Telling Tales: Writing Captivating Short Stories (Writer's Notebook)

These materials cover various types of creative writing, including descriptive writing, poetry, journaling, and stories.

These materials include both writing instruction and writingassignments.

Each 64-page book in this series will help you become a better writer, so take out your notebook and let's get started! All information is offered in short, digestible sections with samples, author profiles, and opportunities for you to stretch your writing abilities through the "Your Turn" sections that follow each piece of advice offered. Maybe poetry is your passion - you'll be amazed at the amount of information packed into Catch Your Breath: Writing Poignant Poetry. The first chapter helps you develop habits that will help you be a better poet - embrace words, phrases, and your emotions; read more to write better; don't lose your ideas. Different forms of poetry are then presented - found poem, haiku, acrostic, cinquain, and Fibonacci. Even rhyming poems aren't all the same - traditional rhymes, near rhymes, and internal rhymes. The language you use affects your final product - sensory words, comparisons, repetition, alliteration, assonance, and consonance. When you can't think of a thing to write about, go after ideas - look around, use your idea journal, try a different poetic form. The last two chapters of the book will help your poet polish and share their poems. This book would be a great poetry unit, not just a supplement.

Steal the Scene: Writing Amazing Drama will help you hone your skills as a playwright. This book defines writing drama as writing plays - it is a story not just to be read, but to be seen and heard. Plays are written in a script format and may be full length or one act. How do you get started - base it on real life and consider your audience. Learn how to heighten the drama (climax) in your writing, offer a resolution to the situation, and leave the audience laughing or crying - inspire emotion. Bring your characters to life by using characteristics of people you know. Dialogue will help your audience get to know your characters, so make your dialogue strong and believable, not trivial or meaningless. Polish your play by reading and revising, and then perform for your friends. If you're really serious about being a playwright, perform your play for your community and beyond!

Telling Tales: Writing Captivating Short Stories will help you open the doors to new worlds. These works of fiction have a plot, theme, conflict, a smaller cast, and a shorter story line. Get your hands on some short stories to get familiar with different styles. Remember that inspiration is everywhere and that looking at pictures can give you great ideas for the perfect setting. Ask yourself "what if" and "why" as your story develops. Plan your story, visualize it as a movie, weave in conflict, but make it believable. Give multi-facets to your characters with unique qualities and trying to think like they might. Point o­f view, theme, and special writing techniques like foreshadowing, plot twists, figurative language, simile, and metaphor can add dimensions to your writing. This series offers very practical advice for aspiring writers! ~ Donna