If one hears one thing from every single writing instructor it’s, “Show, don’t tell.” “Don’t tell us he’s afraid of losing her, show us!” “Don’t tell us it’s a richly decorated room, show us!” “Don’t tell us the Russian tundra is cold, show us!” Easier said than done, and no one ever wrote a book on how to do it, that is until William Noble wrote this classic work a decade ago. From the use of dialogue to employing melodrama to developing incidents and anecdotes, Show Don’t Tell explains how to entertain your readers instead of lecturing to them. Written in Noble’s absorbing voice, Show Don’t Tell illustrates how to develop a dramatic framework using similes and metaphors, a focused point of view, steady pacing, increasing tension, and an appeal to the senses to create solid dramatic impact. In other words, how to show, not tell! Perfect for novelists, short story writers, and those interested in writing creative nonfiction.

Stay away from prose that is static, dusty, or too formal! Learn to energize your writing and make your words come alive! Author William Noble shows you that some of the worst mistakes come from sticking too closely to the rules. By learning which rules are okay to ignore, you will be able to remedy your errors and create the kind of writing that makes fiction and nonfiction stories crackle with life. &break;&break;Inside, Noble identifies the blunders most common to every writer, beginning or advanced and demonstrates how to correct your mistake and avoid it in the future. By avoiding these common pitfalls, you can begin to improve your writing today! &break;&break; Don't Write For Your Eighth-Grade Teacher&break; Don't Complicate the Obvious&break; Don't Use Journalese or Slangify Words and Phrases&break; Don't Wallow in a Sentence Straightjacket&break; Don't Add Adverbs and Adjectives to Prettify Your Prose&break; Don't Passify Your Verb Voice&break; Don't Repeat Without Relevance&break; Don't Wrap Characters in the Same Grammar Blanket&break; Don't Be Afraid to Make Your Own Rules

"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted. "Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'" "But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly. "It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!" Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published. In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

Speakers often use the words vision, boldness, and influence to describe the characteristics of effective leaders. Perry Noble, in The Most Excellent Way to Lead, makes the case that the heart of great leadership lies elsewhere. Perry, despite “winning” the label “least likely to succeed” in high school, beat the odds against him. Today, he inspires thirty-five thousand people every weekend to live for something greater than themselves. He credits this achievement to the leadership principles he has learned from the Bible. Surprisingly, the essence of leadership that produces genuine growth is buried in a Bible chapter often read at weddings. In this groundbreaking book, Perry walks us through that leadership chapter, describing the fifteen qualities of an inspirational leader. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a new parent, this book will encourage you to see every opportunity in life as a chance to lead in the “most excellent way.”

Based on the Zen philosophy that we learn more from our failures than from our successes, One Continuous Mistake teaches a refreshing new method for writing as spiritual practice. In this unique guide for writers of all levels, Gail Sher—a poet who is also a widely respected teacher of creative writing—combines the inspirational value of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way with the spiritual focus of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Here she introduces a method of discipline that applies specific Zen practices to enhance and clarify creative work. She also discusses bodily postures that support writing, how to set up the appropriate writing regimen, and how to discover one's own "learning personality." In the tradition of such classics as Writing Down the Bones and If You Want to Write, One Continuous Mistake will help beginning writers gain access to their creative capabilities while serving as a perennial reference that working writers can turn to again and again for inspiration and direction.

Forced by her stepmother into taking part in the Season with her beautiful sister Evangeline, Gail Alton finds her situation going from bad to worse when a collision on horseback in the nearby park lands her in the lake with the handsome but stuffy Maximillian, Viscount Fountaine, soon to be engaged to her sister after being caught in a compromising position. Original.

This accessible guide walks readers through the process of completing a social science research project. Written specifically to meet the needs of undergraduate research classes, it introduces students to a complete skill set, including: planning, design, analysis, argumentation, criticizing theories, building theories, modeling theories, choosing methods, gathering data, presenting evidence, and writing the final product. Students can use this text as a practical resource to navigate through each stage of the process, including choices between more advanced research techniques.

A comprehensive reference for writers of mysteries, thrillers, action/adventure, true crime, police procedurals, romantic suspense, and psychological mysteries--whether novels or scripts--covering numerous aspects of crime, outlining general rules of thumb, as well as specific policies and procedures of various law enforcement agencies. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Dialogue must contribute to the telling of the story said Victorian-era novelist Anthony Trollope more than one hundred years ago and his words have been a yardstick for writers ever since. A more recent novelist, Stephen King, wrote, "When dialogue is right, we know. When it's wrong we also know-it jags on the ear like a badly tuned musical instrument." In "Shut Up!" He Explained (the title comes from a Ring Lardner poke at the way some people overwrite), William Noble shows you how to write dialogue that sounds right and contributes. Fiction or Nonfiction With liberal use of anecdotes and examples, Noble develops six "Master Keys to Dialogue," each of which is crucial for the fiction or nonfiction writer to understand and use. You'll learn how to use dialogue to: - create tension - develop your characters - establish setting - move the plot - create flashbacks and transitions You'll also learn when to use narrative instead of dialogue; how to write in dialect; and how to deal with interior monologue (your character's thoughts). And more! An important section of "Shut Up!" He Explained covers the misuse of dialogue from the legal viewpoint, exploring libel and right-to-privacy. Get a copy of "Shut Up! He Explained" an make your writing scintillate with captivating dialogue. "This is the best book that I could find on the use of dialog when writing fiction." -Amazon.com review