(Part 3) Top products from r/writing

You might be in love with your ideal of the benefits of being a writer, I don't know what those ideal benefits are, but could be one or more of the following:

• cool factor
  
• freedom
  
• fame
  
• glory
  
• money
  
• pride
  
  Which are all good. And these and similar benefits are common to a lot of careers (I not-so-secretly wish to be a guitar god/rock star).
  
  Here's the problem, with this and many other activities: we need to separate the work from the results. If we are in love with only the results but we are not willing to put the work (e.g.: me and playing guitar), it's not going to happen.
  
  We need to be in love with the work per se, putting long hours of really hard work, results, some results will eventually happen: we'll write something or play some music. Money, glory, fame (and groupies)... not guaranteed.
  
  Maybe I am off the mark, and that's ok too.
  
  A couple of interesting books that are very useful for anyone in the creative world:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Everybody-Other-Keys-Creativity-ebook/dp/B0026NBZFI/

I totally understand. I need some structure as well.

I've bought so many creative writing books, and I've realized the best ones are the ones used in college classrooms.

This one is my favorite. You can do a writing exercise from it everyday, and you'll improve greatly. Unfortunately it's pricey at $67 (try to get a used version at half the cost).

What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (3rd Edition)

What's great is that each chapter builds your skills gradually, starting with exercises to write good intro sentences, then to character development, point of view, dialogue, interior landscape of characters, plot, element of style, revisions, learning from the greats, etc.

The authors have said this has been the best way to see improvements from their students, and it's been working for me. Unlike other writing exercise books, this one has a clear structure, and moreover, they really go in depth in explaining the exercise and it's goal -- the technique it's trying to develop.

What I find especially helpful is that the book includes student examples for most of the examples. I own many writing exercises books, and so often I need to a clue on how to execute the exercises or I'm lost. The book also comes with short stories to study, too.

I was so skeptical about the book, since it isn't cheap, but the reviews on Amazon won me over. Read those reviews -- so many people recommend the book.

Note, if you can't afford it, there is the original, much cheaper version. It's much smaller, and doesn't have as many student examples or extra content (like the short stories), but it's costs way less. I'm guessing this was the original book before they expanded into a college textbook. I also own it also and it's still good. It's nice to carry around with me if I don't want to take the much larger newer version.

My other recommendation is this book:[The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LaPlante](
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Story-Norton-Creative-Writing/dp/0393337081/)

LaPlante is great at explaining the little nuances, the details in what makes creative fiction work. She goes into more details, and has writing exercises at the end of each chapter, including a short story to read. So she gives more theory of how good writing works. She avoids flowery or abstract advice found in so many other books.

I found it an excellent companion to the "What If" book.

This book is also used in college courses, and it's thick! Lots of material. Fortunately, however, this version I linked is around $13. This is the same exact book as the college version for $52 (named "Method and Madness: The Making of a Story").

Lastly, this isn't a college writing book, but just a bunch of really helpful exercises on how to improve as a writer.

Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark

What I like is that he gives examples to his exercises, too, from books, newspaper articles, etc. I really love all of Roy Peter Clark's writing books.

Anyway, good luck. I was in a deep writing funk. Depressed I wasn't improving, and I decided to write everyday using exercises from those books, and it's helped me so much.

Edit: typos.

I think I disagree, but guess I haven't read a ton of books about writing. In my experience, they can be helpful, especially to people who are just starting out. Maybe not as helpful as reading the types of books that you want to write (and reading the stuff you don't want to write—it's important to read widely), but I don't know if I'd call them a waste of time. King's book is great (but that might be because I got the impression that I'd like him as a person while I was reading that), Strunk and White Elements of Style and Zissner's On Writing Well are helpful for tightening beginners' prose, Writing Fiction: a guide to narrative craft has great exercises at the end of every chapter, and I'm reading Benjamin Percy's essay collection Thrill Me right now, and it's great. I feel like a large part of /r/writing would really connect with the first and titular essay in that collection, actually. He talks about reading a lot of so-called trash genre fiction before being exposed to literary fiction and how he kind of overcorrected and became a super-fierce advocate for that-and-only-that before he realized that you can take the good parts of both to create amazing stories. I've also never read any other respected literary person mention reading R. A. Salvatore, which was cool to see since I forgot I was a big Drizzt fan when I was younger.

I know it's not explicitly geared for short stories but The Nighttime Novelist is my go-to text for how to think about structuring a larger work. Though I have yet to publish my first novel.

Short story writing is very different. Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction and Stephen King's On Writing are both wonderful craft books that shed some of the practicalities of the Nighttime Novelist and look a good writing in its simplest form.

Much more important than nonfiction books, though, is finding short story markets you'd like to read. Figure out what kind of place might accept the most perfect form of the fiction you'd like to write, and then read those magazines religiously. While you're reading, do what you can to consider what these stories are doing well and how they are pulling off what they are pulling off. Use the vocabulary learned from craft books to better articulate (to yourself, mostly) what these stories are really doing, and begin to generate a sense of what good writing looks like. Then practice, practice, practice, write, revise, and write some more until you've got something worth sending out.

At this point in your writing development, the name of the game is simply learning to write well--keep that in mind, and try to make decisions based on what will help you become a better writer. And finally remember, there is such a thing as "practicing well."

Are you asking whether you could learn new language with this method? Its best you follow a language learning system for that.

It worked for me with english because I grew up learning it from childhood and obsessively read nearly hundred or more novels in my teen and young adult phase.

>What did you do/what was your method?

To put it in simple words, its basically taking great writers work, and imitate their content. For example here's
from the book The scarlet pimpernel first paragraph, chapter 3:

>Feeling in every part of England certainly ran very high at this time against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate traders between the French and the English coasts brought snatches of news from over the water, which made every honest Englishman's blood boil, and made him long to have “a good go” at those murderers, who had imprisoned their king and all his family, subjected the queen and the royal children to every species of indignity, and were even now loudly demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every one of its adherents.

Now rewrite this paragraph to your own liking randomly like this:

>In nearly every part of new york, the feeling of tiredness ran very high against the southerners and their army. Runaway slaves and legitimate human traffickers between the two high parts of texas bought news from over by carts and by doves, which increased the animosity of the northerners towards the slave owners and made the northerners blood boil, and some of them even wished to have "good go" at those war mongers, who had imprisoned even the little black children in dark slave rooms, subjected their parents and the northern soldiers who tried to save them with every known piece of indecency, and were even now demanding the blood of the whole confederate army and every one of its supporters.

Yeah, this doesn't make much sense if you read it too much, but as you can see, I imitated that paragraph with few things added and few things removed. This is how you learn to write effectively. The more you imitate the great writers, the more your own writing will improve.

>How did you use this for English?

The only way you could have mastery over writing is to seriously finish reading books like these and apply its concepts everyday until you get better:



This is a classic book on sentence writing and gives you tons of examples and explanations, although it can get quiet challenging to read it in first try.



This book is quite challenging read and at times very hard to comprehend, but read it one chapter at a time slowly.

Next, this book gives you a basic introduction to the field of rhetoric, which is something that writers in this sub don't usually talk very much, but its one of the biggest things you should focus on if you want to improve your writing to the advanced level from basic and intermediate level.

Finally, this book is the one you should definitely read, and this book is the one that basically inspired my initial comment.

Your Writing;

Some good writing in your details and solid word images. You have a good sense of humor, I would have enjoyed more of your dry timing. The story and characters, that was very difficult for me to follow. The paragraphs seemed to dance, move to one thing or another, almost like it didn't need to connect. They did connect but It felt to me I had to work hard to get it.

I stopped when Owen got to Lake Tahoe.

I found it hard to understand when it's the Mc thinking, or a dream, or something else. It didn't feel very real to me. I didn't get a any sense of a 'when', no sense of time passing, nor a viewpoint that let me understand what I was reading.

I thought Owen was a type of kid I wouldn't much like to hang out with. The red haired girl, not sure. Good world building, a firm start.

Other ways to get better feedback;

If you want to avoid bad habits before starting, be clear about how much help you can get here. Ask specific questions about areas you think don't work. Post a small intro, maybe just a scene or two from a chapter. Start a bit smaller. Build up from there.

The best help I see comes from very specific questions about your work.

More detailed critiques can be found at the link shown below. There they will read all of it and give very detailed responses, however there is a catch. You have to do a 1:1 ratio of other works in order to receive the same. So you'd have to complete a high level critique of a 2,500 plus story, then you would get the same.

If you don’t follow this rule, your post will be marked as a leech post. And if your leech post has been up for 24 hours without any new critiques from you, it will be removed.

[Destructive Readers](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/ "The goal: to improve writing and maintain the highest standard of critique excellence anywhere on Reddit. DestructiveReaders isn't about writers being nice to writers; it's about readers being honest with writers. We deconstruct writing to construct better writers." )

Sharing the writing process;

A lot of us here are working and struggling with becoming better writers. So you are not alone in this painful process.

I myself find the task of becoming a good writer very daunting. I only keep going because I create a belief in myself. After that I go through the slow hard swim in the deep dark oceans of the unknown. I have no directions, no compass, only fear which if allowed becomes an anchor.

It would be good to know something about your skill level, things you've already read to improve crafting stories, classes you've taken, daily exercises or how much you write each day.

Myself; I do a daily poem, then write from 5/6 am to 9 am, that will be either my current novel or on a short I plan to submit to a magazine. I listen to Podcasts and do exercises from Writing Excuses

Books I use as my reference on writing;

• Song Writing Without Boundaries by Pat Pattison
  
  
• Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
  
  
• On Writing by Steven King
  
  
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White
  
  end
  
  
  
  
  

Typically it's best to start with an idea of what you want to do, after you finish building the world, but usually you will want to start with characters. The reason for this is that you don't want to have characters that just fill roles for your story. That's not to say that you can't do it the other way around, but from everything I've heard from experienced writers, and from my own experience, character first then the plot.

What I mean by an idea is, you should know what sort of story you want to tell. Since you have a futuristic world based around a Science Fiction setting, think about what sorts of stories you love in that genre. Do you like Star Wars? Maybe you could write a Space Opera. Do you like very accurate stories based in real science? Maybe you could write Hard Science Fiction. Figure out what sort of story you want to tell before you begin plotting and coming up with characters.


After you've done this you need a main character who has needs and desires, and the plot will be based around him not getting what he wants. This is one of the basics of plotting. You need an initial inciting incident to set up something that he wants, and you need him to not be able to get it without trials, tribulations, sacrifices, and the kitchen sink coming to life to eat him.


The resource I always send people to is Brandon Sanderson's Writing Excuses. He does a much better job of explaining this sort of thing than I can in a few paragraphs. Another good resource is Story by Robert McKee. This book is more focused on Screenwriting, but he delves into story, plotting, and things that every writer should know.


Hopefully this can get you started. Good Luck!

Hijacking top comment: while both of these are good, neither one will really force you to confront challenges and issues in your own writing except in a very general way.

To make it three, I would add "The Making of a Story" by Alice LaPlante. It is, by far, the absolute best book on writing I've ever read: it has small "teaching" sections discussing certain concepts (metaphors, characters, voice, etc.) followed by exercises with examples, and then accompanied by a wonderful selection of short stories that really captures the best of that concept. It's a thick book with a lot of work if you do the exercises, but it's definitely worth it. It's like a DIY advanced college creative writing course, and it's helped me so, so much. The author teaches at the MFA program at Stanford so she not only is a great writer, but also a great TEACHER, which distinguishes her from the other two books mentioned.

Reddit apparently doesn't know about it, unfortunately, which is why I only very recently discovered it on an Amazon recommended books list! It really deserves a wider readership.

Amazon link for the lazy:

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Story-Norton-Creative-Writing/dp/0393337081/ref=asap_B001ILKBC2?ie=UTF8

It will be easier coming from an objective source, rather than a close friend. Give him something to read that will help him critique his own writing. I don't know what he wrote, because you'd already pulled it down, but according to the comments here, he'd probably benefit from something like Noah Lukeman's First Five Pages - where an editor explains how you can pretty much tell amateurs from good writers within 5 pages. Most people make multiples of the errors he points out.

Get him that book as a way of encouraging him to prepare his book for publication, in the spirit of support. He'll figure out his own flaws soon enough...

The Elements of Eloquence is neat. It basically a compendium of rhetorical tools you can use to make better sentences.

You might also be interested in free verse poetry, which, if we're being honest, is nothing but very carefully written prose. I'm currently going through this book and enjoying it.

I also want to second Francine Prose's Reading like a Writer, which someone else already mentioned. It's fantastic.

Plenty of writers started late. You're fine. Do NOT let bullshit like this slow you down. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Have a place where you can easily focus. Whether it be your room, the library, or in the middle of nowhere, just find somewhere you can be without distractions.
   
   
2. Read. Read a lot, and read deeply and critically. Underline parts you like, and try to think about the author's process. Want to write thrillers? Read a bunch of thrillers, learn what's been done, try to think of what hasn't. If there's a story you want to read and it hasn't been written, it's up to you to write it. And you don't have to break the bank buying books to read. The library should be your first resource, as well as any places in your area where people drop off unwanted books. Used book stores if you want to buy something, and there are plenty of places online to get cheap E-books. Project Gutenberg is a good place to start for classics. You may even want to try reading poetry. In my opinion reading and writing poetry is excellent for when it comes time to write some prose that isn't just functional. Here's a good place to start
   
   
3. Write. For fuck's sake just WRITE. Don't spend days just thinking about your story, write it. Or at least write down all your ideas and compose an outline. Outlines are very useful for determining what goes where, and doing macro-level thinking about the overall story. If you feel like you're stuck, make an outline. If you're not stuck and are being lazy, stop being lazy. Write the damn story, and don't stop. Do not stop after 3 paragraphs and start editting. Just write, even if it's shit. Especially if it's shit. Often it's the only way to advance your ideas. It is fine if your first draft is dogshit. What is not fine is not having a first draft after six months.
   
   Here are a few youtube channels about writing, and links to some books on writing.
   
   Lessons from the Screenplay This one is focused on scripts, but the concepts translate well when it comes to the overall story.
   
   Terrible Writing Advice These are all examples of what NOT to do.
   
   Just Write Similar to LFTS, but of lesser quality.
   
   Stephen King talking about writing
   
   The Elements of Style The OG writing book.
   
   Style: the art of writing well
   
   Stephen King: On Writing Part memoir and part writing guide. Well worth reading.
   
   
   These are good, but always be on the lookout for more resources.
   
   
   
   My last bit of advice, and probably the most important, is be authentic. It's your story. Write what you want to read, not just what other people want. Say what you want to say, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's not profitable. Don't be a pussy, and you'll be ok.

On Writing Well by William Zissner and Elements of Style by Strunk and White will help you write with clarity and succinctness. King's On Writing and Lamott's Bird by Bird will give you good general advice (and the reading list at the end of King's is great), but yeah, they don't get into the nitty gritty details too often (which is why some people like them and why some people don't).

Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy is a great collection of essays on fiction. It's somewhere between On Writing's and Bird by Bird's generalness and the specificity of On Writing Well and Elements of Style. You might even disagree with some of Percy's essays but he tackles topics that are important to think about regardless.

And I can't recommend Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Barroway and Elizabeth and Ned Stuckey-French enough. It's a little pricey—look for it at your local library before you buy—but it's basically a undergraduate class on writing, complete with readings and exercises.

The Elements of Eloquence is a book about writing style and the elements of rhetoric and written language. I'm not sure how much they apply to other languages (if at all), but it certainly covers English (which you asked about :p )

It's a fun and easy read, whether or not you're a writer, and might be a useful toolbox for someone starting out in the language.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/042527618X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_RXduDbKF09DTY

Inspiration is overrated. What you need is to get into the habit of exercising your fingers so your ideas can flow.

From Art and Fear:

> The ceramics teacher announced he was dividing his class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right graded solely on its quality.

> His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would weigh the work of the “quantity” group: 50 pounds of pots rated an A, 40 pounds a B, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an A.

> Well, come grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity!

> It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Second tip from The Artist's way. Every morning write 2 pages of anything that comes to your mind. Anything. If it's nothing, then write 'nothing' until you fill 2 pages. According to the author this is one of the best way to shut your inner critic and start producing art.

I really recommend you find those 2 books and read them. They helped me immensely.

Plot Versus Character by Jeff Gerke is pretty good. Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins is also good.

I highly recommend Holly Lisle's Create a Character e-book. She covers the process of character creation in depth. The e-book also includes tons of questions that really make you think hard about your character's personality, background, motivations, compelling needs, etc.

My sister loved Writing Down the Bones: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Down-Bones-Freeing-Writer/dp/1590302613

And, I love Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. This is more about creativity in general than strictly fiction writing, but there are tons of writing exercises and ideas to nourish your creativity. I highly recommend!

I can't answer that but as a fan of Writing Excuses I recommend their book Shadows Beneath in which each of the podcast's hosts brainstorms, writes, and revises their stories with input from the group as well as their own commentary. It's pretty inward-facing compared to the majority of their episodes.

I haven't read that book, but if you want a great book that shows you different writing techniques, aimed at improving your craft, then get The Making of a Story by Alice LePlante. It not only talks about technique, there are also short stories by quality writers which are then analyzed in order to explain the techniques. For a book on craft, you cant go wrong with this one.

The best lesson I ever learned as an Artist and as an Entrepreneur has been: USE WHAT YOU HAVE.

The cocktail of self-doubt, impostor syndrome, self-sabotage and lizard's brain/resistance too often we construct too high self-imposed unreacheable thresholds.

Use what you have, do what you can and make the absolute best you can do (today). Doing this today will give you the experience, the strength and - why not - the audacity to do even more/better tomorrow.

Bless your heart, darling. That's it.

I was going through the comments and didn't see much about where to find an editor or how to edit.

Here are my offerings:

http://www.the-efa.org/dir/search.php Type in a genre or place and see what the search finds you.

Self-editing how-to books:

[Savvy Self Editing](http://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Self-Editing-Developing-Editing-Process/dp/1418437964
/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2Y6K8TCM225QI&coliid=I557WJNM4C04M) This is the one my own developmental editor (who cost me $1500.00 on a 100,000 word story, BTW) recommended. You absolutely can get a less-expensive editor, but I chose to work with someone who's been editing since 1988.


Wired for Story

Edit Yourself

Revising and Self-editing

And something quick, short, and cheap, but very useful (Kindle only):

$3.00 Little book of Self-Edit

I'm reading a great book I found at the library on revision called "Revision & Self-Editing: Techniques for Transforming Your First Draft into a Finished Novel" by James Scott Bell. It's fun to read, full of nice examples and analogies on structure, character etc.

Oh! You absolutely should read The Artist's Way. Among the habits Julia Cameron gets you to create is "morning pages," that is, write 3 pages first thing, every single morning. I followed that advice for three or four years, and it made a difference in my creativity.

What you write about doesn't matter, it really doesn't. My morning pages rambled on everything from what to cook for dinner today to being mad at my boss to "oh no what am I going to write about for work" (...in which case I discovered that I regularly explained to myself exactly how I'd solve that problem). If I really had nothing to write about I'd write, "I have no idea why I am writing this when I have absolutely nothing to write about." Except that was boring, and I found something to write about ("Let's describe the tree outside the window, because what the hell").

Once you realize that you don't have to write "about" something, that you can just write -- particularly if nobody is reading this -- it's rather freeing. It takes the "oh it must be meaningful and important!" out of your creativity. Which, naturally, makes it a lot easier to be creative.

[Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go] (http://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Write-Fiction-Grabs-Readers/dp/1582974578) by Les Edgerton. Excellent book on writing openers that make people really want to continue reading past the first few paragraphs. He also has another one about [Finding Your Voice] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1582971730/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1416675960&sr=1-3&pi=AC_SY200_QL40) and helping to define your own style of writing.

And /u/TrueKnot already mentioned Stephen King's On Writing. Haven't read it yet myself but all I hear about it is how incredibly helpful it is for any sort of writer, from fiction, to journalism, even to comedians.

I use a beat sheet based roughly on Larry Brooks' Story Engineering method. I'll write a detailed paragraph for each scene for the first 25% (up to the first plot point), and then an idea of each of the major elements thereafter. Once I've got the first 25% in a first draft, I'll do a detailed scene outline and flesh it out from there.

For the second draft, I go through and make sure that all my scenes do their job, and that I don't have anything that is dragging. A good, rough reference for this is this scene structure article, which has helped me out a lot.

For the third and subsequent revisions, I go through and really focus on my prose. I nail down the dialogue as best as I can. This is one of the places where your beta readers are invaluable.

Yes, it is published. Thanks for asking!

Good luck!

It depends on the agent. Obviously I'm not an agent, but I have a soft spot for funny SciFi - like The Book of Ralph or, or course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy.

Think funny (laughing with the story) vs ridiculous (laughing at the story). Think "Ice to meet you".

Not sure if it's every year. I think it's the first time that it's happened. Quite a few of them seem to be collections of blog posts.

PWYW Tier:

• Drawing on the Power of Resonance... 98 pages. 4.5 stars across 37 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• Million Dollar Productivity... 86 pages. 4.5 stars across 6 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows... 128 pages. 4.5 stars across 7 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• The Pursuit of Perfection... 62 pages. 5 stars across 1 Amazon review.
  
  
• Million Dollar Professionalism... 78 pages. 5 stars across 1 Amazon review.
  
  
• Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology 502 pages. 4.5 stars across 16 Amazon reviews.
  
  
  $15 Tier:
  
  
• Million Dollar Outlines... 270 pages. 4.5 stars across 78 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• 21 Days to a Novel... 114 pages. 3.5 stars across 3 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• Charisma +1... 96 pages. 5 stars across 4 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• The Freelancer's Survival Guide 582 pages. 5 stars across 12 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• 500 Ways to Write Harder 216 pages. 4.5 stars across 16 Amazon reviews.
  
  
• The Non-User-Friendly Guide For Aspiring TV Writers... 327 pages. No Amazon reviews.

I prescribe these two books for you to read in this order:

Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

1. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-Essential-Strategies-Writer/dp/0316014990
   
   On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
   
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060006641/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539787015&sr=1-4&keywords=on+writing+well
   
   Read these two books carefully and apply the advice to your own writing.
   
   Good luck.

Some books I'm looking at getting to help myself tackle my NaNoWriMo draft are the following:

20 Master Plots and How to Build Them

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

Revision And Self-Editing (Write Great Fiction)

Sure!!!

Great reference to have: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/194564401X

The most useful books I've ever read the writing process have been:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Edition/dp/0060545690

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hooked-Write-Fiction-Grabs-Readers/dp/1582974578/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396011253&sr=1-3&keywords=hooked+writing

Really easy reads that explain simply what I needed to know.

You should jump right into the "inciting incident" (the event that propels the protagonist(s) on their journey) as soon as you have properly setup the stakes. If the incident is something most people will get, a loved one killed themselves for example, it doesn't take much for the reader to understand that this would be hard. You can start there and develop the character more thoroughly afterwards. If instead it is something like the character got a new job, you will probably want to setup more context around why this is a particularly important event.

For more info, I recommend reading Robert McKee's book Story. It is focused on screenwriting but is generally applicable to all story creation.

This is a book. And Also its a Good book, one to read. The auther who goes by the Name of Daryl M. Corteney really has a nack for Good science Fiction telling. Also the Story.

But seriously.... http://i.imgur.com/C7wJx.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-People-Dale-M-Courtney/dp/1436372135/

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

On Writing Well

Elements of Style

Thrill Me

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

---

^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot

I found this book very helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/First-Five-Pages-Writers-Rejection/dp/068485743X

Short version: your opening is a promise of what the rest of your story is about.

STORY by Robert McKee is a great resource.

My editor made me read Save the Cat, which has solutions for stuff like that. The idea behind the tip in the name is that you make your character do something (early in the manuscript!) that, when interpreted by the reader/viewer, give a hint as to who the character is deep down inside.

A quick Google gives me this set of examples.

Just posted this URL in the other submission, but if you're interested in plunking down $16: http://www.amazon.com/Moon-People-Dale-M-Courtney/dp/1436372135/

The Writing Excuses anthology, Shadows Beneath, contains four original short stories with first drafts and revisions in most cases. The stories are by Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells from the Writing Excuses podcast.

Plot Vs Character by Jeff Gerke is good one:

https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Versus-Character-Balanced-Approach/dp/1582979928

From the Amazon page:

A message appears on the moon. It is legible from Earth, and almost no one knows how it was created. Markus West leads the government’s investigation to find the creator.

The message is simple and familiar. But those three words, written in blazing crimson letters on the lunar surface, will foster the strangest revolution humankind has ever endured and make Markus West wish he was never involved.

You may be interested in this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00LDOM8A2/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486427946&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=writing+excuses&dpPl=1&dpID=51NYIGvfXFL&ref=plSrch

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks should be able to help. The author explains elements of story structure common to most novels and films so you can apply the same structure to your own story.

Depends on who your audience is too. House of Leaves has a huge cult following and its' "inferface" is designed to be as visible and intrusive as possible.

I have the problem when it comes to fiction, as well. Natalie Goldberg's book "Writing Down the Bones" is about how to overcome just this problem for creative writing. http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Down-Bones-Freeing-Edition/dp/1590302613

I think my reply went elsewhere.

But I use (or try to, rather) Save the Cat beat sheets. It's for screen writers, but it helps with pacing, etc. For me, it seems to cause more anxiety though. I feel like I have to force my characters into a box they refuse to go in. But, my characters refuse to do a lot of what I want. My characters and I need to go to family therapy.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00340ESIS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and The Lilies of the Field by William Barrett. Both made me want to give up writing.

The Artist's Way

On Writing Well.

this one. It's for screenwriters, originally. But, 95% of the advice is not screen specific. This book is gold.

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-People-Dale-M-Courtney/dp/1436372135/

Buy the 'Writer's Market,' it's everything you need!

Is this what you are referring to?

Go to the public library and look at the 2011 Writer's market...or if you can afford it...buy it...

There are hundreds of books about this. I recommend this one. Try starting out with an archetype and flesh it out from there. I've heard of using the Meyers Briggs test to create a basic personality type (actually, I think I learned that from Plot vs. Character). Give them a back story and determine how certain events in their life would cause them to behave. For example, if they were abused growing up, decide whether your character becomes a bully or if they have taken every precaution to ensure they would never harm someone smaller than them.

In reality, there's no quick and easy approach. You have to spend a lot of time picking a fictional person's brain. That's all there is to it. There's an infinite number of ways to do so and none of them are wrong.

Weirder than House of Leaves?

https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626
The War of Art By Steven Pressfield. My personal favorite

Pick up a book on structure, for example Save the Cat!

You should be aiming towards highs and low points, with a slow progression between each where the character struggles and fails towards transformative crescendos. Failure is how your character changes, not successes - so keep legit stamping on your protag's face.

Act 1 - 25% of the book - Establish the world, the rules, the principle character and its relationship to them. Halfway through this act you should throw them into the adventure then spend the rest of the act getting them to accept their role in it. This is setting up the story you want to tell.

Act 2 - 50% of the book - Do the fun and interesting stuff that makes up the body of the book. If its a detective story, this is where the crime scene inspections happen and the witnesses are met a few times. If its a cliche fantasy series this is the "journey" to the evil castle. Halfway through the act you should have a false high (everything looks great but isn't) or a false low (everything is hopeless but isn't). This is where you develop a love interest and character interactions. Act 3 is when the point of no return is passed and you enter the endgame.

Act 3 - 25% - the Endgame. The character recovers from a crippling loss and "transforms" spiritually. This is the scenes at and inside the evil castle where the changed protagonist uses what he learned from act 2 to beat the villian. This is where the twists go since you are breaking rules you have solidly established and where you have the mature protagonist to properly digest those twists.

In terms of how to connect scenes and order them, alternate the scenes where your character is trying to accomplish a goal and then recovering from the failure to achieve it. ABABAB. As in another thread I'd recommend Tecniques of a selling writer for this. However you can find a synopsis by more modern writers if you just search with "scene and sequel", which are the terms he coins in the book.

I have a feeling this is going to be an unpopular opinion here, but...

Moon People

That's the typical quality of a self-published book. Doesn't mean they're all like that, but enough are that it's damaged my view of self-publishing.

Here's a list of some of my favorite books on writing:

• The Art of Fiction
  
• Techniques of the Selling Writer
  
• Sin and Syntax
  
• The First Five Pages
  
• The War of Art

KM Weiland's blog is helpful.

Also, Story Engineering by Larry Brooks will get you on the right path. Most stories follow the three act structure, or even more simply, three disasters and a conclusion.