Write Great Fiction - Dialogue

Dynamic Characters

A truly unforgettable story is defined by its characters. Their motivations, their changes, their actions compel us to read on, anxiously trying to discern what will happen next.

In Dynamic Characters, award-winning author and Writer's Digest columnist Nancy Kress explores the fundamental relationship between characterization and plot, illustrating how vibrant, well-constructed characters act as the driving force behind an exceptional story.

Build a Believable World

How essential is setting to a story? How much description is too much? In what ways do details and setting tie into plot and character development? How can you use setting and description to add depth to your story?

• Establish a realistic sense of time and place
• Use description and setting to drive your story
• Craft effective description and setting for different genres
• Skillfully master showing vs. telling

With dozens of excerpts from some of today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Description & Setting gives you all the information you need to create a sharp and believable world of people, places, events, and actions.

Create Complex Characters

How do you create a main character readers won't forget? How do you write a book in multiple-third-person point of view without confusing your readers (or yourself)? How do you plant essential information about a character's past into a story?

Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by award-winning author Nancy Kress answers all of these questions and more!

• Choose and execute the best point of view for your story
• Create three-dimensional and believable characters
• Develop your characters' emotions
• Create realistic love, fight, and death scenes
• Use frustration to motivate your characters and drive your story

With dozens of excerpts from some of today's most popular writers, Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint provides you with the techniques you need to create characters and stories sure to linger in the hearts and minds of agents, editors, and readers long after they've finished your book.

Write vibrant scenes and essential summaries

"Show-don't tell." How many times have you heard this standard bit of writing advice? It's so common in writing courses and critiques that it has become a cliche. Writers are often told to write scenes, dramatize, cut exposition, cut summary-but it's misguided advice. The truth is good writing almost always requires both showing and telling. The trick is finding the right balance of scene and summary-the two basic components of creative prose.

Showing and Telling shows you how to employ each of these essential techniques in the appropriate places within a narrative. You'll learn how to:

• Write scenes and cut exposition
• Compress time and summarize background information
• Create graceful transitions
• Effectively inject interpretation
• And more!

Craft an Engaging Plot

With Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, you'll discover the answers to these questions and more. Award-winning author and columnist James Scott Bell offers clear, concise information that will help you create a believable and memorable plot, including:

• Techniques for crafting strong beginnings, middles, and ends
• Easy-to-understand plotting diagrams and charts
• Brainstorming techniques for original plot ideas
• Thought-provoking exercises at the end of each chapter
• Story structure models and methods for all genres
• Tips and tools for correcting common plot problems

What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface—a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character—and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you.

In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.

In this stunning follow-up to the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown demonstrates once again why he is the world's most popular thriller writer. The Lost Symbol is a masterstroke of storytelling—a deadly race through a real-world labyrinth of codes, secrets, and unseen truths . . . all under the watchful eye of Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol accelerates through a startling landscape toward an unthinkable finale.

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object —artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon—a prominent Mason and philanthropist —is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations—all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

As the world discovered in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's novels are brilliant tapestries of veiled histories, arcane symbols, and enigmatic codes. In this new novel, he again challenges readers with an intelligent, lightning-paced story that offers surprises at every turn. The Lost Symbol is exactly what Brown's fans have been waiting for . . . his most thrilling novel yet.