Creative Writer's Handbook

In this edition we have given more attention to the interrelationships among genres. Though techniques of character development or dialogue may appear irrelevant to writing poetry or nonfiction, they are not. Nor are the techniques of sound patterns beside the point when one comes to write a play or a story. As we tell students in our workshops, what makes writing both fascinating and difficult is the fact that everything counts. Almost everywhere, we have added and replaced examples, expanded sections, deleted some material and added other material. We have tried to make the book more readable, and we have added tools like the "scam sheet" and "Proofreading Check List" in Chapter 16. Chapter 2 has new material on the journal as a literary form. Chapter 4 includes an enhanced discussion of style. Chapter 5 attends more fully to electronic research. We have added new stories to Chapter 12 as well as a creative nonfiction essay that is not a memoir. In Chapter 15, two ten-minute plays have replacedTriflesbecause we felt shorter plays would be more helpful models for beginning writers. We have deleted and added exercises. In short, we have tried to do what a revision ought to do. If you are coming toThe Creative Writer's Handbookfor the first time, you may be overwhelmed by both the amount of detail and the number of questions we ask you to consider as well as the sizeable number of exercises. Don't be. Our idea was to provide you with a smorgasbord from which to choose what tempts your palate. We wish to thank the following reviewers for their valuable contribution: Joan Connor, Ohis University, and Juliet W. Kincaid, Johnson County Community College. We want to stress again that this book is about useful techniques for the beginner. No book teaches; practice does. Finally, we want to thank those students, colleagues, and friends who have helped us to improve the work. ABLJason, Philip K. is the author of 'Creative Writer's Handbook', published 2004 under ISBN 9780131893719 and ISBN 0131893718.