Creative Writing For Dummies

Front Cover
John Wiley & Sons, Nov 18, 2010 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 384 pages
Unlock your creativity and choose the genre of writing that suits you best

Do you have an idea that you’re burning to get down on paper? Do you want to document your travels to far-flung places, or write a few stanzas of poetry? Whether you dream of being a novelist, a travel writer, a poet, a playwright or a columnist, Creative Writing For Dummies shows you how to unlock your creativity and choose the genre of writing that suits you best. Walking you through characterisation, setting, dialogue and plot, as well as giving expert insights into both fiction and non-fiction, it’s the ideal launching pad to the world of creative writing.

Creative Writing For Dummies covers:

Part I: Getting started

  • Chapter 1: Can Everyone Write?
  • Chapter 2: Getting into the Write Mind
  • Chapter 3: Finding the Material to work with

Part II: The Elements of Creative Writing

  • Chapter 4: Creating Characters
  • Chapter 5: Discovering Dialogue
  • Chapter 6: Who is telling the story?
  • Chapter 7: Creating your own world
  • Chapter 8: Plotting your way
  • Chapter 9: Creating a Structure
  • Chapter 10: Rewriting and editing

Part III: Different Kinds of Fiction Writing

  • Chapter 11: Short stories
  • Chapter 12: Novels
  • Chapter 13: Writing for children
  • Chapter 14: Plays
  • Chapter 15: Screenplays
  • Chapter 16: Poetry

Part IV: Different kinds of Non-fiction writing

  • Chapter 17: Breaking into journalism - Writing articles/ magazine writing
  • Chapter 18: Writing from life and autobiography
  • Chapter 19: Embroidering the facts: Narrative non-fiction
  • Chapter 20: Exploring the world from your armchair - Travel writing
  • Chapter 21: Blogging – the new big thing

Part V: Finding an audience

  • Chapter 22: Finding editors/ publishers/ agents
  • Chapter 23: Becoming a professional

Part VI: Part of Tens

  • Chapter 24: Ten top tips for writers
  • Chapter 25: Ten ways to get noticed
 

Selected pages

Contents

Table of Contents
You and Your Writing
Playing with Words
Getting into the Write Mind
Finding Material to Work With
Creating Characters
Discovering Dialogue
Creating a Dynamic
Penning Plays
Writing Screenplays
Rhymes and Reasons Writing Poetry
Exploring NonFiction
Writing from Life
Crafting Narrative NonFiction
Examining Genres within Narrative NonFiction
All About Blogging

Choosing a Narrator
Describing Your World
Imagining fantasy places
Creating a Structure
Rewriting and Editing
Writing Fiction
Writing the Novel
Once Upon a Time Writing for Children
Finding an Audience
Finding Professionals to Publish Your Book
Approaching an agent
Becoming a Professional
The Part of Tens
Ten Ways to Get Noticed
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Maggie Hamand is a novelist, non-fiction author and journalist. In 1998, Maggie founded the hugely successful Complete Creative Writing Course at the Groucho Club in London, and has been teaching there since: her students have included many published authors. She is the author of two novels, The Resurrection of the Body and The Rocket Man.

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