| Description |
1 online resource (xviii, 362 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
--For dummies |
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--For dummies.
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| Contents |
Introduction -- About this book -- Conventions used in this book -- What you're not to read -- Foolish Assumptions -- How this book is organized -- Part 1: Getting Ready To Write Fiction -- Part 2: Creating Compelling Fiction -- Part 3: Editing And Polishing Your Story And Characters -- Part 4: Getting Published -- Part 5: Part Of Tens -- Icons used in this book -- Where to go from here -- Part 1: Getting Ready To Write Fiction -- 1: Fiction writing basics -- Setting your ultimate goal as a writer -- Pinpointing where you are as a writer -- Freshmen: Concentrating on craft -- Sophomores: Tackling the proposal -- Juniors: Perfecting their pitches -- Seniors: Preparing to become authors -- Getting yourself organized -- Mastering characterization, plotting, and other skills -- Editing your fiction -- 2: What makes a great story? -- Choosing what to give your readers -- Creating a powerful emotional experiences: what your readers desperately want -- Educating your reader -- Practicing the gentle art of persuasion -- Making life hard on your characters: conflict plus change equals story -- Five pillars of fiction -- Setting the stage: your story world -- Creating characters -- Constructing the plot -- Formulating a theme -- Expressing your style -- Seven ways to deliver the goods -- Here and now: Action -- Giving your characters a voice: Dialogue -- Revealing thoughts: Interior monologue -- Feeling with your character: Interior emotion -- Seeing what your character sees: Description -- Taking a trip to the past: Flashback -- Supplying narrative summary -- 3: Finding your audience and category -- Identifying your ideal novel -- Looking at what you love to read -- Thinking about what you love to write -- Defining your ideal reader -- Considering worldview and interests -- Looking at gender -- Writing for readers of a certain age -- Defining your niche -- Understanding your category -- Genres: surveying categories based on content -- Understanding audience-based categories -- Picking your category and subcategory -- Finding your category's requirements -- Targeting your word count -- Accounting for major characters -- Determining levels of action, romance, and all that -- Identifying your story's emotional driver -- 4: Four ways to write a great novel -- Giving yourself permission to write badly -- Creative paradigms: investigating various writing methods -- Writing without planning or editing -- Editing as you go -- Planning a little, writing a little -- Outlining before you write -- Finding a creative paradigm that works for you -- Understanding why method matters -- Developing your creative paradigm -- Using your creative paradigm to find your story structure -- 5: Managing your time-and yourself -- Finding time to write -- Establishing and sticking to a writing goal-for this week and this year -- Organizing your time -- Setting up your ideal writing space -- Securing the best writing surface -- Finding the right chair -- Choosing a computer (if you want to use one) -- Putting everything in place -- Dealing with distractions -- Looking at money matters -- Budgeting money for writing -- Making your living as a writer: don't expect this to be your day job (yet) |
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Part 2: Creating Compelling Fiction -- 6: Building your story world: the setting for your story -- Identifying the parts of a story world -- Creating a sense of place -- Making description do double duty -- Fitting description in the story -- Weaving emotive force into your descriptions -- Deciding what drives your cultural groups -- Revealing cultural drivers with immediate scene -- Exposition: explaining cultural drivers through narrative summary -- Combining various elements to show cultural drivers -- Choosing the backdrop for conflict -- Defining your backdrop -- Defining your story question -- Story world examples from four well-known novels -- Pride and prejudice -- Pillars of the earth -- Patriot games -- Ender's game -- Researching your story world -- Identifying what you need to know about your story world -- Knowing how much research is enough -- Being able to explain your story world to sell your book -- 7: Creating compelling characters -- Defining roles: Deciding who goes in your novel -- Backstory: giving each character a past -- Understanding why backstory matters -- Creating your character's backstory -- Avoiding stereotypes -- Motivation: looking to your character's future -- Values: core truths for your character -- Ambitions: getting abstract, or why Miss America wants "world peace" -- Story goals: your story's ultimate driver -- Establishing our character's motivation -- Point of view (POV): getting some perspective on character -- First-person POV -- Third-person POV -- Objective third-person POV -- Head-hopping POV -- Omniscient POV -- Second-person POV -- Choosing between past and present tense -- Revealing your characters to the reader -- 8: Storyline and three-act structure: the top layers of your plot -- Giving the big picture of story structure: your storyline -- Understanding the value of a story line -- Writing a great storyline -- Examples: Looking at storylines for 20 best-selling novels -- Three-act structure: setting up three disasters -- Looking at the value of a three-act structure -- Timing the acts and disasters -- Introducing a great beginning -- End of the beginning: getting commitment with the first disaster -- Supporting the middle with a second major disaster -- Leading to the end: tackling the third disaster -- Wrapping up: why endings work-or don't -- Summarizing your three-act structure for interested parties -- Examples: Summarizing the Matarese circle and pride and prejudice -- Describing your own three-act structure -- 9: Synopsis, scene list, and scene: your middle layers of plot -- Deciding which order to work in -- Writing the synopsis -- Taking it from the top: fleshing out your three-act structure -- Bottoms up! building around sequences of scenes -- Knowing how much detail you need -- Example: Synopsis of Ender's game -- Developing your scene list -- Top-down: fleshing out your synopsis -- Bottom-up: summarizing your manuscript -- Example: Scene list of Ender's game -- Extending your scene list -- Setting up the structure of individual scenes -- Setting the proactive scene -- Following up with the reactive scene -- Coming full circle with your scenes -- Scene structure in Gone with the wind -- Scene structure in Patriot games -- 10 : Action, dialogue, and more: the lowest layer of your plot -- Using seven core tools for showing and telling -- Action -- Dialogue -- Interior emotion -- Interior monologue -- Description -- Flashback -- Narrative summary and other forms of telling -- Secret of showing -- Sorting it all out -- Understanding the two kinds of clips -- Writing public clips -- Writing private clips -- Putting cause and effect together -- 11: Thinking through your theme -- Understanding why your theme matters -- Looking at why writers include themes in their novels -- Examining the features of a theme -- Example themes for 20 novels -- Deciding when to identify your theme -- Finding your theme -- Faking it till you make it -- Reading your own novel for the first time -- Listening to your characters -- Using test readers -- Must you have a theme? -- Refining your theme |
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Part 3: Editing And Polishing Your Story And Characters -- 12: Analyzing your characters -- High-level read-through: preparing yourself to edit -- Developing a bible for each character -- Physical traits -- Emotional and family life -- Intellectual and work life -- Backstory and motivation -- Psychoanalyzing your characters -- Are values in conflict? -- Do the values make sense from the backstory? -- Does ambition follow from values? -- Will the story goal satisfy the ambition? -- Narrator: fine-tuning point-of-view and voice -- Does your POV strategy work? -- Have you chosen the right POV character? -- Is your POV consistent? -- Does your character have a unique voice? -- Fixing broken characters -- Boring characters -- Shallow characters -- Unbelievable characters -- Unlikeable characters -- 13: Scrutinizing your story structure -- Editing your storyline -- Removing all unnecessary weight -- Keeping your characters anonymous -- Staying focused -- Cutting down some examples storylines -- Testing your three-act structure -- What are you three disasters? -- Are your acts balanced in length? -- Beginning: Does it accelerate the story? -- First disaster: Is the call to action clear? -- Second disaster: Does it support the long middle? -- Third disaster: Does it force the ending? -- Ending: Does it leave your reader wanting to tell others? -- Scene list: analyzing the flow of scenes -- Rearranging your scenes -- Foreshadowing: planting clues to prepare readers -- Putting it all together as a second draft -- 14: Editing your scenes for structure -- Triage: deciding whether to fix, kill, or leave a scene alone -- Identifying ailing scenes -- Evaluating a scene's chances of recovery -- Fixing proactive scenes -- Imaging a proactive scene: the Day of the jackal -- Checking for change -- Choosing a powerful goal -- Stretching out the conflict -- Desperately seeking setbacks -- Examining the final result -- Fixing reactive scenes -- Imaging a reactive scene: Outlander -- Checking for change (again) -- Fitting the reaction to the setback -- Working through the dilemma -- Coming to a decision -- Coming to the final result -- Killing an incurable scene -- 15: Editing your scenes for content -- Deciding whether to show or tell -- Knowing when clips, flashbacks, or telling techniques are most appropriate -- Following an example of decision-making -- Good show: editing clips -- Guidelines for editing clips -- Fixing mixed clips -- Fixing unintentional head-hopping -- Fixing out-of-body experiences -- Fixing cause-effect problems -- Fixing time-scale problems -- Getting in and out of flashbacks -- Editing telling -- Tightening text and adding color -- Knowing when to kill a segment of telling |
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Part 4: Getting Published -- 16: Getting ready to sell your book: polishing and submitting -- Polishing your manuscript -- Teaming with critique buddies -- Joining critique groups -- Working with freelance editors -- Hiring freelance proofreaders -- Looking a three common legal questions -- Deciding between traditional publishing and self-publishing -- Understanding how traditional publishers work -- Understanding how self-publishing works -- Beware the vanity publishers! -- Our recommendation -- First contact: writing a query letter -- Piecing together a proposal -- Deciding what to include -- Your cover letter: reminding the agent who you are -- Your title page -- Executive summary page -- Market analysis: analyzing your competition -- Your author bio -- Character sketches -- Dreaded synopsis -- Your marketing plan -- Your writing, including sample chapters (or whole manuscripts!) -- 17: Approaching agents and editors -- Defining the roles of agents and editors -- Finding the best agent for you -- Deciding whether you need an agent -- Doing your homework on agents first -- Contacting agents to pitch your work -- Editors, the center of your writing universe -- Targeting a publishing house -- Choosing which editor to contact -- Contacting editors directly -- Part 5: Part Of Tens -- 18: Ten steps to analyzing your story -- Step 1: Write your storyline -- Step 2: Write your three-act structure -- Step 3: Define your characters -- Step 4: Write a short synopsis -- Step 5: Write character sketches -- Step 6: Write a long synopsis -- Step 7: Create your character bible -- Step 8: Make your scene list -- Step 9: Analyze your scenes -- Step 10: Write and edit your story -- 19: Ten reasons novels are rejected -- Category is wrong -- Bad mechanics and lackluster writing -- Target reader isn't defined -- Story world is boring -- Storyline is weak -- Characters aren't unique and interesting -- Author lacks a strong voice -- Plot is predictable -- Theme is overbearing -- Book fails to deliver a powerful emotional experience -- Index |
| Summary |
Discover the tricks of the trade for writing compelling and concise fiction. Whether you've never written fiction before or are looking to brush up your skills and learn new techniques for crafting your words, this book gives you savvy advice on navigating the writing process |
| Notes |
Includes index |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Fiction -- Authorship.
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Fiction -- Technique.
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Creative writing.
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LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Rhetoric.
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REFERENCE -- Writing Skills.
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LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES -- Composition & Creative Writing.
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Creative writing
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Fiction -- Authorship
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Fiction -- Technique
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Fiction -- Technique.
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Creative writing.
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| Genre/Form |
Literature
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Literature.
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Littérature.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Economy, Peter, author.
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| ISBN |
9780470585214 |
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0470585218 |
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9780470585238 |
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0470585234 |
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9780470585221 |
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0470585226 |
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