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Post by Athaia on Jun 5, 2017 6:36:21 GMT
Hey.
Thought we could share our recommendations here because I don't have enough writing books already. Especially the lesser known ones, you know, the ones without a ton of reviews on amazon.
One such gem is the Write It Right! series by Susan Tuttle. I stumbled upon it because I was looking for a book on subplots, which is something I'm having real difficulties with. There are currently 6 volumes in the series, with a 7th on self-editing in the works. I bought #5 - Units 9&10: Conflict/Tension and Subplots (of course!).
The book is just 120 pages strong, but it's a workbook, and 110 of those 120 pages are exercises and examples from her writing group. I fully intend to use some of her exercises in our writing exercises thread. The principle is always the same, you freewrite according to the assignment for roughly half an hour.
The introductions to the sections consist of really good explanations of the concepts - the one about conflict had me rushing to my current story to insert two lines that clarified my character's fundamental intention. A real lightbulb moment that also gave me a fantastic insight into this character's psyche. Any book that can give me such lightbulb moments is a keeper! So I heartily recommend it for you. I'll definitely buy the whole series.
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Post by joyrachsis6 on Jun 6, 2017 15:58:14 GMT
I actually bought Stephen King's "On Writing" recently...only book of his I'm actually willing to read, and it's pretty good! I don't follow all of the tips (writing longhand would not be good for me and the series I'm working on), but he's got some other good ones!
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Post by hollyash85 on Jun 9, 2017 12:38:22 GMT
I recently read Stephen King's "On Writing." My husband had bought it for me for Christmas last year. I found it really inspiring, but like joyrachsis6 said I don't follow all of his tips or even agree with them all. Overall though a really insightful read.
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Post by Athaia on Jun 15, 2017 19:39:49 GMT
Okay, this is not a book rec, but I found this article so helpful that I wanted to let you know about it: writerunboxed.com/2017/06/07/what-are-the-rules/It's not about writing rules, but social norms of the different classes, and their story conflict potential. Great stuff.
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Post by Athaia on Jun 16, 2017 19:15:12 GMT
Hey. You're herewith encouraged to share your recs in this forum . Anyway, I'm reading Exploring Culture by Hofstede and Pedersen. It's a book about cultural sensitivity training (with some simulation exercises in the back), but I'm reading it mostly for culture creation for the apes, and I think it's a great resource for people writing fantasy and science fiction, too. The basic theory is that cultures are different, because different groups found different answers to the same five basic problems - identity, status, aggression, ambiguity, and gratification (they're calling them a bit differently in the book, but for those of you who know the MBTI: I'm INTP, I'm physically unable to use someone else's conceptual system - I need my own ). Each category has two extremes, and while real cultures are somewhere between those poles, the authors create ten "synthetic" cultures which are at the extreme points of those categories, to exemplify those qualities: Identity: Individualism (low social context for a person) vs. Collectivism (high social context for a person - i.e., they're always part of a group) Status: Hierarchy (high power distance) vs. Anarchy (low power distance) Aggression: Competitive (achievement-oriented) vs. Cooperative (preservation-oriented) Ambiguity: Dogmatic (one truth, low tolerance for deviants) vs. Pragmatic (many truths, high tolerance for "whatever works") Gratification: Ascetic (delayed gratification, long-term orientation) vs. Hedonistic (instant gratification, short-term orientation) They give profiles for each synthetic culture, with its core values, core distinctions (for example, a competitive culture distinguishes between achievers and losers, or successful and unsuccessful people, while a cooperative culture distinguishes between facilitators and troublemakers, or caregivers and wards), seven golden rules of appropriate behavior, words with positive/negative connotations, gender roles, and cross-cultural barriers that result in stereotypes (for example, Individualists are selfish and unable to have lasting relationships; Cooperatives are whiners who pamper the losers, etc) I seriously LOVE this book! It gives me so many ideas for the apes, and also lets me check what I have written against the descriptions. I've just started reading it, so I can't say anything about the exercises and simulations yet, but if they can be repurposed for writing exercises, I'll post them in that subforum.
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Post by joyrachsis6 on Jun 16, 2017 21:53:46 GMT
Quick question...what does "social context" mean? I read it as kind of "introvert/extrovert", but I'm not sure that's what you meant...and that book sounds really interesting! (Yay MBTI! I'm an ISFJ/INFP (keep getting both, but more of the latter recently...) )
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Post by Athaia on Jun 16, 2017 22:01:34 GMT
It means how strongly your identity is based on that of the group you belong to. Individualist cultures see their members as unique and independent of any social affiliation, while collectivist cultures can't see a person without that context of their group. Individualist cultures distinguish between me and you, collectivist cultures between us and them, or ingroup vs outgroup.
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Jamie
Inkslinger
Posts: 40
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Post by Jamie on Jan 20, 2018 17:49:43 GMT
Hey! I have a book suggestion that I used during my Creative Writing class last semester called: Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg and it's pretty awesome.
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Post by naynish on Jan 22, 2018 11:09:25 GMT
You guys are so awesome for posting all of these! I'll be adding many of them to my "To Read" list!
I have to contribute a book a friend got me for Christmas: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Holy crap, this book is GREAT. Tons of helpful insight on physical expressions of emotions. It's really helped me think outside of the usual shifting, pacing, blushing paradigms of physical symbolism!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2018 0:19:48 GMT
Omg yes, the Emotion Thesaurus is amazing! It's really helped me with how to convey emotions through physical expressions than simply stating "The MC was angry" it's a neat tool to have on hand, like if you're looking for a way to express disappointment through something more than "They sighed"
The authors also have other writing thesauruses--the other one I have of theirs is the "Positive Trait Thesaurus" that I got this Christmas. I haven't dug through it deeply yet but I'm hoping it'll help me make my characters more multifaceted and complex.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2018 10:59:21 GMT
If anybody has trouble with description, the only book series I've ever found that has helped me to understand it is Mary Buckham's Writing Active Setting series of books. These books are cheap (if I remember correctly, they're $5 each), and they go into a lot of concrete detail on why good description works. Suuuuuuper recommended.
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Post by Chiefy on Jan 23, 2018 13:14:34 GMT
YES DESCRIPTION THANK YOU
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 23:32:36 GMT
K so I haven't seen this one in here yet so I'mma just say: "Creating Character Arcs" by K.M. Weiland. Not finished it yet but it's given me such excessive insight into structuring characters' development that, like, I have to recommend it. K.M. also recommends other books and writers on writers in the text itself which is fab! I need to expand my repertoire of book-writing-books so all these suggestions are gonna make my wallet hate me and my credit card company love me. :s
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