Creative Writing for Dummies

Unlock your creativity and choose the genre of writing that suits you best

Do you have an idea that you're burning to get down on paper? Do you want to document your travels to far-flung places, or write a few stanzas of poetry? Whether you dream of being a novelist, a travel writer, a poet, a playwright or a columnist, Creative Writing For Dummies shows you how to unlock your creativity and choose the genre of writing that suits you best. Walking you through characterisation, setting, dialogue and plot, as well as giving expert insights into both fiction and non-fiction, it's the ideal launching pad to the world of creative writing.

Creative Writing For Dummies covers:

Part I: Getting started

Chapter 1: Can Everyone Write? Chapter 2: Getting into the Write Mind Chapter 3: Finding the Material to work with

Part II: The Elements of Creative Writing

Chapter 4: Creating Characters Chapter 5: Discovering Dialogue Chapter 6: Who is telling the story? Chapter 7: Creating your own world Chapter 8: Plotting your way Chapter 9: Creating a Structure Chapter 10: Rewriting and editing

Part III: Different Kinds of Fiction Writing

Chapter 11: Short stories Chapter 12: Novels Chapter 13: Writing for children Chapter 14: Plays Chapter 15: Screenplays Chapter 16: Poetry

Part IV: Different kinds of Non-fiction writing

Chapter 17: Breaking into journalism - Writing articles/ magazine writing Chapter 18: Writing from life and autobiography Chapter 19: Embroidering the facts: Narrative non-fiction Chapter 20: Exploring the world from your armchair - Travel writing Chapter 21: Blogging - the new big thing

Part V: Finding an audience

Chapter 22: Finding editors/ publishers/ agents Chapter 23: Becoming a professional

Part VI: Part of Tens

Chapter 24: Ten top tips for writers Chapter 25: Ten ways to get noticed