The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

Author: Jack Bickham

Publisher: Writer's Digest Books

Published: 1997-09-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780898798210

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The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes When you write fiction, you march onto a minefield. This book gives you a map. Oh, what tricky terrain you're traveling! You must reckon with: Character, Conflict, Point of View, Dialogue, Editors, Editors, and Editors, who--by returning stories they see as problem-plagued--can burst your hopes of publication. Where are the problems? Editors rarely take the time to map them out, so Jack Bickham has. In this book, he spotlights the 38 most common fiction writing land mines--writing mistakes that can turn even dynamite story ideas into slush pile rejects. And he guides you in overcoming them. In to-the-point style, he shows you how to: conquer procrastination--and put ink on paper regularly dump wimpy characters--and build characters ready to act look for trouble--and create conflicts for your characters cut coincidence--and put better-than-life logic into fiction escape the fog--and find and stick to your story's direction free feelings--and fire your fiction with passion and emotion In short, Bickham helps you take a giant step toward publication. Read this book. Strengthen your writing. And start setting off explosions where they belong: on the sales charts.


Writing and Selling Your Novel

Writing and Selling Your Novel

Author: Jack M. Bickham

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780898797886

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Writing and Selling Your Novel is a revision and an expansion, a new edition, but with the same mission: to help you write publishable fiction. In Bickham's book, marketing is twined into the writing. In yours, it will be, too. Follow this proven advice and you can make your work perform on the only two levels that count - as can't-put-it-down storytelling and as can't-turn-it-down manuscript. Here you'll find a mixture of fiction-writing fact and philosophy that will help you bring a professional's approach to your work; use stimulus and response believably, effectively; create excitement and evoke emotion with scene and sequel; build fascinating complexities into your characters; revise, to turn a rough draft into a polished novel; and all with salability in mind.


Slam!

Slam!

Author: Walter Dean Myers

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780590486682

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Sixtee-year-old "Slam" Harris is counting on his noteworthy basketball talents to get him out of the inner city and give him a chance to succeed in life, but his coach sees things differently.


100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid

100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid

Author: Maeve Maddox

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2013-01-25

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9781470137861

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Originally published in a Kindle Edition, this revised edition of 100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid plus Basic English Grammar is now available in print.


How Not to Write a Novel

How Not to Write a Novel

Author: Howard Mittelmark

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-03-17

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0061862894

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"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.


Scene and Structure

Scene and Structure

Author: Jack M. Bickham

Publisher: Writer's Digest Books

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9780898795516

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Offers advice to writers on constructing fiction that flows from one scene to the next with logic, discussing how to revise scenes for maximum effect and how to fix common errors


Thanks, But This Isn't for Us

Thanks, But This Isn't for Us

Author: Jessica Page Morrell

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2009-08-20

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1101135530

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A fun, practical guide that reveals the essentials of good fiction and memoir writing by exposing the most common mistakes literary writers make. All great works of fiction and memoir are unique-but most bad novels, stories, and memoirs have a lot in common. From clunky dialogue to poorly sketchedout characters, sagging pacing to exaggerated prose, these beginners' mistakes drive any agent or editor to their stock rejection letter, telling the aspiring writer "Thanks, but this isn't for us," and leaving many to wonder what exactly it is that they're doing wrong. Veteran writing coach, developmental editor, and writing instructor Jessica Page Morrell will fill in the gaps in every rejection letter you've ever received. In Thanks, But This Isn't for Us, Morrell uses her years of experience to isolate the specific errors beginners make, including the pitfalls of unrealistic dialogue, failing to "show, not tell," and over-the-top plot twists. These are just a few of the problems that keep writers from breaking through with their work. Sympathetic and humane, but pulling no punches, Thanks, But This Isn't for Us shows writers precisely where they've gone wrong and how to get on the right track. In sixteen to-the-point chapters, with checklists, exercises, takeaway tips, and a glossary, Morrell helps readers transcend these mistakes so that they don't have to learn the hard way: with another rejection letter.


Indies Unlimited: Authors' Snarkopaedia

Indies Unlimited: Authors' Snarkopaedia

Author: K. S. Brooks

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2013-01-17

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 9781480213425

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In Volume One of the Authors' Snarkopaedia, sentences have been painstakingly crafted together using nouns, verbs and other words, bringing you paragraphs of text. These paragraphs flow into pages of expert tips, advice and insight for authors at all levels of the publication food chain. Any book can claim to offer this type of information, but they can't give you what sets the Indies Unlimited Authors' Snarkopaedia above the rest: the "je ne sais squat" of the high decorated staff of the Snarkology Department at the Indies Unlimited Online Academy. Their groundbreaking and empirical research over the years sheds new and snarkified light on subjects ranging from book publishing and marketing to the nuts and bolts of writing and technology. If you like information to grab you by the throat and smack you in the face, the Indies Unlimited Authors' Snarkopaedia is the reference book for you.


Outlining Your Novel

Outlining Your Novel

Author: K. M. Weiland

Publisher: Penforasword Publishing, LLC

Published: 2011-07

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9780985780494

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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.