Writers—in particular fiction writers—have many resources at their disposal. The market is awash with books and software targeting this group with products ranging from thousands of how-to publications, seminars, and conferences to Internet sites and countless personal pages. Yet, the information is so fragmented that those seeking to learn the intricacies of the craft and its industry must collect scores of texts and struggle to determine the accuracy of the information they gather from various Internet sources.
The purpose of the Writer’s Companion is to provide in a single volume the tools, answers, and resources that fiction writers, whether hobbyists or professionals, need for success.
In The Writer's Companion, our hope is that writers are able to use it to:
1. Understand the structural skills required to craft solid and coherent plots.
2. Learn both basic and sophisticated storytelling skills.
3. Master fiction elements such as POV, characterization, narrative, exposition, and atmosphere.
4. Revisit grammar and syntax in a voice targeted to writers, highlighting in hundreds of examples how each form or pattern affects fiction writing.
Because the Writer’s Companion:
1. Embodies a full spectrum of methods, practices, and suggestions to improve fiction writing.
2. Outlines simple but effective ways to rewrite, revise, edit, format, and prepare manuscripts for publication.
3. Lists hundreds of doubts, confused word-pairs, syntax mistakes, misused expressions, and other common errors.
4. Affords a creative writing course in a single volume.