Details the techniques necessary to write nonfiction books, articles, feature stories, and memoirs

Ideal for anyone interested in writing short stories or for introductory courses in fiction writing, A Short Story Writer's Companion is a highly accessible guide to the craft of creating short fiction. Written in an engaging style, this book enables beginning writers to recognize what works in writing short stories, what doesn't, and why. Part One of A Short Story Writer's Companion discusses fictional truth and significant detail, helping students of the form to make good sense of the often taught creative writing maxim, "Show, don't tell!" Part Two delves into the elements of fiction: character, point of view, plot, setting and time, metaphor, and voice. The author uses specific examples from a variety of widely anthologized short stories to demonstrate how each component functions as a part of the whole and offers advice on the techniques of using each of the elements successfully. Part Three closely examines the fiction-writing process and helps guide writers who may never have written a short story before through drafting, revising, and polishing short stories of their own.

Collects hundreds of paradoxical and contradictory observations by a range of writers, politicians, philosophers, and public figures, in a language-lover's reference to such phrases as "Less is more" and "Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." 20,000 first printing.

A guide to writing one's memoirs, either alone or with the help of friends and family, shows how to unlock the memories and stories of a lifetime and how to gain insight into one's past. Simultaneous. UP.

An indispensable reference for anyone who hopes to become a novelist, written with intelligence and humor by a twenty-five-year veteran of the field, includies everything from tips on writer's workshop to information about agents. Reprint.

Tells how to find ideas and organize them, and offers advice on editing, vocabulary, diction, grammar, bias-free language, sentence structure, and quotations

A step-by-step guide to writing and managing the writer's life covers each portion of a written project, addresses such concerns as writer's block and getting published, and offers awareness and survival tips

Offers practical advice on plot structure, characterization, dialog, research, and rewriting, and suggests writing exercises to improve one's screenwriting skills

Describes the function of characters in a story, discusses motive, stereotypes, models, minor characters, comedy, and transformation

In 1958, Ayn Rand, already the world-famous author of such bestselling books as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, gave a private series of extemporaneous lectures in her own living room on the art of fiction. Tore Boeckmann and Leonard Peikoff for the first time now bring readers the edited transcript of these exciting personal statements. The Art of Fiction offers invaluable lessons, in which Rand analyzes the four essential elements of fiction: theme, plot, characterization, and style. She demonstrates her ideas by dissecting her best-known works, as well as those of other famous authors, such as Thomas Wolfe, Sinclair Lewis, and Victor Hugo. An historic accomplishment, this compendium will be a unique and fascinating resource for both writers and readers of fiction.