinary new worlds and fantastic conflicts. Best-selling author Orson Scott Card shows you how it's done, distilling years of writing experience and publishing success into concise, no-nonsense advice. You'll learn how to: • utilize story elements that define the science fiction and fantasy genres • build, populate, and dramatize a credible, inviting world your readers will want to explore • develop the "rules" of time, space and magic that affect your world and its inhabitants • construct a compelling story by developing ideas, characters, and events that keep readers turning pages • find the markets for speculative fiction, reach them, and get published • submit queries, write cover letters, find an agent, and live the life of a writer The boundaries of your imagination are infinite. Explore them with Orson Scott Card and create fiction that casts a spell over agents, publishers, and readers from every world.

The Modern Library Writer's Workshop

Author: Stephen Koch
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0307538486
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
“Make [your] characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” —Kurt Vonnegut “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story, but ‘the cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is.” —John Le Carré Nothing is more inspiring for a beginning writer than listening to masters of the craft talk about the writing life. But if you can’t get Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, and Gabriel García Márquez together at the Algonquin, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop gives you the next best thing. Stephen Koch, former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program, presents a unique guide to the craft of fiction. Along with his own lucid observations and commonsense techniques, he weaves together wisdom, advice, and inspiring commentary from some of our greatest writers. Taking you from the moment of inspiration (keep a notebook with you at all times), to writing a first draft (do it quickly! you can always revise later), to figuring out a plot (plot always serves the story, not vice versa), Koch is a benevolent mentor, glad to dispense sound advice when you need it most. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop belongs on every writer’s shelf, to be picked up and pored over for those moments when the muse needs a little help finding her way.

Analyzing Short Stories

Author: Joseph Lostracco
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781524965853
Category : College readers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Breathing Life Into Your Characters

Author: Rachel Ballon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1599633701
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
Create Convincing Characters That Readers—and Editors—Can't Resist! It's the question that eternally plagues all good writers: How can you describe the thoughts and feelings of characters who have backgrounds or psychological aberrations with which you have no personal experience? How can you describe the feelings of a drug addict if you've never been one? How can you write about being a prisoner if you've never been to jail? You can do all the research you want, but the question still remains: How do you convincingly portray characters if you've never lived in their skin? In Breathing Life Into Your Characters, writing consultant and professional psychotherapist Rachel Ballon, Ph. D., shows you how to get in touch with the thoughts and feelings necessary to truly understand your characters—no matter what their background or life experiences. She'll show you how to: • Develop a psychological profile for every character • Turn archetypes into conflicted characters • Think like a criminal to convincingly write one • Reveal personalities through the use of nonverbal communication In addition, you'll learn how to effectively use Ballon's "Method Writing" system—taught previously only in her writing workshops—to explore your own feelings, memories, and emotions to create characters of astonishing depth and complexity!

Writing Fiction Step by Step

Author: Josip Novakovich
Publisher: Story Press
ISBN: 9781884910357
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Writing Fiction Step by Step gives you more than 200 exercises that will sharpen your writing skills while helping you develop complete short stories, even novels. &break;&break;In this sequel to his very popular Fiction Writer's Workshop, Whiting Award-winning author Josip Novakovich shows you that writing fiction is about making connections–between character and plot, setting and conflict, memory and imagination. You'll make these connections by linking the exercises. A character invented in chapter two can appear in a scene outlined in chapter eight and can speak in a voice developed in chapter ten. &break;&break;Embark on a unique writing journey and learn step by step how to craft fiction that captivates readers.

The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop

Author: Felicia Rose Chavez
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642593877
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
The Antiracist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering artistic communities for a new millennium of writers. Inspired by June Jordan 's 1995 Poetry for the People, here is a blueprint for a 21st-century workshop model that protects and platforms writers of color. Instead of earmarking dusty anthologies, imagine workshop participants Skyping with contemporary writers of difference. Instead of tolerating bigoted criticism, imagine workshop participants moderating their own feedback sessions. Instead of yielding to the red-penned judgement of instructors, imagine workshop participants citing their own text in dialogue. The Antiracist Writing Workshop is essential reading for anyone looking to revolutionize the old workshop model into an enlightened, democratic counterculture.

Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts

Author: Matt Bell
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1641293411
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
They say writing is rewriting. So why does the second part get such short shrift? Refuse To Be Done will guide you through every step of the novel writing process, from getting started on those first pages to the last tips for making your final draft even tighter and stronger. From lauded writer and teacher Matt Bell, Refuse to Be Done is encouraging and intensely practical, focusing always on specific rewriting tasks, techniques, and activities for every stage of the process. You won’t find bromides here about the “the writing Muse.” Instead, Bell breaks down the writing process in three sections. In the first, Bell shares a bounty of tactics, all meant to push you through the initial conception and get words on the page. The second focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. The third and final section offers a layered approach to polishing through a checklist of operations, breaking the daunting project of final revisions into many small, achievable tasks. Whether you are a first time novelist or a veteran writer, you will find an abundance of strategies here to help motivate you and shake up your revision process, allowing you to approach your work, day after day and month after month, with fresh eyes and sharp new tools.