Developmental

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.

All of us at Canterbury Writers are fans of this book.

Is your setting description pulling its weight in the story, or is it just sort of…there? Do more with your settings, activating their power to characterize the story’s cast, deepen emotional moments, deliver backstory without info dumps, and more. This guide does all this and more, in addition to providing you with lists of sensory description for over 120 modern locations.

One of the most powerful storytelling elements is your setting…but are you using it as well as you should? This guide not only lists sensory details for over 100 natural and personal settings, it provides options for conflict in each location and shows you how to build mood, steer the plot, and apply symbolism for deeper, more meaningful scenes.

Reinvigorate Your Fiction! You've written the first draft of your novel or screenplay, and you've released it into the world: to your critique group, to your most trusted beta readers, or even to an agent or an editor. But something's wrong. You're not getting the glowing response you had expected, o...

Discover the Proven Blueprint for Creating Stories That Sell! Award-winning author K.M. Weiland’s previous book, the award-winning Structuring Your Novel, showed writers how to create stories with strong and compelling plot structure. Now it’s time to put those lessons to use!

It may have been written for screenwriters, but the story structure that is presented seems to work for almost every story in existence. Get some solid advice to help with the pacing of your writing.

The first novel-writing guide from the best-selling Save the Cat! story-structure series, which reveals the 15 essential plot points needed to make any novel a success.Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriti...

Inside Story Physics, you'll learn how to:

• Understand and harness the six storytelling forces that are constantly at work in your fiction.
• Transform your story idea into a dramatically compelling concept.
• Optimize the choices you make in terms of character, conflict, subplot, subtext, and more to render the best possible outcome.

Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story--and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts.

Hundreds of books have been written on the art of writing. Here at last is a book by two professional editors to teach writers the techniques of the editing trade that turn promising manuscripts into published novels and short stories.

This book contains exercises for editing, along with worked examples, so you can compare how you would edit something against how the professional editors would do the same edits. It's a handy resource for one just learning how the editing process works.

Suspense is one of the most powerful tools a writer has for captivating readers—but it isn't just for thrillers. From mainstream fiction to memoir, suspense creates the emotional tension that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot is your hands-on guide to weaving suspense into your narrative. Award-winning author Jane K. Cleland teaches you how to navigate genre conventions, write for your audience, and build gripping tension to craft an irresistible page-turner.

This book contains clear exercises, developing on the ideas presented in the book.

Structure is Character. Characters are what they do. Story events impact the characters and the characters impact events. Actions and reactions create revelation and insight, opening the door to a meaningful emotional experience for the audience. Story is what elevates a film, a novel, a play, or teleplay, transforming a good work into a great one.

This book is for developmental editing, but it is NOT an early craft book. This book assumes that you have some basic knowledge of storytelling. While it does define the terms, the way it is structured and presents ideas does require the more advanced writing knowledge. This book is for intermediate to advanced writers.

You've completed the first draft of your novel—now what? Chances are, it's not perfect...at least not yet. In order to increase your chances of getting a literary agent, selling your manuscript to a publisher, or garnering an audience for your self-published work, you need targeted, practical instruction on tackling the problem areas and weak spots in your story. You need Troubleshooting Your Novel.

This book is for developmental editing. But it should be noted that this book does NOT discuss the mechanics of story structure. This book is designed for the pansters who need to editor their first drafts.

There is a lot more to the Save the Cat! model than was ever published in that first book by Blake Snyder. In fact, Blake share more of his ideas on his blog that spanned 4 years of materials. This book contains some of his more important blog post, including some of the information that was missing from the original book.

This book is your game plan for success. Using dozens of examples from his own work - including Dropshot, Tiebreaker and other popular novels - Jack M. Bickham will guide you in building a sturdy framework for your novel, whatever its form or length.

Every story starts with a character motivated by a need and a goal that can resolve it. Physical obstacles, adversaries, moral dilemmas, deep-seated doubts and personal struggles…conflict keeps the plot fresh, challenges characters as they traverse their arc, builds tension and high stakes, and most importantly, keeps readers emotionally invested from beginning to end.

What's the best way to write a "next level" novel? Some writers start at the beginning and let the story unfold without a plan. They are called "pantsers," because they write by the "seat of the pants." Other writers plan and outline and know the ending before they start. These are the "plotters." The two sides never seem to agree with each other on the best approach. But what if it's not the beginning or the end that is the key to a successful book? What if, amazing as it may seem, the place to begin writing your novel is in the very middle of the story? According to #1 bestselling writing teacher James Scott Bell, that's exactly where you'll find your story's heart and heat. Bell's "Mirror Moment" is the secret, and its power is available to any writer, at any stage of the writing process.

While writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you.

This book takes writers through a series of exercises designed to encourage you to go deeper into your stories and creating emotionally engaging writing.

Take your first draft from so-so to sold!

You've finished the first draft of your novel--congratulations! Time to have a drink, sit back...and start revising. But the revision process doesn't have to be intimidating. Revision and Self-Editing for Publication, Second Edition gives you the tools and advice you need to transform your first draft into a finished manuscript that agents and editors will fight for

Super Structure represents over two decades of research on what makes a novel or screenplay entertaining, commercial, original, and irresistible. Contrary to what some may think, structure is not a nasty inhibitor of creativity. Quite the opposite. Properly understood and utilized, structure is what translates story into a form readers are wired to receive it.

And it is only when readers truly connect with your story that they turn from casual readers into fans.

This book delves into the story structure model that James Scott Bell uses himself to write his novels... and it's slightly different to the traditional three-act structure.