Writing technique resources

Writers read. We read lots of things in order to learn from our betters how they do what they do. Read the instructional blogs and books, but being a reader who picks apart stories and sentences to see how they achieve their effects will provide better, more inspiring, instruction.

posted about 8 years ago

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Ken Mohnkern‭

255 reputation 0 25 50 0

At first this seemed a superficial Q, but when you think about it, why not?

In many arts, like painting, there are clear technical manuals. This is in no way limited to “crafts”. Obviously the artist interprets and applies the method, or goes against it, in his own personal way. Why should writing be different?

There should be

“proven techniques to obtain certain effects?”

Unfortunately, Adrien Hingert, I am not aware that any such site exists. You might find some answers by combing through S.E. Writers for Q like:

• The “Rules” of Writing
• Books to improve writing skills
• What are good reads about writing?

posted about 8 years ago

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Reed‭

105 reputation 3 7 18 0

As a habit I read some educational General Literature and Factual/Referance on Google Books (previews are free)

booksgoogle.com

www.writersdigest.com

posted about 8 years ago

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Edmund Frost‭

85 reputation 11 4 11 0

I'll add to the already good answers:

effective ways to describe fear, doubt, exhaustion, love...

There are a lot of writing guides out there, some more general, some more specific. Some bad, some good. I'll tell you about my experience with a book called "the Emotion-Thesaurus" that a friend gifted to me and I'm using (even if not consistently).

As the title implies, it's a dictionary for emotions (Love, Anger, Despair ...). Each one gets two pages with useful informations, such as external cues, internal cues, effects of prolonged exposure, related emotions and so on. So it's a pratical guide to make your writing more vivid.

In my experience, I'm used to show certain emotions in a certain way. One of my characters bites her lips when she's feeling uncertain. Yet I can't use it too much, and I can't apply it to everyone, so the thesaurus comes in handy: other characters may show uncertainty by averting their gaze, stuttering, pausing for some time ...

So this may be a resource worth checking. Consider that it's not something you're supposed to read from start to end (I suppose it would be extremely boring, trying to read a dictionary). It's as good as you're willing to open it up each time you want to give more depht to a given emotion.

posted over 5 years ago

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Liquid‭

770 reputation 44 140 116 3

If you are looking for effective techniques for producing an effect on the reader, you will not find them in writing so much as in storytelling. It is in the juxtaposition of people and events that you create an emotional effect. Robert McKee's book Story may be useful to you on this point. He makes that point that a good story badly written beats a bad story beautifully written every time.

posted about 8 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

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