The Writing Manual
The goal of this project is to create a manual that shows writers the best way to produce engaging books that readers want to read.
We want to produce more than just another book on writing. We want to create a manual for the modern self-publishing writer. It will be a combination of the skills and techniques we teach via our editing service, together with insights from other writers.
The book is still being written but we want to do something different with this project. Our intention is to gather readers as we go and give them access to the earliest drafts. In the process allowing them to feedback their thoughts and influence the overall development. The process will be pretty simple. Anyone signed up to the project will receive access to each draft of the book, free of charge. This will mean you will get to read the pre-proofread, pre-edited version of the book and then tell us what it needs to make it better.
If you want to get involved, just add your email below. Underneath the form you will find a rough version of the proposed content for the book.
Proposed Structure
Introduction
- Why people stop reading
- Engaging your reader
Show, Don’t Tell - characterisation
- The fundamentals
- Internal voice
- External voice
- Actions
- Using all three
Show, Don’t Tell - Dialogue
- Introduction
- Tagging speakers
- Beats
- Adverbs
- Grammar
Show, Don’t Tell - Description
- Introduction
- Painting a picture
- Using beats
- Types of description
Things we’ve not yet put into any kind of structure!
- Show, don’t tell checklist
- Showing with adverbs
- Using show to introduce a character
- Using internal dialogue
- Third vs first person
- The camera technique
- Iceberg theory
- Creating new worlds
- Three act structure
- The rule of therefore
- The story spine