A bestseller that is the first artist-friendly screenwriting guide to success by an Oscar nominated Hollywood insider whose productions have grossed more than a billion dollars.
Riding the Alligator is different from other screenwriting books in that it takes a non-dogmatic approach to finding your own personal creative process, and shares Pen's best kept secrets for selling your creations and yourself.
Pen is your own, warm, funny, personal mentor as you read this book. Actress Robin Wright says: "It is like getting a UC screenwriting course for under $30 ."
Pen draws from his own extremely simple breakthrough techniques, shares his inspiring philosophy of finding a personal well of creativity from your inner voice, to overcoming the many challenges in a unique business, managing stress, the real secrets to selling your work, finding the right agent and being true to one's nature to create a lasting and passion filled career.
The book is hailed by Hollywood luminaries like Ron Howard, Paul Haggis, Jeff Bridges, Morgan Freeman, as well as heads of major motion picture studios and academics from top film schools including USC, UCLA, NYU and AFI.
Also included are short, personal essays by A-List Hollywood scripters such as Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Robin Swicord (Memoirs of a Geisha), Ron Shelton (Bull Durham/White Men Can't Jump), Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island/Avatar), Todd Robinson (White Squall/Phantom), Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center), Anthony Peckham (Sherlock Holmes) and more.
Additionally, Pen provides an 'Instant Library' summarizing 10 other popular books on Hollywood, as reviewed by his USC Film Students.

The Script-Selling Game is like having a mentor in the business who answers your questions and provides you with not only valuable information, but real-life examples on how to maneuver your way through the Hollywood labyrinth. While the first edition focused mostly on film and television movies, the second edition includes a new chapter on animation and another on utilizing the Internet to market yourself and find new opportunities, plus an expansive section on submitting for television and cable.

In this landmark collection, Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May have gathered fourteen original essays from award-winning memoirists and historians. They are all storytellers, wrestling with a fascinating grey area where memory intersects with history and where the necessities of narrative collide with mundane facts, and whether the record emerges from archival sources or from personal memory, these writers show how to make the leap to telling a good story - while also telling us true.

A fully updated comprehensive guide for improving and practicing your creative writing, including contributions from Ali Smith and Kit de Waal

The Creative Writing Coursebook, edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs, takes aspiring writers through three stages of essential practice: Gathering – getting started, learning how to keep notes, making observations and using memory; Shaping – looking at structure, point of view, character and setting; and Finishing – being your own critic, joining workshops and finding publishers.

Fully updated and including a foreword by Marina Warner and contributions from forty-four authors such as Kit de Waal and Amy Liptrot, this is the perfect book for people who are just starting to write as well as for those who want some help honing work already completed. Filled with a wealth of exercises and activities, it will inspire budding writers to develop and hone their skills. Whether writing for publication, in a group or just for pleasure this comprehensive guide is for anyone who is ready to put pen to paper.

A frivolous argument or inflated claim is often dismissed with the reply, "That's just rhetoric!" But as Scott Crider explains in The Office of Assertion, the classical tradition of rhetoric is both a productive and a liberal art. The ability to employ rhetoric successfully can enable the student, as an effective communicator, to reflect qualities of soul through argument. In that sense, rhetoric is much more than a technical skill. Crider addresses the intelligent university student with respect and humor. This short but serious book is informed by both the ancient rhetorical tradition and recent discoveries concerning the writing process. Though practical, it is not simply a "how-to" manual; though philosophical, it never loses sight of writing itself. Crider combines practical guidance about how to improve an academic essay with reflection on the final purposes --educational, political, and philosophical--of such improvement.

This is a comprehensive guide to visual storytelling from Savannah College of Art and Design, one of the world's leaders in sequential arts instruction. Storyboarding is the process of graphically organising a project - a motion picture, animation or motion graphic - in order to translate artists' ideas from story to screen. Whether you're a filmmaker, animator or video-game artist - storyboarding is a skill that is absolutely critical. Storyboarding Essentials covers everything students and working professionals need to master the art of writing and formatting scripts, creating frames, and following visual logic to create a cohesive narrative.

Discover the Life-Changing Power of Free Writing and Journaling "We all know that journaling can be a powerful self-care practice, Greta artfully shows us HOW." Suzy Reading, Chartered Psychologist, Mind Editor at Psychologies magazine and Author of The Self-Care Revolution Discover how free writing and journaling can be an incredible way to heal your heart, find happiness, and reconnect with the things that matter most. Transform your life. Journaling and freewriting can bring you a deeper level of self-knowledge, allowing you to truly know who you are. Heart, Sass & Soul shows you how to develop a writing practice that nurtures inner strength and promotes a rich, fulfilled life. Recover the joy of creative self-expression. As kids, many of us had vibrant imaginations and our lives were full of creativity. Over time, that self-expression gets lost in the busy routine of everyday life. But it doesn't have to be that way. The tips, techniques, and exercises for free writing in this book helps you tap into that creativity deep in your soul. Writing can be your best self-care therapy. Most of us, at some point in our lives, lose something we truly love. That time in-between jobs, friends, relationships, homes, or whatever else, is the "great unknown." In the midst of loss and grief, you need self-care more than ever. In fact, the best thing to do in these times is write. Heart, Sass, & Soul is not a journal, it's a method for writing freely that will change the way you live. Learn to: Overcome self-doubt and develop a new creative identity Transform dark times into something beautiful Find moments for healing yourself without judgement Become empowered with uninhibited self-expression If you liked books such as Start Where You Are, Present Not Perfect, Craft in the Real World, or 52 Lists for Happiness, you'll love Heart, Sass & Soul.

Got 90 Days? Then You Can Be a Novelist

Many famous authors write their novels in a matter of weeks. William Faulkner wrote "As I Lay Dying" in six weeks. Joyce Carol Oates often cranks out two or three books a year. Stephen King believes first drafts should take no more than three months to complete. So, what's the trick? Novel writing isn't about inspiration. It's about the time, energy, and discipline to see the project to its finish.

With "The 90-Day Novel" at your side, now is the time. This inspiring guide will be your push, your deadline, and your spark to finally, without excuses, and in three short months, nail that first draft of your novel.

The difference between wanna-be writers and real writers is the difference between talk and work. If you commit to the schedule and the techniques within "The 90-Day Novel" and invest two to three hours a day for twelve weeks, you will complete your book. An outline will appear. Characters will take shape. A plot will emerge. Scenes will come together and form a story worth reading. And then the talking can begin

This helpful guide provides:

• Instruction that distills the elements of the novel--from crafting your outline to developing intriguing characters and believable plots
• Strategies for gaining support from your family and friends
• Motivating insights about writing and writers to minimize your inevitable moments of doubt
• A schedule to keep you in the writing zone and keep you focused, creative, and working

No other description available.

Horror has, among all of the genres in film and written works, one of the longest, most distinguished, and often misunderstood bloodlines in history. It is often overlooked by critics who don't see anything more than blood and guts on the screen, or a collection of cheap scares. But what is missed is the hard-hitting commentary on society and life contained in those works.

This Companion provides an introduction to the craft of prose. It considers the technical aspects of style that contribute to the art of prose, examining the constituent parts of prose through a widening lens, from the smallest details of punctuation and wording to style more broadly conceived. The book is concerned not only with prose fiction but with creative non-fiction, a growing area of interest for readers and aspiring writers. Written by internationally-renowned critics, novelists and biographers, the essays provide readers and writers with ways of understanding the workings of prose. They are exemplary of good critical practice, pleasurable reading for their own sake, and both informative and inspirational for practising writers. The Cambridge Companion to Prose will serve as a key resource for students of English literature and of creative writing.

This is the essential guide for all new and established writers for the screen. Including useful, easy-to-search contact detail entries from courses, societies and grants to representation and production companies, along with provocative articles and invaluable advice from top UK and US representatives and practitioners of the trade.

Generations of student writers have been subjected to usage handbooks that proclaim, "This is the correct form. Learn it"--books that lay out a grammar, but don't inspire students to use it. By contrast, this antihandbook handbook, presenting some three hundred sentences drawn from the printed works of a single, typical day in the life of the language--December 29, 2008--tries to persuade readers that good grammar and usage matter. Using real-world sentences rather than invented ones, One Day in the Life of the English Language gives students the motivation to apply grammatical principles correctly and efficiently. Frank Cioffi argues that proper form undergirds effective communication and ultimately even makes society work more smoothly, while nonstandard English often marginalizes or stigmatizes a writer. He emphasizes the evolving nature of English usage and debunks some cherished but flawed grammar precepts. Is it acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition? It is. Can you start a sentence with a conjunction? You can. OK to split an infinitive? No problem. A grammar and usage handbook like no other, One Day in the Life of the English Language features accessible chapters divided into "Fundamentals," "Fine Tuning," and "Deep Focus," allowing readers to select a level most suited to their needs. It also includes a glossary, a teachers' guide, and a section refuting some myths about digital-age English.

"Writing the Romantic Comedy is so much fun to read it could pop a champagne cork."-Alexa Junge, writer and producer of Friends Revised and expanded to celebrate a new generation of romantic comedies, Billy Mernit's insightful look into the mechanics of writing Hollywood's most enduring genre features case studies that reveal the screenwriting secrets behind classics new and old. Whether you're a first-time screenwriter, an intermediate marooned in the rewriting process, or a professional wanting to explore the latest genre trends, this thoroughly charming and insightful guide to the basics of crafting a winning and innovative script will take you step by step from "meet cute" all the way to "joyous defeat." You'll learn the screenwriting secrets behind some of the funniest scenes ever written; how to create characters and dialogue that getsparks flying; why some bedroom scenes sizzle and others fall flat; and much more. Written in a refreshingly accessible style and updated and expanded to recognize the contributions of a fresh generation of romantic comedies, this newly revised 20th Anniversary edition of Writing the Romantic Comedy features case studies drawn from beloved romantic classics such as When Harry Met Sally, Annie Hall, Tootsie, and The Lady Eve to modern-day favorites including Hitch, (500) Days of Summer, Bridesmaids, and Silver Linings Playbook. Field-tested writing exercises are also included, guaranteed to short-circuit potential mistakes and ensure inspiration.

Realize All That Is Possible in Your Fiction Writers have long turned to exercises for help with beginning&#151be it a new piece of fiction, a daily routine, or a serious writing life. Behind the theory of exercises is an attitude of curiosity and expectancy, a desire to ask questions of yourself and of the world, to boldly&#151or not so boldly&#151stick a toe into the waters of something fresh, provocative, and exhilarating. To create fiction on the verge. In The 4 A.M. Breakthrough, companion to The 3 A.M. Epiphany, award-winning author and professor Brian Kiteley presents you with another 200 stimulating exercises, designed to help you expand your understanding of the problems and processes of more complex, satisfying fiction and to challenge you to produce works of which you never thought yourself capable. You'll learn how to: Train your writing instincts, so creation becomes a more organic, automatic process Tackle challenging concepts and themes, such as Language Games, The Mind, Money & Class, and History, laying a foundation for larger, more significant writing projects Make your writing process more fun and experimental, so you'll approach your fiction in the spirit of discovery, rather than with anxiety Open the book. Choose an exercise. Surprise yourself. Anything can happen&#151even at 4 a.m.

Writing Fiction offers the novice writer engaging and creative activities, making use of insightful, relevant readings from well-known authors to illustrate the techniques presented. This volume makes use of new versions of key chapters from the recent Routledge/Open University textbook Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings for writers who are specializing in fiction. Using their experience and expertise as teachers as well as authors, Linda Anderson and Derek Neale guide aspiring writers through such key aspects of writing as: how to stimulate creativity keeping a writer's notebook character creation setting point of view structure showing and telling. The volume is further updated to include never-before published interviews with successful fiction writers Andrew Cowan, Stevie Davies, Maggie Gee, Andrew Greig, and Hanif Kureishi. Concise and practical, Writing Fiction offers an inspirational guide to the methods and techniques of authorship and is a must-read for aspiring writers.

Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writers' Guide and Anthology offers expert instruction on writing creative nonfiction in any form-including memoir, lyric essay, travel writing, and more-while taking an expansive approach to fit a rapidly evolving literary art form. From a history of creative nonfiction, related ethical concerns, and new approaches to revision and publishing, this book offers innovative strategies and ideas beyond what's traditionally covered. Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writers' Guide and Anthology also includes: * An anthology of contemporary creative nonfiction by some of today's most inventive and celebrated writers * Advanced explorations into the craft of creative nonfiction across forms * In-depth discussion of truth, ethics, and memory * Practical advice on revision, editing, research, and publishing * Writing prompts and exercises throughout the textbook A companion website is also available for the book at http://www.bloomsburyonlineresources.com/advanced-creative-nonfiction