Just Write

Two new books of interest to writers arrived at the library today:

Manuscript Makeover:  Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore                  by Elizabeth Lyon

Professional editor and author Elizabeth Lyon offers aspiring novelists the guidance and instruction they need to write and edit well-crafted and compelling stories that will stand out from the competition and attract the attention of agents and publishers, including:

• Stand-out style techniques, from accessing an authentic voice to applying techniques of "wordsmithing" that transform prose
• How to rewrite characterization for dimensionality, a universal need, and theme
• Adjustment suggestions to match the prose style and structure of specific genres
• Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style
• Strategies to strengthen story beginnings and endings
• Methods for increasing plot stakes, creating movement, and adjusting pace for maximum suspense

The Power of Point of View:  Make Your Story Come to Life                                                                 by Alicia Rasley

The difference between a pedestrian telling of a story and a powerful telling is in how the point of view is handled. A well-written story is one in which the author allows POV to guide not just how the plot develops, but how the story—the merging of plot and character—develops. In The Power of Point of View, readers will learn POV basics and then how to use POV to influence a story from the ground up.   The Power of Point of View features genre-specific POV tips, techniques for crafting POV to individual stories and writing styles, engaging exercises, and more.

These and other books on the craft of writing can be placed on hold while online at www.gcls.org. 

Two new books of interest to writers arrived at the library today:

Manuscript Makeover:  Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore                  by Elizabeth Lyon

Professional editor and author Elizabeth Lyon offers aspiring novelists the guidance and instruction they need to write and edit well-crafted and compelling stories that will stand out from the competition and attract the attention of agents and publishers, including:

• Stand-out style techniques, from accessing an authentic voice to applying techniques of "wordsmithing" that transform prose
• How to rewrite characterization for dimensionality, a universal need, and theme
• Adjustment suggestions to match the prose style and structure of specific genres
• Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style
• Strategies to strengthen story beginnings and endings
• Methods for increasing plot stakes, creating movement, and adjusting pace for maximum suspense

The Power of Point of View:  Make Your Story Come to Life                                                                 by Alicia Rasley

The difference between a pedestrian telling of a story and a powerful telling is in how the point of view is handled. A well-written story is one in which the author allows POV to guide not just how the plot develops, but how the story—the merging of plot and character—develops. In The Power of Point of View, readers will learn POV basics and then how to use POV to influence a story from the ground up.   The Power of Point of View features genre-specific POV tips, techniques for crafting POV to individual stories and writing styles, engaging exercises, and more.

These and other books on the craft of writing can be placed on hold while online at www.gcls.org. 

New at the library this week: 

Dialogue:  Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue by Gloria Kempton

How do some writers craft conversation so authentic, it feels like they've been eavesdropping? What's the secret behind getting characters to talk to each other? How can writers make their dialogue sing?

Answers to all of these questions and more can be found in Gloria Kempton's in-depth look at this crucial component of fiction. Readers will learn how to create dialogue that sizzles, with tips on:
* Creating dialogue for specific genres
* Bringing characters to life with revealing dialogue
* Identifying and fixing common dialogue problems

Each chapter features numerous examples of successful dialogue drawn from bestselling novels, and chapter-ending exercises help readers apply the lessons learned.  This is one of four in the Write Great Fiction series by Writer’s Digest Books.

Recommended Reading from Gwynne Scheffer:  A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer within You by Ralph Fletcher

About ten years ago I worked as a professional developer on school reform initiatives in Baltimore, MD.  We pulled on a variety of resources to share with elementary school teachers to help improve student performance in literacy.  Recently while organizing my professional bookcase Ralph Fletcher’s A Writer’s Notebook nearly jumped off the shelf as the title caught my eye.  As an aspiring writer I am always open to new ideas and strategies to improve my craft but I never imagined I would be engaging a book geared towards elementary school children.  “A writer’s notebook is different from any journal you’ve ever kept before…A writer’s notebook gives you a place to live like a writer…”  It’s a helpful tool for capturing the thoughts, ideas, and dreams of middle-aged, grey-haired writers too!

New this week at the Logan Library:

Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors by Bill Bryson

A useful and readable guide to the problems of the English language most commonly encountered by editors and writers.  Covering spelling, capitalization, plurals, hyphens, abbreviations, and foreign names and phrases, Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors is an indispensable companion for all who care enough about our language not to maul, misuse, or contort it.

This dictionary is an essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. As Bill Bryson notes, it will provide you with “the answers to all those points of written usage that you kind of know or ought to know but can’t quite remember.”

New this week at the Logan Library:

Publicize Your Book! - An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves by Jacqueline Deval

From the publisher:  This indispensible guide from a book-publicity insider offers everything authors need to know to assist in publicizing, marketing, and promoting their books. From working alongside professional publicists on campaigns and marketing plans to innovative ways authors can generate their own publicity, Publicize Your Book provides essential information for the first time author or the seasoned professional including:

· Effective networking
· Defining your target readership
· Developing a press kit
· Creating pitches for talk shows
· Getting newspaper and magazine coverage
· Marketing on the Internet and in other outlets
· Preparing for interviews and touring
· Setting up bookstore appearances and signings
· Hiring an independent publicist

Includes online publicity strategies and updated resources.

New this week at the Logan library:

The Autobiographer's Handbook:  The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir edited by Jennifer Traig, introduction by Dave Eggers.

Starred review from Publisher's Weekly:  Put out by 826 Valencia, the San Francisco-based nonprofit Eggers started to provide creative writing instruction for middle and high school students, this book presents straightforward, practical ideas and advice from a double-handful of contemporary writers. Edited by memoirist Traig (Devil in the Details), a longtime 826 Valencia tutor, it's comprised largely of excerpts from wide-ranging, insightful round-table discussions among nonfiction practitioners like Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love), Nick Hornby (Housekeeping vs. the Dirt), Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) and Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation). To find the right topic, for example, Gus Lee (China Boy) suggests you "write about the biggest, scariest darn elephant in the living room of your soul." To decide which elements to edit, Laura Fraser (An Italian Affair) says, "nobody cares if you go to yoga on Tuesdays... unless it will contribute to the story or to the character that is you." Besides lessons on celebrating the ordinary and the importance of humor, contributors also offer ways to push through the inevitable writer's block and handle miffed family and friends. Their guidance, complemented by writing exercises and work plans, should prove useful, informative and motivating for writers at just about any level.

New this week at Logan Library:

The New Writer's Handbook:  A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft & Career, Volume 2, edited by Philip Martin

This essential collection of readings refreshes and upgrades any writer's skills with hands-on advice on literary craft and career development.  It features over 60 useful articles, ideal for fiction and non-fiction writers of all levels seeking professional advancement.  Topics include:

• Writing Techniques
• Pitching How-tos
• Internet Marketing Tips
• Models for Success

Contributors include winners of the Newbery Medal, New York Times bestselling authors, journalists, writing instructors, literary agents and publishers.

Two new books of interest to writers arrived at the library this week:

Writing Well: The Essential Guide by Mark Tredinnick

Writing Well is a guide to expressive creative writing and effective professional prose. The author, a poet, writer, editor and teacher, explains the techniques required for stylish and readable writing. Everyone who wants to improve their writing can benefit from this book, which describes how to: 

• identify topics that inspire you to write
• get into the habit of writing regularly
• develop ideas • construct effective arguments
• choose words for maximum effect
• use grammar correctly
• structure sentences and paragraphs appropriately
• write with integrity

The book is enriched by examples from great modern writers, and includes a variety of exercises and suggestions for writing activities. Mark Tredinnick practises what he preaches, making his book highly enjoyable as well as technically instructive.

From First Draft to Finished Novel: A Writer's Guide to Cohesive Story Building by Karen S. Wiesner

From First Draft to Finished Novel carefully explores each stage of story development from brainstorming and outlining to drafting and revision. Writers will learn how to turn an idea into a rich, textured story by layering core story elements, such as plot and character, to create a cohesive, seamless novel. From a thorough look at the fundamentals of writing to comprehensive story building techniques, as well as submission guidelines and etiquette, this must-have guide will see writers through the entire novel writing process from start to finish.

A new reference book of interest to writers is available for use at the Logan Library:

Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, 2nd Edition

This new edition of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is more exceptional than ever, solidifying its place as the one thesaurus every writer (or aspiring writer) will want to have. It provides more than 300,000 synonyms and 10,000 antonyms, with copious real-life example sentences and careful selection and ordering of the most relevant synonyms. Additional features include notes on American English usage and word spectrums showing the shades of meaning between polar opposites. The text is enhanced with thoughtful mini-essays on favorite words by ten noted contemporary writers--David Auburn, Michael Dirda, David Lehman, Erin McKean, Stephen Merritt, Francine Prose, Zadie Smith, Jean Strouse, David Foster Wallace, and Simon Winchester.

This new edition has been updated and enhanced, including a new foreword by award-winning author Rick Moody. Additionally, the second edition introduces new Word Toolkits, which use an exciting visual display of information to demonstrate the nuances in meaning and use of closely related words. Also new to this edition is a center section including thematic word lists, as well as a comprehensive language guide with writing tips. The new features are based on findings from Oxford's groundbreaking language research program and the Oxford English Corpus.

The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is truly (surely, certainly, unquestionably) the perfect tool for discriminating writers of all varieties looking for the perfect word.

A new book of interest to writers (and readers) arrived this week at the library:

How Fiction Works by James Wood

What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the connection between realism and real life? These are some of the questions James Wood answers in How Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the preeminent critic/staff writer at The New Yorker and visiting lecturer in English and American literature at Harvard.  Ranging widely—from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings—Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step.  The result is nothing less than a philosophy of the novel—plainspoken, funny, blunt—in the traditions of E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision. (from the Publisher)

A new book of interest to writers arrived this week at Logan Library.

The Call of the Writer's Craft:  Writing and Selling the Book Within by Tom Bird.

From the publisher: 

"Getting a book successfully published is as much about talent and creative drive as it is a matter of determination and business practice. Luckily for would-be authors, this book delivers the how-to on both the creativity and the business. Lecturer and writing retreat leader Tom Bird introduces authors to their Divine Author Within, and guides them through the process of listening to this inner muse. They will learn how to tap into their "creative connected mind" and relax their "logical critical mind" so they will be able to write the book they've always wanted to—in just two drafts! Once the book is complete, writers learn how to sell their book. Bird instructs his readers how to successfully navigate the publishing world so that they can make the right choices for their work."

Several new books of interest to writers arrived this week at the library:

• Thanks, But This Isn't For Us:  A (Sort of) Compassionate Guide to Why Your Writing Is Being Rejected by Jessica Page Morrell

Review from Library Journal:  Morrell takes us through the school of hard knocks faced by writers who are struggling to get published. Without removing the creativity from creative writing, Morrell convincingly portrays the craft of writing for publication as no accident of fate by revealing the "trade secrets" of the publishing industry through the eyes of that all-important gatekeeper, the editor. Having seen too many writers making the same mistakes, Morrell examines what makes a book publishable and what makes a story suck. She goes over dozens of common writing mistakes—from character, to plot, to dialog—and helps the would-be author find the ways in which to fine-tune a manuscript to avoid another rejection letter.

• Teach Yourself How to Write Your Life Story by Ann Gawthorpe

From the publisher:  If you've ever wanted to write down your life story, but never found the time or the confidence, this book is for you. It will help you to find a style that suits you, to collect and structure all the information you need, to plan your story and discover your voice. There are lots of practical tips and reassuring advice if you're feeling daunted, and there is a complete list of all the options available for publishing your book.

• The Elements of Story:  Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing by Francis Flaherty

Review from Library Journal:  Playing on the title of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, Flaherty, a New York Times editor who teaches journalism at New York University, shares 50 simple and insightful tips on the many elements writers can convey in stories. Not a style guide, this is instead a nuts-and-bolts examination of the larger elements of a story. First and most adamantly, he stresses the importance of bringing a human face to every story. Flaherty gives us real and invented examples of the cream of the crop of nonfiction writing in the form of narrative news articles. VERDICT This book can be read in one fell swoop to expose yourself to the full spectrum of story elements—such as theme, motion, artfulness, truth and fairness, leads, and titles—or it can be used as a guide during the process of writing non