Research Writing

You can take audiences to faraway places. You can make giraffes burp and hippos sing. You can turn the sky purple and make audiences wonder what’s coming next. You can write awesome stories!

Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer includes Straczynski's unique, tried-and-true methodologies that will help storytellers sharpen their work so that it's polished and ready for publication. Part toolbox and part survival guide, this book will be an indispensable guide throughout your entire writing career, offering fresh and practical insights every step of the way.

Every aspect of screenwriting is covered with an authority and credibility never seen in any book to come before. Told with honesty, humor, and vulnerability from the real-world perspective of a working, professional screenwriter, Kill the Dog reveals the secrets of what it takes to have a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

No one comes out of a movie talking about structure. What audiences love and remember about a movie are great scenes. Marlon Brando in the back seat in On the Waterfront giving his "I could'a been a contender" speech. Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in Katz's Deli in When Harry Met Sally with the climactic punch line: "I'll have what she's having." In Superbad, Jonah Hill professing "I love you" to his friend Michael Cera by touching his nose with a "boop".

This ultimate guide for fiction writers demystifies the eight essential elements that every great narrative needs: concept, character, worldbuilding, theme, plot, structure, scenes, and pacing. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to supercharge your skills, this book is packed with practical insights, clear examples, and actionable tips. Each chapter breaks down the storytelling journey into easy-to-follow steps, empowering writers to craft unforgettable narratives.

Ready to take your story's character arcs and themes to the next level? This latest book from veteran writing teacher and story theorist K.M. Weiland ventures far beyond the popular and pervasive Hero's Journey to explore six important archetypal character arcs, representing key moments of initiation in the human experience.

Do you carry a story inside you—one that stirs beneath the surface, whispering to be told? Are you a story catcher, inspired to gather and tell the stories of this time? Or perhaps you are a story carrier—one who tends to and keeps old stories alive so they may breathe among us once more. If so, you already know that storytelling is more than just words. It’s a vessel for profound alchemy and transformation. With Sacred Storytelling, you’ll be taken on an immersive journey with master storyteller Leah Lamb into the art of conscious storytelling as a living, ancient practice.

The best stories linger in the hearts and minds of readers for decades. These tales gain their power through plots that connect with the audience on both an emotional and intellectual level. Ronald B. Tobias details these 20 time-tested plots. Each is discussed and analyzed, illustrating how a successful plot integrates all the elements of a story. Tobias then reveals how to use these plots effectively in your own work.

Ninety crime writers from the world’s oldest and most famous crime writing network give tips and insights into successful crime and thriller fiction. Howdunit! offers a fresh perspective on the craft of crime writing from leading exponents of the genre, past and present. The book offers invaluable advice to people interested in writing crime fiction, but it also provides a fascinating picture of the way that the best crime writers have honed their skills over the years.

Tired of the hero's journey? Frustrated that funny, romantic, and comforting stories aren't taken seriously? Sad that the books and movies you love never seem to be critically acclaimed, even when they sell like crazy? The heroine's journey is here to help. Multiple New York Times best-selling author Gail Carriger presents a clear, concise analysis of the heroine's journey, how it differs from the hero's journey, and how you can use it to improve your writing and your life. Narrated by Starla Huchton.

Write a foolproof business plan that will set your budding business on the road to success from the get-go. When you set out on a road trip, do you leave the map behind? Do you decide to just wing it and see where you end up? You can use Writing a Business Plan Made Simple for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs as your guide. With a comprehensive breakdown of everything you need in a stellar business plan, this audiobook is your one-stop guide whether you’re a first-time entrepreneur or experienced business owner.

Most organizations struggle to grow. The most common issues that sales teams cite are 1) not enough leads and 2) conversion rate is too low. Cold Email Manifesto fixes both of these by giving you access to a predictable system for finding leads, messaging them, selling to them and growing your sales team.

Ranging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.

In Joel's Schwartzberg's 10-plus years as a strategic communications trainer, the biggest obstacle he's come across - one that connects directly to nervousness, stammering, rambling, and epic fail - is that most speakers and writers don't have a point. They typically have just a title, a theme, a topic, an idea, an assertion, a catchphrase, or even something much less. This book shows you how to identify your point, leverage it, stick to it, and sell it and how to train others to identify and successfully make their own points.

Countless would-be readers and listeners of Finnegans Wake - James Joyce's 1939 masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life - have given up after a few pages and "dismissed the book as a perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to understanding the fascinating world of Finnegans Wake.

The beginning is the most important part of your book. The first chapter—probably even the first page—is what makes agents and editors accept or reject a manuscript, and it's what makes readers decide to buy a book or pick another. But writing a compelling opening is hard because there are so many things a great beginning needs to do and so many mistakes to avoid.

What makes a romance novel a romance? Writing a well-structured romance isn't the same as writing any other genre - something the popular novel and screenwriting guides don't address. The romance arc is made up of its own story beats. Told in conversational (and often irreverent) prose, Romancing the Beat is like sitting down to coffee with romance editor and author Gwen Hayes while she explains story structure - the way she does with her clients, some of whom are regular inhabitants of the best-seller lists.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside government buildings in central Oslo, killing eight people. He then proceeded to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 more, most of them teenage members of Norway's governing Labour Party. In One of Us, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and what led up to it. What made Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become a terrorist?

There are three kinds of feelings when reading a story: boredom, interest, and wow! To become a successful writer, you must create the wow feeling on as many pages as possible, and this requires writing that engages the reader emotionally. In his best-selling book, screenwriter Karl Iglesias explored the working habits of A-list Hollywood scribes. Now, he breaks new ground by focusing on the psychology of the reader.

A day-by-day guide to help aspiring writers through the process of getting the first draft of a novel or memoir onto the page, The 90-Day Novel was workshopped at LA Writers' Lab over the course of 10 years and has helped thousands of writers complete their work.