No more excuses! Anyone can write a novel, novelist Mosley advises, and in this book of tips, practical advice, and wisdom, he promises that the writer-in-waiting can finish it in one year. Intended as both inspiration and instruction, the book provides the tools to turn out a first draft painlessly and then revise it into something finer. Mosley tells: how to create a daily writing regimen to fit any writer's needs--and how to stick to it; how to...

In this handbook, based on the courses and seminars that John Gardner gave, he explains the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner's lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics -- from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence.

"From the literary agent and author of the bestselling "The First Five Pages" comes a groundbreaking new book on plot development. As a literary agent, Noah Lukeman hears thousands of book pitches a year. Often the stories sound great in concept, but never live up to their potential on the page. The Plot Thickens analyzes the classic elements of storytelling, showing beginning and advanced writers alike how to implement the fundamentals of successful...

The Technique of the Mystery Story (1914) is a book by Carolyn Wells. Before she began writing her Detective Fleming Stone series of mystery novels, Carolyn Wells was a published poet, accomplished children's author, and professional jingle writer. In the middle of her career, she heard a mystery story by Anna Katharine Green and was instantly hooked. Through years of practice and attention to the craft, she earned a reputation as a leading fiction...

Había imaginado, hace ya unos meses, hacer una novela en la que quería poner la más íntima experiencia de mi destierro, crearme, eternizarme bajo los rasgos de desterrado y de proscrito. Y ahora pienso que la mejor manera de hacer esa novela es contar cómo hay que hacerla. Es la novela de la novela, la creación de la creación. Desde su exilio en Hendaya, en 1924, Miguel de Unamuno comienza la escritura de "Cómo se hace una novela". A través...

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...

Characters refusing to talk? Plot plodding along? Where do good ideas come from anyway? In this wonderfully practical volume, two-time Edgar Award-winning novelist Lawrence Block takes an inside look at writing as a craft and as a career.

From studying the market, to mastering self-discipline and "creative procrastination," through coping with rejections, Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is an invaluable sourcebook of information.

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"Hundreds of books have been written on the art of writing. Here at last is a book by two professional editors to teach writers the techniques of the editing trade that turn promising manuscripts into published novels and short stories." "In this completely revised and updated second edition, Renni Browne and Dave King teach you, the writer, how to apply the editing techniques they have developed to your own work. Chapters on dialogue, exposition,...

"Rhetoric is the author's term for the means by which the writer makes known his vision to the reader and persuades him of its validity; and he demonstrates convincingly that there is no essential difference between ostentatiously rhetorical novelists like Fielding and Dickens, and the admired masters of impersonality--Flaubert, James, Joyce ... this is a major critical work which should be required reading for everyone concerned in the academic study...

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...