Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.

Pedro is a nine-year-old boy whose main interest in life is playing soccer. The arrest of his friend Daniel's father and a visit to the school of an army captain who wants the children to write a composition entitled "What My Family Does at Night" suddenly force Pedro to make a difficult choice. The author's note explains what a dictatorship is and provides a context for this powerful and provocative story.

Three levels of differentiated activities. Uses a wide range of reading extracts, both fiction and non-fiction, to act as models for compositional writing activities. Focuses on the range of text types and teaching objectives of the National Literacy Strategy. Provides support for National Test style practise.

"Stories from First-Year Composition: Pedagogies that Foster Student Agency and Writing Identity counters perceptions of first-year composition (FYC) as a service course that prepares students for college writing. The collection identifies a new FYC "service", one that accommodates the realities of writing both within and outside of the academy. The collection also offers insights into effective FYC pedagogies and opportunities for readers to consider and think about their own teaching and their identities as FYC instructors. "Reflect Before Reading" prompts and questions and after-reading activities, including "Questions for Discussion and Reflection," writing activities that ask readers to apply ideas shared in chapters to their own FYC courses, suggestions for further reading, and multimedia components (accessible to readers through links within the collection itself and as resources available on the book's website) invite readers to interact with chapters and to develop deeper and more enriched understandings of their FYC teaching and an accompanying sense of agency so that they not only can teach FYC effectively but also advocate for its value and relevance"--

The ultimate guide to visual storytelling. Using his extensive experience of working in the comic book industry and for movie studios, Mateu-Mestre explains a step-by-step system for the best visual communication. From creating a single image, visual character development and environment, to composing steady shots, and establishing continuity, with practical examples, this book covers it all.

You always wanted to write short stories but you have no idea where to begin.Do you want to become better at writing fiction?Perhaps you find it hard to come up with ideas for a story or to devise a plot. Maybe you have difficulty developing your own style or is your dialogue rusty.N.A. Turner is here to help you navigate the land of short story writing from outlining your story to attracting readers. Every aspiring writer dreams of people reading his or her work. Short story writing is a way of both developing your writing style and to introduce your talent to potential readers. At the start of their career, the likes of Stephen King and Charles Bukowski made a name for themselves by writing and publishing short stories.Learn more about N.A. Turner's writing tips based on his experience and research.This guide teaches you: - How to write well-structured short stories- How to determine your theme- How to plot your story- How to create engaging, interesting characters- How to build a fictional world- How to write scenes and clear dialogue- How to get to that first draft and edit your story- How to publish your short stories in the current market- And much moreThis guidebook will show you a step-by-step process to successfully write and publish short stories. From developing an idea to attracting readers online. This comprehensive, step-by-step guide is all you need to get started.

To understand and make the practical use of the grammatical rules is a challenge poised at various competitive exams. Students preparing for various competitive exams need elucidated grammar rules that are explained in a very easy and understandable language. Practical English Grammar & Composition is the hand book and an easy guide to learn English aimed at learning and improving knowledge of grammar and its applicability. In order to make the students conversant with the practical applicability of the grammar rules, sentences depicting the right usage are also given after the rules. A number of solved exercises are also given after the chapters that enable the students test their acquired knowledge. Word Powers section is a unique feature of the book that will play a crucial role in making the students ready to face the competitions ahead.

A guide to the art of personal writing, by the author of Fierce Attachments and The End of the Novel of Love All narrative writing must pull from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver a bit of wisdom. In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth. How does one pull from one's own boring, agitated self the truth-speaker who will tell the story a personal narrative needs to tell? That is the question The Situation and the Story asks--and answers. Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras. This book, which grew out of fifteen years teaching in MFA programs, is itself a model of the lucid intelligence that has made Gornick one of our most admired writers of nonfiction. In it, she teaches us to write by teaching us how to read: how to recognize truth when we hear it in the writing of others and in our own.

What makes a good story or a screenplay great? The vast majority of writers begin the storytelling process with only a partial understanding where to begin. Some labor their entire lives without ever learning that successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry. But the truth is, unless you are master of the form, function and criteria of successful storytelling, sitting down and pounding out a first draft without planning is an ineffective way to begin. Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story--and uses it as the basis for narrative. The greatest potential of any story is found in the way six specific aspects of storytelling combine and empower each other on the page. When rendered artfully, they become a sum in excess of their parts. You'll learn to wrap your head around the big pictures of storytelling at a professional level through a new approach that shows how to combine these six core competencies which include: • Four elemental competencies of concept, character, theme, and story structure (plot) • Two executional competencies of scene construction and writing voice The true magic of storytelling happens when these six core competencies work together in perfect harmony. And the best part? Anyone can do it!