How Not to Write a Novel

How Not to Write a Novel PDF Author: Howard Mittelmark
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061862894
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted. "Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'" "But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly. "It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!" Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published. In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

How Not to Write a Novel

How Not to Write a Novel PDF Author: Howard Mittelmark
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061862894
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted. "Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'" "But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly. "It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!" Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published. In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

Writers' Mistakes

Writers' Mistakes PDF Author: Franklin B. Olmsted
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475868227
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
Writers want readers to understand what they’re writing. Too often our writings can leave readers baffled or misled as to what we want them to know. Writers’ Mistakes: A Handbook of Common Blunders and Ways to Mend Them is a comprehensive guide that shows how confusing examples from literature, newspapers, and other writings could be made easier to understand. It offers hints on how to avoid words, phrases, usages, and common mistakes that obscure intended meanings. It shows how to keep from distracting or annoying readers with what they see as grammatical lapses. This book teaches what to weed out so that our writings cannot be misunderstood.

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife PDF Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Publisher: Night Bookmobile Editions
ISBN: 0578889412
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book Here

Book Description
A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love. “Niffenegger’s inventive and poignant writing is well worth a trip” (Entertainment Weekly).

Artful Sentences

Artful Sentences PDF Author: Virginia Tufte
Publisher: Conran Octopus
ISBN:
Category : Authorship
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
"In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tufte shows how standard sentence patterns and forms contribute to meaning and art in more than a thousand wonderful sentences from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book has special interest for aspiring writers, students of literature and language, and anyone who finds joy in reading and writing."--Publisher's description.

One Continuous Mistake

One Continuous Mistake PDF Author: Gail Sher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101501677
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Get Book Here

Book Description
Based on the Zen philosophy that we learn more from our failures than from our successes, One Continuous Mistake teaches a refreshing new method for writing as spiritual practice. In this unique guide for writers of all levels, Gail Sher—a poet who is also a widely respected teacher of creative writing—combines the inspirational value of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way with the spiritual focus of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Here she introduces a method of discipline that applies specific Zen practices to enhance and clarify creative work. She also discusses bodily postures that support writing, how to set up the appropriate writing regimen, and how to discover one's own "learning personality." In the tradition of such classics as Writing Down the Bones and If You Want to Write, One Continuous Mistake will help beginning writers gain access to their creative capabilities while serving as a perennial reference that working writers can turn to again and again for inspiration and direction.

The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and how to Avoid Them

The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and how to Avoid Them PDF Author: Judy Delton
Publisher: Betterway Books
ISBN: 9780898794533
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Get Book Here

Book Description
Twenty-nine tips for writers on how to avoid being their own worst enemy when it comes to writing and selling their work.

Outlining Your Novel

Outlining Your Novel PDF Author: K. M. Weiland
Publisher: Penforasword Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 9780985780494
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book Here

Book Description
This bestselling guide will help you choose the right type of outline to unleash your creativity as a writer, guide you in brainstorming plot ideas, and aid you in discovering your characters.

The Savior's Champion

The Savior's Champion PDF Author: Jenna Moreci
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999735206
Category : Imaginary places
Languages : en
Pages : 562

Get Book Here

Book Description
Hoping to save his family, one man enters his realm's most glorious tournament and finds himself in the middle of a political chess game, unthinkable bloodshed, and an unexpected romance with a woman he's not supposed to want.

Editor-Proof Your Writing

Editor-Proof Your Writing PDF Author: Don McNair
Publisher: Linden Publishing
ISBN: 1610351991
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Don’t let simple mistakes ruin your book’s chances! If you’re not getting published, you may suffer from foggy writing—writing that’s full of unnecessary, misused, and overused words. Foggy writing drives editors crazy, and it’s the number one reason most manuscripts are rejected on first glance. Let veteran editor Don McNair show you how to clear up your foggy writing and produce sparkling copy that will attract agents, editors, readers, and sales. Editor-Proof Your Writing will show you how to avoid fatal writing mistakes by eliminating unnecessary words—and in the process you’ll strengthen your book’s action, invigorate your dialogue, and make your writing crackle with life. Containing 21 simple, straightforward principles, Editor-Proof Your Writing teaches how to edit weak verb forms, strip away author intrusions, ban redundancies, eliminate foggy phrases, correct passive-voice sentences, slash misused and overused words, and fix other writing mistakes. A must-have addition to every writer’s toolkit, Editor-Proof Your Writing won’t just make your writing clearer; it will make you a better writer — more expressive, more entertaining, and more likely to sell.

The Stars We Steal

The Stars We Steal PDF Author: Alexa Donne
Publisher: HarperTeen
ISBN: 1328948943
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Get Book Here

Book Description
Princess Leonie Kolburg, aged nineteen and heir to a faded European spaceship, enters the engagement season hoping only to save her family from financial ruin, but is soon falling for her first, rejected love.