A classic guide to dramatic writing now revised and expanded for a new generation of playwrights and screenwriters This practical guide provides the principles of dramatic writing. Playwrights and screenwriters will discover these essential principles and acquire the tools to put them to use. Sam Smiley incorporates extensive new material in Playwriting: The Structure of Action, a revised edition of the book that dramatists in theatre and film have relied on for more than twenty-five years. No writer, director, critic, or teacher concerned with dramatic writing should be without this intelligent and inspiring guide. Sam Smiley offers insights derived from a lifetime of writing, teaching, and consulting. While preserving the best of the earlier edition of the book, he offers new discussion on contemporary playwrights (Tony Kushner and Tom Stoppard), on copyright law, on new writing approaches, and on nontraditional dramatic forms. Reaching far beyond simplistic how-to instructions, the book focuses on identifying and explaining principles essential to creating dramas: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. Smiley explains these classic topics and provides the modern keys for realizing each element in effective dramatic scripts.

Die literaturwissenschaftliche Studie widmet sich den Werken des oesterreichischen Schriftstellers Robert Musil (1880-1942) und des israelischen Filmemachers Amos Gitai (*1950). Die Analyse erbringt erstmalig den Nachweis, dass sich Gitai in seinen Filmen mit dem beruhmten Musilschen Moeglichkeitsdenken auseinandersetzt. Vor dem aktuellen Hintergrund des Israel-Palastina-Konfliktes wird der Moeglichkeitssinn dabei als innovatives und visionares Modell erkennbar, das sich sowohl in ethischer, in medienphilosophischer und letztlich auch in aktuell-politischer Hinsicht als Transmedium einer beweglichen kritischen Praxis auszeichnet.

IF YOU'RE TIRED OF REJECTION, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.

Whether you are a novice writer or a veteran who has already had your work published, rejection is often a frustrating reality. Literary agents and editors receive and reject hundreds of manuscripts each month. While it's the job of these publishing professionals to be discriminating, it's the job of the writer to produce a manuscript that immediately stands out among the vast competition. And those outstanding qualities, says New York literary agent Noah Lukeman, have to be apparent from the first five pages.

"The First Five Pages" reveals the necessary elements of good writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, journalism, or poetry, and points out errors to be avoided, such as

* A weak opening hook

* Overuse of adjectives and adverbs

* Flat or forced metaphors or similes

* Melodramatic, commonplace or confusing dialogue

* Undeveloped characterizations and lifeless settings

* Uneven pacing and lack of progression

With exercises at the end of each chapter, this invaluable reference will allow novelists, journalists, poets and screenwriters alike to improve their technique as they learn to eliminate even the most subtle mistakes that are cause for rejection. "The First Five Pages" will help writers at every stage take their art to a higher -- and more successful -- level.

This books helps teachers apply the research on growth mindset and goal setting, whether using a writing program or a workshop model. It uses tone, trust and language to quicken students' discovery of their writing identities and take risks when they are stuck. The author also shows how to use student work to deliver clear, just-in-time feedback during planning, drafting, revising, and editing. The book ultimately helps writers reflect so they are better able to apply what they learned about content, craft, and style to their future writing.

Get thinking, get scribbling and get inspired!

The how-to book for kids who love writing. It’s easy to understand and tells them exactly what they need to know step-by-step.

• Easy-peasy tips on how to create all kinds of stories
• Space to write and make the book their own
• Packed with fun writing activities guaranteed to spark their imagination!

Kids can try lots of brilliant stuff with the fun You Can series from Collins – write awesome stories, draw brilliant pictures, grow your own food, take amazing photos, have an outdoor adventure, save the planet – there’s something for everyone!

Creativity and Writing Pedagogy offers a unique view of creative practices and pedagogy in writing from the perspective of writing teachers, creativity researchers and scholars, and writers themselves. The volume, collected and edited by a poet and a scholar who are both involved in the teaching of writing, seeks to bridge between the creative writing and the academic writing communities in building a case for creativity as central to all writing programs and showcasing creative practices in writing. With this goal in mind, the book combines a practical emphasis on creativity in writing pedagogy and curriculum with research and reflections on writing practices. The collection should be of interest to all writers and teachers of writing who want to expand their knowledge of creativity and creative practices in writing and the teaching of writing.

More than merely a writing text, The Imaginative Argument offers writers instruction on how to use their imaginations to improve their prose. Cioffi shows writers how they can enliven argument--the organizing rubric of all persuasive writing--by drawing on emotion, soul, and creativity, the wellsprings of imagination. While Cioffi suggests that argument should become a natural habit of mind for writers, he goes still further, inspiring writers to adopt as their gold standard the imaginative argument: the surprising yet strikingly apt insight that organizes disparate noises into music, that makes out of chaos, chaos theory. Rather than offering a model of writing based on established formulas or templates, Cioffi urges writers to envision argument as an active parsing of experience that imaginatively reinvents the world. Cioffi's manifesto asserts that successful argument also requires writers to explore their own deep-seated feelings, to exploit the fuzzy but often profoundly insightful logic of the imagination. But expression is not all that matters: Cioffi's work anchors itself in the actual. Drawing on Louis Kahn's notion that a good architect never has all the answers to a building's problems before its physical construction, Cioffi maintains that in argument, too, answers must be forged along the way, as the writer inventively deals with emergent problems and unforeseen complexities. Indeed, discovery, imagination, and invention suffuse all stages of the process. The Imaginative Argument offers all the intellectual kindling that writers need to ignite this creativity, from insights on developing ideas to avoiding bland assertions or logical leaps. It cites exemplary nonfiction prose stylists, including William James, Ruth Benedict, and Erving Goffman, as well as literary sources to demonstrate the dynamic of persuasive writing. Provocative and lively, it will prove not only essential reading but also inspiration for all those interested in arguing more imaginatively more successfully. This edition features new chapters that cover the revision process in greater depth, as well as the particular challenges of researching and writing in the digital age, such as working with technology and avoiding plagiarism. The book also includes new sample essays, an appendix to help instructors use the book in the classroom, and much more.

Sooner or later, most of us get stuck. Feel stuck. Our creativity in crisis... lost, blocked, overwhelmed by work, family, illness. How to find or recover that creative edge? How to get unstuck? For the authors, it began with cancer and stretched into the pandemic. One primarily a writer and the other a painter, they decide to walk together, to talk, write, feed back, reflect and repeat, again and again. They explore trust, openness, motherhood, their willingness to take risks and be exposed, and the particular insights they bring as women. Along the way, they walk and map their way back to creative life. This is their story, but more than that - it's a map for anyone who is feeling stuck. Whether or not you have had a creative practice before (writing/painting/making/crafting), this book will help you find your way into creative expression. The authors offer creative tasks and suggestions in each chapter, and ideas and structures to get you going. But most important, they offer warmth, friendship and inspiration from their own shared vulnerability, struggle, setbacks and muddy walking.

William F. Nolan, using the knowledge acquired by writing more than 90 works of fiction, analyzes some of his and others' best work to help the reader with construction of characters, dramatic development, and dialogue. The writer will learn how to hook the reader on the first page, how to develop conflict, the craft of revision, and more.

Differentiated Reading for Comprehension is designed to provide high-interest, nonfiction reading success for all readers. This 64-page book focuses on sixth grade reading skills defined by the Common Core State Standards. Each of 15 stories is presented separately for the below-level, on-level, and advanced students, followed by a series of comprehension questions. Grade six covers such standards as quoting a text to explain an answer or draw inferences, identifying and explaining an author's reasons and evidence, and analyzing the structure of a text. This new series will allow teachers to present the same content to below-level, on-level, and advanced students with these leveled nonfiction stories. It includes multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and true/false questions; short-answer writing practice; and comprehension questions. Students stay interested, build confidence, and discover that reading can be fun The reading passages will be separated into sections with titles such as Extreme Places, Amazing People, Wild Animals, Strange and Unexplained, Fascinating Machines, and Amazing Kids.

Peter Elbow's widely acclaimed and original theories on the writing process, set forth in Writing Without Teachers and Writing With Power, have earned him a reputation as a leading educational innovator. Now Elbow has drawn together twelve of his essays on the nature of learning and teaching to suggest a comprehensive philosophy of education. At once theoretical and down-to-earth, this collection will appeal not only to teachers, adminitrators and students, but to anyone with a love of learning.

Elbow explores the "contraries" in the educational process, in particular his theory that clear thinking can be enhanced by inviting indecision, incoherence, and paradoxical thinking. The essays, written over a period of twenty-five years, are engaged in a single enterprise: to arrive at insights or conclusions about learning and teaching while still doing justice to the "rich messiness" of intellectual inquiry. Drawing his conclusions from his own perplexities as a student and as a teacher, Elbow discusses the value of interdisciplinary teaching, his theory of "cooking" (an interaction of conflicting ideas), the authority relationship in teaching and the value of specifying learning objectives. A full section is devoted to evaluation and feedback, both of students and faculty. Finally, Elbow focuses on the need to move beyond the skepticism of critical thinking to what he calls "methodological belief"--an ability to embrace more than one point of view.

NOVELISTA is a friendly, straight-talking writing guide for people who want to write a novel but don't know how to begin. It asks all the important questions and gives a host of reassuring answers that demonstrate that anyone can write a novel - even you! To begin with, what the hell is a novel? It's basically a tiny world, where characters are born, live, and (sometimes) die. To write one all you need is a notebook and a pen - but along the way you'll want to learn about good writing habits, planning, mastering descriptions and dialogue and how to pull it all together. This book will guide you through the process and orient you towards the goal of publication. From absolute beginner to novelista, this book will change the way you write and think about writing.

This important book defines what investigative reporting is and what qualities it requires. Drawing on the experience of many well-known journalists in the field, the author identifies the skills, common factors and special circumstances involved in a wide variety of investigations. It examines how opportunities for investigations can be found and pursued, how informants can be persuaded to yield needed information and how and where this information can be checked. It also stresses the dangers and legal constraints that have to be contended with and shows real life examples such as the Cook Report formula, the Jonathan Aitken investigation and the Birmingham Six story.
David Spark, himself a freelance writer of wide experience, examines how opportunities for investigations can be found and pursued, how informants can be persuaded to yield needed information and how and where this information can be checked. He also stresses the dangers and legal constraints that have to be contended with and shows investigators at work in two classic inquiries:
- The mysterious weekend spent in Paris by Jonathan Aitken, then Minister of Defence Procurement
- The career of masterspy Kim Philby
Investigative Reporting looks at such fields for inquiry as company frauds (including those of Robert Maxwell), consumer complaints, crime, police malpractice, the intelligence services, local government and corruption in Parliament and in overseas and international bodies.
The author believes that the conclusions that emerge from this far-reaching survey are of value not only in investigative journalism, but to practitioners in all branches of reporting.
The most comprehensive book oninvestigative journalism
Learn first hand from real-life examples
Get tips on writing style and where to find ideas

No matter who you are, your story is a part of something big-the fabric of history and the human experience. Once written and shared, your story will change someone. And that someone is most likely you. A Story that Matters offers an accessible and simplified way to get your stories written. Each chapter is divided into three sections: the first discusses memoir writing in the context of themes-motherhood, childhood, relationships, professional life, and spiritual journey; the second provides basic writing and editing prescription, with a focus on common beginner mistakes and roadblocks; and the third provides a sample story related to the life theme discussed in the first section of the chapter. Chock full of writing and editing lessons that focus on how to get a first draft written and how to craft the draft into a compelling story, A Story That Matters explores our ability to help, heal, and connect to others through story, reminding us of the greater need for a broader array of authentic voices in the story-sharing universe.

This book examines the institutional history and disciplinary future of creative writing in the contemporary academy, looking well beyond the perennial questions 'can writing be taught?' and 'should writing be taught?'.
Paul Dawson traces the emergence of creative writing alongside the new criticism in American universities; examines the writing workshop in relation to theories of creativity and literary criticism; and analyzes the evolution of creative writing pedagogy alongside and in response to the rise of 'theory' in America, England and Australia.
Dawson argues that the discipline of creative writing developed as a series of pedagogic responses to the long-standing 'crisis' in literary studies. His polemical account provides a fresh perspective on the importance of creative writing to the emergence of the 'new humanities' and makes a major contribution to current debates about the role of the writer as public intellectual.

The Most Comprehensive writing resource a teacher can own! 300 "Quickwrites"; a calendar of 25 topics each month for short, daily practice; 209 story starters and titles for longer, more formal writings; 151 reproducible writing forms. 12 monthly sections.