Dialogue
10 best books like Dialogue (Lewis Turco): Beginnings, Middles & Ends, Characters and Viewpoint, Description, Creating Characters: How to Build Story People, Scene of the Crime: A Writer 's Guide to Crime Scene Investigation, Deadly Doses: A Writer's Guide to Poisons, Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes, Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy, Cause of Death: A Writer's Guide to Death, Murder, and Forensic Medicine, Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot: A Guide for Screenwriters
Get your stories off to a roaring start. Keep them tight and crisp throughout. Conclude them with a wallop.
Is the story or novel you've been carrying around in your head the same one you see on the page? Or does the dialogue suddenly sound flat and predictable? Do the events seem to ramble?
Translating...
Vivid and memorable characters aren't born: they have to be made.
This book is a set of tools: literary crowbars, chisels, mallets, pliers and tongs. Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul.
Award-winning...
| Author | Monica Wood |
| ISBN | 0898799082 |
Description is most powerful when it's visible, aural, tactile. Make your descriptions fresh and they'll move your story forward, imbue your work with atmosphere, create that tang of feeling that editors cry for and readers crave.
Monica Wood helps you squeeze the greatest flavor from the...
| Author | Dwight V. Swain |
| ISBN | 0806139188 |
A jargon-free manual on the basics of developing interesting fictional characters
Vibrant, believable characters help drive a fictional story. Along with a clever plot, well-drawn characters make us want to continue reading a novel or finish watching a movie. In Creating Characters,...
Scene of the Crime: A Writer 's Guide to Crime Scene Investigation
| Author | Anne Wingate |
| ISBN | 0898795184 |
Others have already noted that this book, written about CSI techniques in 1992, is dated. It is. But, and this is a huge but, if you are writing a story that begins in the early '90s, this is the book that must be on your bookshelf. It will prevent you from making continuity mistakes. In 1992, no one rushed...
| Author | Serita Stevens |
| ISBN | 0898793718 |
I've carted this reference book to each of the dozen or so places I've lived since college, and I've only used it a few times, but it's one of those books that is so well done that I can't let it go. You can look up poisons by reaction time, symptoms, foods that disguise them, and many other characteristics...
| Author | Raymond Obstfeld |
| ISBN | 0898799732 |
Writing page-turning fiction depends on your ability to create rock-solid, believable scenes. Scenes act as dynamic structures that thrust both your characters and readers forward through conflict, baiting them with goals that may–or may not–be obtained. Writing good scenes makes the difference...
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
| ISBN | 0312089260 |
Do you dream of -
Crossing the galaxies?
Living in the far future?
Entertaining millions with your imagination?
This book can help make those dreams come true!
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy brings you expert advice on how to craft and market tales...
| Author | Keith D. Wilson |
| ISBN | 0898795249 |
Another useful guide to the drama of death and injury, with focus on the contemporary process of handling a body. Hospital procedures, autopsy, the physical behavior of the body after death ... all this is in these pages. Like other guides in this line I've read, Cause of Death suffers from being a mile...
Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot: A Guide for Screenwriters
The leap from concept to final draft is great, and the task is filled with hard work and horrors. It is here that most writers struggle to get the plot right at the expense of the story's real power. The result is a script that is logical in every way, yet
unmoving. Emotional Structure, by Emmy- and...
Armed and Dangerous: A Writer's Guide to Weapons
Talk about murder! Inaccurate information about weapons can kill your story before a potential publisher has even finished reading your manuscript. Today’s readers of mysteries, thrillers, Westerns, true crime, police procedurals, and romantic suspense are better informed about weapons...
This was a good idea but completely useless. Nothing went into enough depth to be useful, but the biggest problem is that although it was written in 1999, most of the sources used were already out of date and obsolete then. She uses Masters & Johnson from the 60's for information about homsexuality....
| Author | Ansen Dibell |
| ISBN | 0898799465 |
"There are ways to create, fix, steer and discover plots--ways which, over a writing life, you'd eventually puzzle out for yourself," writes Ansen Dibell. "They aren't laws. They're an array of choices, things to try, once you've put a name to the particular problem you're facing now."
That's...
| Author | Alicia Rasley |
| ISBN | 1582975248 |
Every Character Has a Voice
Point of view isn't just an element of storytelling–when chosen carefully and employed consistently in a work of fiction, it is the foundation of a captivating story.
It's the character voice you can hear as clearly as your own. It's the unique worldview...
| Author | Stanley Schmidt |
| ISBN | 0898797063 |
This is the first volume in a four-volume set put out by Writers Digest Books under the umbrella Science Fiction Writing Series. This entire series is highly recommendable, and you'll probably see the other volumes reviewed here by me in the future. Aliens and Alien Societies features 11 chapters,...
| Author | William Noble |
| ISBN | 0898799074 |
What makes a book a page-turner? How do you grab your readers from the start and hold them through the last sentence? How do you make your plot twist and turn and keep the action moving without losing continuity?You do it by generating drama and developing it using conflict, action and suspense. You make...
| Author | Rachel Ballon |
| ISBN | 1582971811 |
Uggg, this is going to be hard to review.
I do not want to be overly hard on this, but I really cannot give this book anything above "it was ok" for a rating. It really proved to be of limited value for the purpose I was reading it (attempting to add depth to Non-Player Characters in a role play game),...
| Author | Jessica Page Morrell |
Effective storytelling stems from many elements, the most crucial of which are unseen or blended in so unobtrusively that they are difficult to spot and analyze. Still, they are necessary to the wholeness and coherence of a story–to create a work that lingers and resonates in the reader's imagination.In...
| Author | Writer's Digest Books |
Get advice from the best in the business on every stage of the novel-writing and publishing process!
In The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, 3rd Edition, you'll learn from established writers about how to make your novel a reality. Discover techniques and strategies for generating ideas,...
| Author | Brandilyn Collins |
| ISBN | 0471058947 |
Proven techniques for creating vivid, believable characters
Want to bring characters to life on the page as vividly as fine actors do on the stage or screen? Getting into Character will give you a whole new way of thinking about your writing. Drawing on the Method acting theory that theater...
Creating Character Emotions
| Author | Ann Hood |
| ISBN | 1884910335 |
Sweaty palms. Butterflies in the stomach. Pacing back and forth. There is no doubt this character is nervous. But isn't there a more original, more vivid way to express this emotion? Absolutely. In this unique book, Ann Hood will help you find fresh, creative images, words and gestures to evoke feelings...
| Author | Jack M. Bickham |
| ISBN | 0898796350 |
Even with great characters, a gripping plot and outstanding dialogue, a story isn't complete without the appropriate setting-the unifying element in most fiction. Jack Bickham shows how to use sensual detail, vivid language and keen observations to craft settings which help tell credible, interesting...
| Author | Ronald B. Tobias |
| ISBN | 1582972397 |
Give your story a solid foundation - a plot that engages readers from start to finish!
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.Inside, Ronald B. Tobias...
