Showing titles in Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Can you learn how to write comedy? Absolutely - anyone can. Scott Dikkers will tell you how. He's co-founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion, the world's most popular humor publication, and founder of The Onion Training Center at the Second City in Chicago. He's also a number one best-selling humor author and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. In How to Write Funnier, he tells you everything you need to know to start writing funny stories, how to write funny scenes, and how to write funny sketches.

Imagine writing a spellbinding world that not only enthralls listeners but also brings you joy during the creative process. Our quick guide, jam-packed with easy-to-follow prompts, tips, and techniques, will steer you through the fantasy writing process from start to finish.

In How to Write Short , Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed - from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services.

I believe that writing short stories in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, post-apocalyptic, and related genres represents a great way to get into indie publishing and finding your ideal audience. Here's my take on why this is so fun, often rewarding, and really exciting.

Writer, poet, and teacher Natalie Goldberg shows you how to unleash your "wild mind" - the true source of your creative power. In this crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, nonfiction and poetry, Goldberg strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive, and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical, and humorous. "Even if it's just a leg hanging out the window, she says, "write it down." Highlights include: provocative "try this" exercises to compel you into action, advice on how to find time to write, how to discover your personal style, how to make sentences come alive, and how to overcome procrastination and writer's block. She'll also explore the larger vision of the writer's task: knowing when to take risks as a writer and a person, learning self-acceptance in life and art.

When it comes to writing books, are you a "plotter" or a "pantser"? Is one method really better than the other? In this instructional book, author Libbie Hawker explains the benefits and technique of planning a story before you begin to write. She'll show you how to develop a foolproof character arc and plot, how to pace any book for a can't-put-down reading experience, and how to ensure that your stories are complete and satisfying without wasting any time or words.

Following the immense success of Volume I with over 35,000 copies sold, On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume II brings a host of new topics to table in even more detail and depth. Writing advice tends to be full of "rules" and "tips" which are either too broad to be helpful or outright wrong.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

Ask a scientist about Hollywood, and you'll probably get eye rolls. But ask someone in Hollywood about science, and they'll see dollar signs: Moviemakers know that science can be the source of great stories, with all the drama and action that blockbusters require. That's a huge mistake, says Randy Olson: Hollywood has a lot to teach scientists about how to tell a story - and, ultimately, how to do science better. With Houston, We Have a Narrative, he lays out a stunningly simple method for turning the dull into the dramatic.

Over the course of his distinguished entertainment career, Alan Bennett has received multiple awards and honours, including two BAFTAs, four Laurence Olivier Awards, two Tony Awards, an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George, and a British Book Award for Author of the Year in 2006. In this four-part collection of his remarkable Untold Stories, the acclaimed writer considers his childhood, career, and the current state of the world with his customary blend of wit and poignancy.

Over the years, I’ve written multiple novels, and I have condensed my best tips and practices to bring you How to Write Your First Novel: A Guide for Aspiring Fiction Authors. No matter your plan for publishing your novel, you first need to write the book. I’ve broken down the critical elements of success in two parts: your writing habits and your writing craft.

In this fascinating set of essays, based on the talks he delivered at Harvard University as part of the distinguished Norton Lecture series, Pamuk presents a comprehensive and provocative theory of the novel and the experience of reading. Drawing on Friedrich Schiller’s famous distinction between “naïve” writers—those who write spontaneously—and “sentimental” writers—those who are reflective and aware—Pamuk reveals two unique ways of processing and composing the written word.

Voudriez-vous gagner votre vie en écrivant ? Cet ouvrage vous expliquera comment le faire. J'ai passé 13 ans dans un open space dans le monde de l'entreprise. J'étais malheureuse dans mon boulot et ma créativité était écrasée par les tâches quotidiennes. Puis j'ai commencé à écrire des livres et à publier des blogs, en utilisant mes mots pour créer des produits et attirer des lecteurs. En septembre 2011, j'ai quitté mon activité salariée pour devenir auteur à plein temps et depuis j'ai fait grandir mon activité année après année.

Sara Daniel, a star European correspondent and one of the few women reporters covering Iraq, dares to venture where few have gone, in this gripping and fascinating memoir. In June of 2002, war looms and Saddam Hussein still has a brutal grip on a nation in disarray. Sara Daniel travels the length and breadth of Iraq, following the fast-evolving events and interviewing people from all walks of life and all religious and political affiliations: from the Kurds in the north to the rising new politicians in Baghdad and beyond....

Unlock the secrets of compelling storytelling with Next Level Plot Structure, a brand-new guide from K.M. Weiland, author of the popular Structuring Your Novel. This comprehensive resource delves deep into the intricacies of plot structure, revealing the rich vein of narrative techniques and philosophical underpinnings that have shaped storytelling throughout history.

Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French daredevil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade. At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine, and Kate challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement of their male peers, and ultimately altered the craft of war reportage for generations.

Whether you are a writer, creator, entrepreneur, executive, public speaker, investor, or industry thought leader, Snow Leopard is your guide for becoming known for a niche you own.

Expanding on the author's highly successful process for doubling daily word counts, this audiobook - a combination of reworked blog posts and new material - offers practical writing advice for anyone who's ever longed to increase their daily writing output.

In the 17 wide-ranging essays collected for the first time in Love and Other Ways of Dying, he brings his full literary powers to bear, pondering happiness and grief, memory and the redemptive power of human connection. In the remote Ukranian countryside, Paterniti picks apples (and faces mortality) with a real-life giant; in Nanjing, China, he confronts a distraught jumper on a suicide bridge.

Have you written a book that just isn't selling? Would you like to write a book that readers eagerly devour? Many authors write then market. Successful authors write to market. They start by figuring out how to give readers what they want, and that process begins before writing word one of your novel. This book will teach you to analyze your favorite genre to discover what readers are buying, to mine reviews for reader expectations, and to nail the tropes your readers subconsciously crave.