Top products from r/writers
We found 21 product mentions on r/writers. We ranked the 51 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
1. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Vintage
3. Guide to Literary Agents 2017: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published (Market)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Writer s Digest Books
4. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
writing advice from horror-meistro Stephen King, a fine softcover
5. Novelists Essential Guide to Creating Plot (Novelists Essentials)
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
6. Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
Used Book in Good Condition
7. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
The Anatomy of Story 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
8. Walking with Dinosaurs: A Natural History
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
9. Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
10. i before e (except after c): old-school ways to remember stuff (Blackboard Books)
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
12. Eats Shoots & Leaves
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Harper Collins Paperbacks
13. Cliffhanger Writing Prompts: 30 One-Page Story Starters That Fire Up Kids Imaginations and Help Them Develop Strong Narrative Writing Skills
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
14. The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
15. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
Sentiment score: 0
Number of reviews: 1
Screenplay The Foundations of Screenwriting
16. Somebody Told Me: The Newspaper Stories of Rick Bragg
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
18. The Rhetoric of Fiction
Sentiment score: 1
Number of reviews: 1
University of Chicago Press
I'd recommend buying a book on writing.
I would suggest these as good places to start. If you wanted to pick just one on this list, I'd say go with James Scott Bell's Plot & Structure.
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/31jbjs/comment/cq29yxz?st=JE1YBNFN&sh=6a6c092d
This comment by "feedthebirds" has a list of what are considered some of the best short stories. He has provided links to where most of them can be read online.
You might also look at some journalistic work as it sounds like your interest in writing may fall within non-fiction and journalism. There is some really fantastic, short written pieces by journalists. My personal favorite is a collection of newspaper writings by Rick Bragg He (and many other award winning journalists) are great at an important part of short writing which is getting the reader emotionally invested and then dropping a single line which reveals something unexpected that is usually revealing and emotional.
Just do it. Just put it out there. Some of the worst stuff I have written, that I still call "trash fiction", is the stuff people loved best. Some of the best stuff I have written has gotten the harshest critiques. The point, here, is to be careful of becoming "married" to things, that is, being unwilling to change it if someone has a valid critique.
Basically, take everything that is said to you about your work, process it as feedback rather than attack, and use it to help your writing get better. If someone took the time to critique your work, rather than defending the work, thank them for the criticism. Take the criticim, apply it, and see if it makes your work stronger. If it does, keep it, if not ignore it. Rough criticim has helped me immensely.
I also cannot emphasize how much a few writing classes and good books can help. Check out On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and Sin in Syntax by Constance Hale. Worth their weight in gold.
Feel free to inbox me with your stories. I promise to be thorough, yet non-douchy! Here's my online portfolio , if you want to check out my stuff. :)
EDIT: A comma.
Myself. Why? Because I have read all his work, and all of it has been to my liking. He never insulted or alienated me on social media. He has the same tastes as I do. And finally because we all should be our own favorite authors. We write what we love, no one else will write "for us" as we do ourselves.
But. If you mean one who I would love even if I didn't write. One who is someone else. Well. I read this novel called GR2113: The Genetic Riots. I know the author. He's a pretty chill guy, and it is the first novel I have read which I could complete in less than a week.
i highly recommend The Artful Edit in addition to the beta readers. editing is about waaaaay more than the mechanics of grammar.
the last novel i wrote, i also compiled what screenwriters call a "beat sheet". take each section/chapter/whatever subdivisions you've used and just write down the main plot points for that section. do another pass for characters if you're having trouble keeping everybody in order. do another for thematic issues if need be, whatever you sense might be in trouble in the work. keeping it to the simplest moving parts helps you see where plot holes, or chronology errors, or etc are.
then you rewrite :-) and do the many many passes in The Artful Edit.
yes, it's a lot of work, but by the time you get all that down, your work is as error-free and as tight as you can make it. your agent will thank you. good luck!
Read the Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart it is a really good book, and she did a wonderful job researching a lot of the bits and pieces of Arthurian legend. I'm not sure if they're included in the version I linked-I have a hardback copy that contains footnotes and source references which could be helpful.
Maybe the crystal cave could provide some sort of bridge between the two realms? Maybe Denver is the real King Arthur and all the fables were written about him after all? How does Merlin play into your story?
OP, check out this one or this one. They both seem fun and age-appropriate to keep her inspired rather than bored. :)
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419426548&sr=8-1&keywords=stephen+king+on+writing+a+memoir+of+the+craft
I hope you get some better answers.
This book is supposed to be the absolute final word on getting a literary agent, and it's updated every year:
Guide to Literary Agents 2017: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published (Market) https://www.amazon.com/dp/144034776X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_wngMyb99CMXD1
I will be using it when I begin looking for an agent as well.
I've always wondered this too. I enjoy reading most zombie apocalypse stuff on Amazon, even the most amateur and self published. Some of those authors have thousands of reviews. A favorite is The Remaining series. https://www.amazon.com/Remaining-D-J-Molles/dp/0316404152 It's got over 2200 reviews which means he likely has sold 10s of thousands of copies. Does he make a living? I don't know!
The one book you need:
Eats, Shoots and Leaves https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007329067/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_9EYDCbDDWW9SC
I'm a writer by trade and that book taught me all i've ever needed to know about punctuation and grammar :)
you mean like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Walking-Dinosaurs-Natural-Tim-Haines/dp/0789451875
Is this in his Collection of Essays, by any chance?
This book is what I always reference when writing.
Maybe there’s a screenplay in there, but not until you make it one:
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385339038
I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but two years ago I ran into the same problem over and over again. Then I found this: https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-American-Writers-Thesaurus-Auburn/dp/0199829926
So many things in there I didn't even know I needed like a list of nuts and seeds or a list of every branch of science. Plus tons of different and unique phrasing that I could never find on a website.