Composition category: 2309 books

Compelling stories have the power to generate infinite wonder: It's nearly impossible to imagine how the author began, and yet we sense there's much more beyond the final word. It's this mystery–a combination of inspiration and craft, smoke and mirrors–that makes writing feel momentous. But it can...

For the hundreds of thousands who buy writers’ guides every year, at last there’s one that tells the ugly truth: writers who can’t get published are usually making a lot of mistakes. This honest, often funny,  book shows them how to identify their own missteps, stop listening to bad advice,...

In Brevity, David Galef provides a guide to writing flash fiction, from tips on technique to samples by canonical and contemporary authors to provocative prompts that inspire powerful stories in a little space. Galef traces the genre back to its varied origins, from the short-short to nanofiction,...

A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories...

Essays—and particularly research papers—can make or break your grades in your classes. If only there was some method, some way, to work smarter, not harder, and do better on those essays without so much time…Well, there is.This book will teach you tactics for tackling your essays...

The Memory List Question Book 101 is 32 pages, chock full of questions. It includes some of the most useful questions you can ask yourself as you write about your own life or your subject's life. This book will direct you to recover information that will make your lifestories accurate and vivid. With...

Written by two major American poets, this guide to versification is immensely useful for anyone interested in poetry or in general poetic structure. Its systematic study of meter, tempo, rhyme, and other components of verse incorporates countless vivid illustrative examples.Concise and informal, The...

Record travel experiences in ways others will want to read, for family, blog or professional audiences. Revised digital edition due to demand. Tips on using anecdotes, titles, structuring, apt viewpoints and creating a sense of place. Interviewing and research skills. Activities can...

It's easy for people to write about their feelings in a journal. It's more difficult, however, to convert personal experiences into stories worthy of publication-fiction, non-fiction, or poetry. Filled with engaging exercises, Write from Life guides writers in identifying story-worthy material and...

"Why does nonfiction have to be boring," he sniveled. "It doesn't," she replied cheeringly. "Haven't you ever read anything by Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Mark Bowden, Laura Hillenbrand, or Sebastian Junger-just to name a few?" "No," he said popping open another long-neck...

In this book, prizewinning novelist and popular creative writing instructor Douglas Bauer (The Book of Famous Iowans) shares the secrets of his trade. Talent, as Bauer acknowledges, is the most crucial element for a writer and cannot be taught. But without a regular habit of work, and a perseverance...

Creative Writing is a complete writing course that will jump-start your writing and guide you through your first steps towards publication. Suitable for use by students, tutors, writers’ groups or writers working alone, this book offers: a practical and inspiring section on the creative...

Writing a novel can be a slow, painful and lonely process. Many writers never manage to achieve their goal. This inspirational book will help you to rediscover the joy of your craft and rekindle your creative fire.Leading contemporary authors offer you support, guidance and encouragement as well as a...

Autobiographical Writing Across the Disciplines reveals the extraordinary breadth of the intellectual movement toward self-inclusive scholarship. Presenting exemplary works of criticism incorporating personal narratives, this volume brings together twenty-seven essays from scholars in literary studies...