Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers [Paperback]

Sherry Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 7, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1585425222 | ISBN-13: 978-1585425228

A collection of personal writing exercises and commentary from some of today's best novelists, short story writers, and writing teachers, including Jill McCorkle, Amy Bloom, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Virgil Suarez, Margot Livesay, and more.

What's the secret behind the successful and prolific careers of critically acclaimed novelists and short story writers Amy Bloom, Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Alison Lurie, and others? Divine assistance? Otherworldly talent? An unsettlingly close relationship with the Muse? While the rest of us are staring at blank sheets of paper, struggling to come up with a first sentence, these writers are busy polishing off story after story and novel after novel. Despite producing work that may seem effortless, all of them have a simple technique for fending off writer's block: the writing exercise. In Now Write!, Sherry Ellis collects the personal writing exercises of today's best writers and lays bare the secret to their success.

- In "The Photograph," Jill McCorkle divulges one of her tactics for handling material that takes plots in a million different directions;
- National Book Award-nominee Amy Bloom offers "Water Buddies," an exercise for writers practicing their craft in workshops;
- Steve Almond, author of My Life in Heavy Metal and Candyfreak, provides a way to avoiding purple prose in "The Five-Second Shortcut to Writing in the Lyric Register";
- and eighty-three more of the country's top writers disclose their strategies for creating memorable prose.

Complemented by brief commentary from the authors themselves, the exercises in Now Write! are practical and hands-on. By encouraging writers to shamelessly steal proven techniques that have yielded books which have won National Book Awards, Pulitzers, and Guggenheim grants, Now Write! inspires the aspiring writer to write now.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sherry Ellis is the editor of NOW WRITE! Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers and NOW WRITE! NONFICTION, as well as a personal writing coach. Her author interviews have appeared in the Kenyon Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Glimmer Train, and AGNI, as well as other literary and arts magazines. She lives in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (September 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585425222
• ISBN-13: 978-1585425228
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES:

Sherry Ellis is the author of Illuminating Fiction, Now Write! Nonfiction and Now Write! Fiction. She became interested in examining the writing process when she was working on her first novel and found herself turning to respected writing teachers for their expertise. Determined to discover more, Sherry interviewed these authors as well as other esteemed writers, and then asked them to contribute writing exercises that had helped them as well as their students. The result is this amazing series of Now Write! books, a series that will inspire writers of all levels and genres. Sherry Ellis is currently working on Now Write! Screenwriting! while continuing her own creative work.

Now Write!, is the first in the series of writing exercise books. It focuses on the art of fiction and includes writing exercises by Steve Almond, Robert Olen Butler, Amy Bloom, Jill McCorkle, Alison Lurie, Jayne Anne Phillips, Virgil Suarez and many more authors. Now Write! was selected as one of the best writing books of the year by The Writer magazine, and it was a selection of the Writer's Digest Book Club.

Ellis' second book of writing exercises, Now Write! Nonfiction: Memoir, Journalism and Creative Nonfiction Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers, focuses on the art of non-fiction. It includes contributions from Gay Talese, Ishmael Beah, Reza Aslan, John Matteson, Tilar Mazzeo and Lee Gutkind.

Ellis' book of author interviews, Illuminating Fiction, includes interviews with Arthur Golden, Edward P. Jones (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), Julia Glass (winner of the National Book Award), Jill McCorkle, Ron Carlson, and Margot Livesey. Several of the interviews were initially published in literary magazines. Ellis' interview with Julia Glass received Honorable Mention by New Millennium Writings.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Inconsistent, but not bad. November 19, 2008

By Robert P. Beveridge HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Sherry Ellis (ed.), Now Write!: Fiction Exercises from Today's Best Teachers and Writers (Tarcher, 2006)

Exactly what it says it is: a compendium of writing exercises from various folks. Ellis herself is entirely transparent aside from a brief introduction; from there, it's the writers and nothing but.

Needless to say, in a book like this, especially with so many different contributors (there are eighty-two different sections), you're bound to have some inconsistency. As well, it sometimes seems as if there's just too much of a good thing; we go right from one exercise into the next, with only the barest separation into chapters designed to highlight different emphases in the exercises. I think most people will find a handful, or maybe a dozen, exercises they like and continually come back to those, rather than utilizing everything in the book. ***

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A How-to guide for writers October 16, 2006

By S. Ohalloran

Format:Paperback

If you've ever struggled with different aspects of the writing craft, wondered how published authors have mstered the craft, been interested in going to writing workshops but lack the time or resources to attend, Ms. Ellis has made available a plethora of various writing exercises from published wirters that she has come to know through her own expereince at workshops and other contacts. Whether you are just strting to develop your writing voice or have been working at it for awhile this book will help you polish your skills, add new skills, provoke idease and stir the creative pot. A great teaching and learning book that guides you on the writing journey.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a very helpful writing tool April 9, 2010

By Gordon Petry

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Now Write! Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers lives up to its title. Some of the exercises were more attractive to me, especially Venise Berry's "Learning to Layer" which I presented to my English 101 classes. Different lessons will appeal to different writers, and what I am enthusiastic about today will change. This book is not one to sit and read through, but rather one to work your way through the exercises that sound as if they could help you with whatever problem is current.
One problem that I had was that I got so engrossed that I was reading instead of writing. The exercises are all short, mostly three or four pages long. I plan to make better use of the book.
The short biographies were interesting, especially the magazines that the writers had been published in.
The book would be good for a class text or just for an individual looking to jump-start his or her writing. There are 85 exercises arranged in the usual categories plus one section on craft and another on revision

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource for Beginners and Advanced Writing Students November 5, 2006

By Rita Marko

Format:Paperback

Now Write! is an amazing compilation of exercises for the writer just getting started, or the advanced writing student who needs help in a slump or with a specific problem of craft. Organized into sections that allow you to focus on problem areas, Ms. Ellis's book brings together exercises by many of the best writers of our era (e.g. Edgerton, Abani, Livesey, Vreeland, and others). Kaplan's exercise on "smushing seed ideas together" in Now Write! has profoundly changed the way I think about writing and the quality of the material that I generate.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Now Write! June 3, 2009

By C. Nyman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book woke up our writing group. We are using the exercises to expand our writing skills and have fun doing it. What a great selection of authors and styles. Great for workshops or just to stimulate your writing on any given day.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly recommended, practical guide for any aspiring writer seeking to take independent study to the next level. December 4, 2006

By Midwest Book Review

Format:Paperback

Edited by personal writing coach Sherry Ellis, Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers is a carefully selected collection of writing exercises from some of today's most acclaimed fiction writers such as Steve Almond, Jayne Anne Phillips, Virgil Suarez, and more. From activities just to get motivated practicing writing, to ones focusing on point of view, character development, dialogue, plot and pacing, setting and description, revisions, and more, Now Write! focuses on ideas to get aspiring and practicing writers' creative juices flowing, or engage in activities such as learning to identify the distinctions between real dialogue and smooth, fictional dialogue. Prefacing each idea is a couple pages of solid advice and concepts to keep in mind when crafting the next potential masterpiece. A highly recommended, practical guide for any aspiring writer seeking to take independent study to the next level.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hints and tips used by the pros in their writing November 19, 2006

By John Matlock

Format:Paperback

Writing is both an art and a science.

The art comes from the invention you have to make of creating a character, a situation, a story that exists only in your own mind and getting that vision onto paper. It's this art, this ability to see a Mona Lisa on a piece of canvas, a David in a block of marble, a novel in a pile of paper that sets the writer aside from the rest of us. This is extremely difficult to teach.

The science of writing is a series of hints, tips, rules, procedures or whatever you choose to call them that have been developed over the years to enable the writer to produce work of the best quality he can. The science of writing is what this book is all about.

The author has worked with eighty-seven writers who have developed techniques to help them with their own writing. They are written in the form of exercises for the reader to do to help him find the ones that will help him write.