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.


How to Read Like a Writer

How to Read Like a Writer

Author: Mike Bunn

Publisher: The Saylor Foundation

Published:

Total Pages: 17

ISBN-13:

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When you Read Like a Writer (RLW) you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing. The idea is to carefully examine the things you read, looking at the writerly techniques in the text in order to decide if you might want to adopt similar (or the same) techniques in your writing. You are reading to learn about writing. Instead of reading for content or to better understand the ideas in the writing (which you will automatically do to some degree anyway), you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text. As you read in this way, you think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader. What is it about the way this text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do?


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.


7 MISTAKES EVERY INVESTOR MAKES (AND HOW TO AVOID THEM)

7 MISTAKES EVERY INVESTOR MAKES (AND HOW TO AVOID THEM)

Author: Joachim Klement

Publisher: Harriman House Limited

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 0857197711

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Every investor makes mistakes. Private or professional, amateur or experienced, there is no exception. And many of these are common mistakes. Whether or not they want to admit it, many investors have committed the same errors. How can you avoid these mistakes? How can you distinguish yourself as an investor and improve your performance? Joachim Klement, research analyst and former Chief Investment Officer with 20 years’ experience in financial markets, has the answers. Seven Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How To Avoid Them) calls upon years of experience and scientific research to deliver expert insight into the most common mistakes plaguing investors. From there, Klement outlines his personal tools and techniques, developed, refined and successfully implemented over many years in the finance industry, to help avoid and mitigate such mistakes. His ultimate aim: to help you help yourself. The mistakes covered include forecasting, short- and long-term orientation, repeating past errors, confirmation bias, not delegating to experts, and blind trust of traditional assumptions. Seven Mistakes Every Investor Makes (And How to Avoid Them) is a must-have guide for every investor. Packed with scientific research and personal wisdom, this book draws together the most common investing mistakes in order to practically reveal how to overcome and eliminate them. Don’t make another avoidable mistake by missing out on this book.


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.


The Magic of Fiction

The Magic of Fiction

Author: Beth Hill

Publisher:

Published: 2016-03

Total Pages: 606

ISBN-13: 9780997177008

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Writing a novel can seem daunting, but it doesn't have to be. No matter where you are with your writing project--beginning the first draft, rewriting the fifth draft, or editing the final draft--help is available. The Magic of Fiction is a comprehensive guide for crafting fiction. It's the perfect resource for writers planning to self-publish, authors looking for an edge for manuscript submissions, and editors looking for a handbook on craft. Students and educators will also benefit, with details about the crafts of writing and editing available in a single book.Whether you intend to self-publish or submit your manuscript to agents or publishers, use The Magic of Fiction to master the ins and outs of writing and revision, create stronger early drafts, and edit your own stories.This guide addresses all aspects of editing and writing, from the mechanics to story issues to style concerns. In it you'll find--~ A comprehensive editing checklist~ Fixes for common writing mistakes~ Specifics for punctuation in dialogue~ Tips for putting setting to work for your fiction~ Suggestions for editing for the reader~ Help for writing to genre conventions~ Tips for word choices~ A guide for editing approaches and much more.Every fiction writer should be equipped to not only write well, but to rewrite and edit. There are books designed to help you write a novel, books to help you revise, and books to help you with the nitty-gritty of punctuation and grammar. The Magic of Fiction brings all those elements together in a single easy-to-digest resource for the writer looking for an edge in today's literary marketplace.The format of The Magic of Fiction helps you focus on what you need when you need it. Chapters provide detailed discussions of topics and end with "quick lists" to help you get straight to work on your own stories.Written by freelance fiction editor Beth Hill, The Magic of Fiction will help you produce high-quality fiction that will earn attention for all the right reasons.