The Write Quotes: Writing Techniques & Characters

The Write Quotes: Writing Techniques & Characters
Author: Landis Wade
Publisher: Charlotte Readers Podcast, LLC
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2023-07-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN:

These inspirational and practical quotes come from 500+ podcast interviews with hard-working, award-winning, and New York Times bestselling authors in more than 33 U.S. states and five countries. In Book 5, authors share their honest reflections on Writing Techniques & Characters. These quotes reveal how writers tackle the fiction techniques of the hook, emotion, theme, conflict, humor, plot, setting, and structure, and how they approach memoir, poetry, nonfiction, and short stories. They also focus on characters, point of view, and dialogue. Authors quoted include David Baldacci, Therese Anne Fowler, Steve Berry, Lisa Jewell, John Hart, Sophie Cousens, Ron Rash, C.J. Box, Craig Johnson, Wylie Cash, Kristy Harvey, Brad Taylor, Charlie Lovett, Judy Goldman, Chris Fabry, Amber Smith, Tracy Clark, John Gilstrap, Kimmery Martin, A.J. Hartley, Clyde Edgerton, Jill McCorkle, Jason Mott, Mark de Castrique, Cathy Pickens, Gavin Edwards, and many more. Because stories have to start somewhere, and so do quote books, this book starts with the section titled, “The Hook.” As author Matthew Duffus, Writing Center Director of Earlham College in Indiana, says, “We have so many options now for entertainment that we've got to be quick. We've got to hook readers and we've got to keep things moving.” Simply put, as award-winning novelist Jon Buchan quips, “We don’t write about the planes that land safely.” But there is more to a good story than the first few lines and the first chapter. That’s why this book has more sections and content than any other book in the series and why we get emotional about it. As award-winning author Randell Jones says, “A good personal story engages with real life. It has to be addressing some universal issue of the human condition, something that most readers can connect with.” Author Kathleen Burkinshaw agrees when she says, “Time can pass, technology will change, but the need for human connection through emotions, that's timeless.” Whatever form or genre you’re writing in, these quotes have something to support your journey through the world of wordcraft.

Making Sense of 'Show, Don't Tell'

Making Sense of 'Show, Don't Tell'
Author: Louise Harnby
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2021-03-12
Genre:
ISBN:

This fiction-editing guide shows authors and editors how to recognize shown and told prose, and avoid unnecessary exposition. Louise Harnby, a fiction editor, writer and course developer, teaches you how to identify stylistic problems and craft solutions that weave showing and telling together, and understand why there's no place for 'don't tell' in strong writing. Topics include: Shown and told prose in different scenarios; the relevance of viewpoint; when exposition serves story and deepens character; and tools that help writers add texture.

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
Author: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2000-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1564787443

"Folks. This here is the story of the Loop Garoo Kid. A cowboy so bad he made a working posse of spells phone in sick. A bullwhacker so unfeeling he left the print of winged mice on hides of crawling women. A desperado so onery he made the Pope cry and the most powerful of cattlemen shed his head to the Executioner's swine." And so begins the HooDoo Western by Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo and one of America's most innovative and celebrated writers. Reed demolishes white American history and folklore as well as Christian myth in this masterful satire of contemporary American life. In addition to the black, satanic Loop Garoo Kid, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down features Drag Gibson (a rich, slovenly cattleman), Mustache Sal (his nymphomaniac mail-order bride), Thomas Jefferson and many others in a hilarious parody of the old Western.

Writing With Emotion, Tension, and Conflict

Writing With Emotion, Tension, and Conflict
Author: Cheryl St.John
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-10-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1599637642

Craft an Emotionally Charged Story That Will Resonate with Readers Emotional impact shouldn't be dropped into your novel as an afterthought or forced upon your story with a pair of pliers and an iron grip. It should be carefully sewn into the fabric of the story to create tension-filled moments that will keep readers turning pages. In Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict, you'll learn how to layer emotional moments and deep connections to create a tapestry filled with conflict, pathos, and genuine feeling. • Create emotional depth, conflict, and tension in your novel by carefully crafting your plot, characters, setting, word choice, and more. • Learn what makes readers "tick"--and what will elicit the strongest emotional responses. • Write believable, emotional scenes and dialogue--and trim away the sappiness. When writing a novel, your ultimate goal is to make readers smile, weep, rage, and laugh right along with your characters. Writing with Emotion, Tension, & Conflict will show you how to evoke a multitude of feelings in your readers--and keep them coming back for more.

The Subversive Copy Editor

The Subversive Copy Editor
Author: Carol Fisher Saller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0226734102

Each year writers and editors submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Some are arcane, some simply hilarious—and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one of them. All too often she notes a classic author-editor standoff, wherein both parties refuse to compromise on the "rights" and "wrongs" of prose styling: "This author is giving me a fit." "I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma at all times." "My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face." In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller casts aside this adversarial view and suggests new strategies for keeping the peace. Emphasizing habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility, she shows copy editors how to build an environment of trust and cooperation. One chapter takes on the difficult author; another speaks to writers themselves. Throughout, the focus is on serving the reader, even if it means breaking "rules" along the way. Saller’s own foibles and misadventures provide ample material: "I mess up all the time," she confesses. "It’s how I know things." Writers, Saller acknowledges, are only half the challenge, as copy editors can also make trouble for themselves. (Does any other book have an index entry that says "terrorists. See copy editors"?) The book includes helpful sections on e-mail etiquette, work-flow management, prioritizing, and organizing computer files. One chapter even addresses the special concerns of freelance editors. Saller’s emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many copy editors who have absorbed, along with the dos and don’ts of their stylebooks, an attitude that their way is the right way. In encouraging copy editors to banish their ignorance and disorganization, insecurities and compulsions, the Chicago Q&A presents itself as a kind of alter ego to the comparatively staid Manual of Style. In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller continues her mission with audacity and good humor.

Tunerville

Tunerville
Author: A. Elizabeth West
Publisher:
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2020-01-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781734483710

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you could meet a ghost, talk to it, or even touch it, this book is for you! Paranormal investigator Chris Taylor really wants to see a ghost. So he invents a remote control that tunes them back into the physical world. Hoping to help stranded spirits, he sells the rights to a TV network, only to see his gadget disrupt both earthly and unearthly society. The tuner's effect on humanity threatens the dimension that houses the afterlife, known as the Realm. Its Directorate sends an emissary, Callahan, to oversee a solution: Chris must persuade people to stop using his invention. The living don't want to give up the tuners - and neither do the dead. Chris enlists help from his friends, Callahan, and a groovy Seventies ghost and begins a clumsy romance with activist Hannah Lively. But when a scientist bent on glory tweaks the tuner and opens a dangerous portal, they're forced to devise a perilous plan to stop her. What follows takes Chris on a journey he never imagined, one that could ultimately cost him everything.

Otto Grows Down

Otto Grows Down
Author: Michael Sussman
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2009
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781402747038

When time goes backwards, granting six-year-old Otto his wish that his attention-stealing baby sister was never born, it keeps going backwards, and Otto finds himself getting younger and younger.

The Kill Club

The Kill Club
Author: Wendy Heard
Publisher: MIRA
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2019-12-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 148805228X

Jazz will stop at nothing to save her brother. Their foster mother, Carol, has always been fanatical, but with Jazz grown up and out of the house, Carol takes a dangerous turn that threatens thirteen-year-old Joaquin’s life. Over and over, child services fails to intervene, and Joaquin is running out of time. Then Jazz gets a blocked call from someone offering a solution. There are others like her—people the law has failed. They’ve formed an underground network of “helpers,” each agreeing to eliminate the abuser of another. They’re taking back their power and leaving a trail of bodies throughout Los Angeles—dubbed the Blackbird Killings. If Jazz joins them, they’ll take care of Carol for good. All she has to do is kill a stranger.

A is for Astronaut

A is for Astronaut
Author: Clayton Anderson
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2018-03-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1534123008

Winner! 2019 Nebraska Book Award Retired astronaut Clayton Anderson takes readers on an A to Z flight through the alphabet from astronaut and blastoff to spacewalk and Zulu Time. Topics cover the history of NASA, science, and practical aspects of being an astronaut using fun poems for each letter paired with longer expository text in the sidebars. Perfect for science buffs, budding astronauts, and astronomy lovers of all ages.