The Romance Writer’s Handbook: How to Write Romantic Fiction & Get It Published - by Rebecca Vinyard, 2004
C’mon - you know you want to do it. Write a romance, that is…Besides, romance fiction makes up more than half of all mass-market novels sold, with over 2,000 new titles released each and every year. And unlike other fields of fiction, romance truly welcomes new writers, as editors search through queries and conference appointments for the next Nora Roberts or Barbara Delinsky. In 49 chapters, The Romance Writer’s Handbook takes aspiring writers through a quick course in writing romantic fiction for today’s markets. Here is “from-the-ground-up” advice on how to begin to climb romance writing’s ladder of success, a method that even charms Patti Fleishman, the book reviewer for www.romancejunkies.com.
Posted by beanybabe at 8:46 PM PST
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How to Write a Great Story: A Fiction Writer’s Handbook - by Othello Bach, 1999
Do you want to publish your fiction? Bach will show you how with clear and concise examples and practical writing exercises. More than a “how to” book, this handbook is a reference manual that you won’t want to part with. Ever.
Posted by beanybabe at 8:41 PM PST
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Schaum’s Quick Guide to Writing Great Short Stories - by Margaret Lucke, 1998
Quickly and simply, this concise guide gives you clear explanations, proven tips and techniques–plus dozens of examples from well-known authors that show you how to: come up with dynamic ideas; create living, colorful characters; develop a unique plot. This simulating guide will help you to start confidently, write freely, finish strongly, and make the most of your talent. Look to Schaum’s Quick Guides for: step-by-step guidance to help you move quickly through the essentials; do’s and don’ts for avoiding common errors; clear explanations and practical how-to’s; checklists and exercises for fast skill-building.
Posted by beanybabe at 8:36 PM PST
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How to Write Fiction Like a Pro: A Simple-To-Savvy Toolkit for Aspiring Authors - by Robert Newton Peck, 2006
A simple-to-savvy toolkit for aspiring authors, celebrated author Robert Newton Peck provides emerging writers with the power tools they need to start building their own books. Readers will learn everything from pacing a story and writing dialogue that flows to molding the tangible “stuff” of life into characters and storylines of fiction. HOW is written in the straightforward, earthy, and humorous voice that fans of Rob’s fiction have come to know and love. Informative but not preachy, HOW’s lighthearted style immediately engages readers, inspiring them to take up the tools and write from their own lives and their own strengths. What’s wrong with laughing while you learn?
Posted by beanybabe at 8:32 PM PST
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Aspects of the Novel - by E.M. Forster, 1956
Open at random, and find your attention utterly sandbagged. Forster’s book is a collection of lectures delivered at Cambridge University on subjects as parboiled as “People,” “The Plot,” and “The Story.” It has an unpretentious verbal immediacy thanks to its spoken origin and is written in the key of Aplogetic Mumble: “Those who dislike Dickens have an excellent case. He ought to be bad.” Such gentle provocations litter these pages. How can you not read on? Forster’s critical writing is so ridiculously plainspoken, so happily commonsensical, that readers often forget to be intimidated by the rhetorical landscapes he so ably paints. As he himself points out in the introductory note, “Since the novel is itself often colloquial it may possibly withhold some of its secrets from the graver and grander streams of criticism, and may reveal them to backwaters and shallows.”
Posted by beanybabe at 8:32 PM PST
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