Composition Writing

Ready to build a scary story? First, you’ll need the right tools. Open this title in the Writer’s Toolbox series and discover plenty of tips and tools to get you started. Soon you’ll be sharing scares like a pro!

“I can’t write.” How often do we hear this every day from students at all different skill levels? What is it about writing that causes such self-doubt, disabling procrastination, and fear of failure? “So many students do not identify writing as a positive experience or identify themselves as writers,” Liz Prather says. “We rarely talk about the social-emotional resilience needed around the act of writing.” In The Confidence to Write, Liz argues that we can help students reset their writerly self-regard by naming and examining their writing identity through practical activities.

If the book tells a true story, you're listening to nonfiction. How else do you know? Quick, fun examples help you get the facts on nonfiction.

Young writers discover techniques for crafting persuasive opinion essays. Think rabbits make the best pets or that winter is better than summer? Share your opinion through writing! This engaging nonfiction book includes basic writing instructions, tips, and prompts tailored to beginning writers' needs. Perfect for research writing, browsing, or for fun!

If words describe a feeling or some words rhyme, you're listening to a poem. How else do you know? Quick, fun examples help you understand the beauty of poetry.

You can make listeners smile. You can give them goosebumps or the giggles. You can even make them cry. You can show listeners the world the way you see it. You can write cool poetry!

You can tell listeners how much an elephant eats. You can reveal key moments in Babe Ruth’s life. You can list facts about Mars, airplanes, or Halloween. You can write excellent reports!

You can wish your cousin a happy birthday. You can share the latest news from school. You can ask your favorite basketball star for playing tips. You can write great letters and emails!

Have you ever wanted to captivate readers with a great opening, create fantastical creatures, realize a dastardly villain, or make your characters leap off the page? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Gail Carson Levine can help you achieve your goals. This companion to the popular Writing Magic teaches you how to become a world-class author. Drawing from her popular blog, the Newbery Honor author answers readers' questions and dives into how to make a story come alive.

Filled with practical tips and helpful advice, Dear Ally is a treasure for aspiring writers at any stage of their careers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how books get made, from idea to publication, and gives you insight into the writing processes of some of the biggest and most talented YA authors writing today.

Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today’s masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history. Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor—now examines the grammar of the popular novel.

El Sultán ha pedido a los artistas más reputados del país un gran libro que celebre las glorias de su reino. Su tarea será iluminar esa obra al estilo europeo. Pero como el arte figurativo puede ser considerado una ofensa al Islam, el encargo se convierte a todas luces en una proposición peligrosa. La élite gobernante no debe conocer el alcance ni la naturaleza de ese proyecto, y el pánico estalla cuando uno de los miniaturistas desaparece. La única pista para resolver el misterio -¿quizá un crimen?- reside en las miniaturas inacabadas.

For 50 years, writers at every stage of their careers have turned to the literary nonprofit organization Poets & Writers and its award-winning magazine for resources to foster their professional development, from writing prompts and tips on technique to informative interviews with published authors, literary agents, and editors. But never before has Poets & Writers marshalled its 50 years’ worth of knowledge to create an authoritative guide for writers that answers every imaginable question about craft and career - until now.

Creativity is a gift shared by all, yet most of us have been led to believe that if we are not starving artists, musicians, or writers, then creative thinking is not something we are capable of. This just isn't true and to prove it I've brought together some of the best methods to trigger and retain that creative spark within.

If you aren’t suffering, you aren’t creating. Right? Wrong! Writing can and should be joyful, fulfilling… even fun! Applicable to writers in all genres and disciplines—from screenwriters to novelists, journalists to picture book authors, aspiring to many-times published—The Happy Writer is a heartfelt and optimistic guide that will show you the way to a happier writing journey.

Writing prompts are a superb way of getting the imagination working. A child is able to listen to the prompt and then conjure up a story that comes to mind from that prompt, although it's not as simple as it sounds. The challenge to the child is to find a story no one else will find, using that prompt to give them their initial ideas. This book teaches children to be able to use prompts to produce stories and is split into different categories, so that the child can choose the category that suits the mood.

“Distingida amiga: Arribo al despatx mort de son, per culpa de vostè. M’he passat la nit en blanc llegint la seva novel·la, sense poder deixar-la. Feia molt de temps que cap llibre no m’havia tret el son d’aquesta manera. Trobo aquesta novel·la simplement formidable. És la seva obra mestra.” (Carta de Joan Sales a Mercè Rodoreda, 1961)

“Totes aquestes pàgines, poètiques i patètiques, sense un gra de sentimentalisme, m’han emocionat profundament, i les últimes m’han deixat sense alè. Sembla mentida que amb elements tan simples es pugui arribar a una tensió tan extraordinària...

Unleash your students’ imagination with this one-of-a-kind Writing Prompts guidebook. This book is not a simple laundry list of famous quotes. Rather, it is an engaging guidebook made up of quotations which include age-appropriate writing prompts designed to inspire and challenge young minds. The prompts are geared to multiple age groups.

El storytelling no se trata solo de contar cuentos, por más poético que pueda sonar. Se trata de un método eficaz que te ayudará a potenciar tu mensaje sea cual sea el tema que vayas a tratar. Entenderlo y usarlo para comunicarte será sumamente útil tanto si quieres escribir una novela o tu libro de memorias como si deseas exponer una idea nueva en la empresa donde trabajas.

Whereas most writing texts focus exclusively on analysis or techniques to improve writing, Holcomb and Killingsworth blend these two schools of thought to provide a singular process of thinking about writing. They discuss not only the benefits of conventional methods, but also the use of deviation from tradition; the strategies authors use to vary their style; and the use of such vehicles as images, tropes, and schemes.