From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up—Capturing readers' attention from the very first page, this book is an excellent resource for both teenagers and their teachers. From the development of characters, setting, voice, style, and plot, to the end with rewriting and polishing, readers are able to hone their writing skills. By using the "building your story" activities at the end of each chapter, they have opportunity to apply the techniques presented and experience the whole process. Hanley uses examples from familiar novels and authors such as "Harry Potter" and Stephenie Meyer's
Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005) to illustrate elements of writing. The book concludes with interviews with young adult authors, in which they include advice to aspiring young writers. This book is an excellent resource for creative writing classes as well as individuals.—
Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Winner of the Colorado Authors' League 2009 "Top Hand" award for young adult nonfiction
Winner of the Silver Award in the 2009 PUBWest Book Design Awards competition (children's/young adult book non-illustrated category)
Finalist for the Colorado Book Award.
"Capturing readers' attention from the very first page, this book is an excellent resource for both teenagers and their teachers."—
School Library Journal"Filled to the brim with inspiration and information . . . a valuable resource for aspiring writers of all ages." —
Children's Literature"Worthy investment for writing instruction collections." —
VOYA"An amazing book about creative writing for teenagers and young adults who are developing voices and visions . . . an invaluable resource not only for young writers but for all writers." --
National Association of Gifted Children NewsletterWritten by an award-winning young adult author,
Seize the Story is an excellent, comprehensive guide to writing fiction for teens...While
Seize the Story is written with teens in mind, adults interested in improving their writing skills will also benefit from Hanley's helpful prompts and exercises. This is a solid handbook for the aspiring author that can also be utilized by teachers in their creative writing classes. --
Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, Volume 51.1
Written by an award-winning young adult author,
Seize the Story is an excellent, comprehensive guide to writing fiction for teens...While
Seize the Story is written with teens in mind, adults interested in improving their writing skills will also benefit from Hanley's helpful prompts and exercises. This is a solid handbook for the aspiring author that can also be utilized by teachers in their creative writing classes. --
Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, Volume 51.1
Seize the Story is a really easy book to read, warm, sweet, and funny. It gives you a lot of tips to improve your stories, like for example, creating characters, the name of the characters, what to do when you have a writer's block, the difference between Showing and Telling, and the different points of view that you can choose to write your story, and much more . . . But the best thing, is that when I started reading this book, with all those exercises and those tips, I just wanted to sit at the computer and start writing again. I felt that the door which was keeping my imagination-creativity closed, it opened again. And the best thing is that I feel it will help me to understand better the books I read, and it will improve the reviews I write. Highly recommended. --Idris Sandelis,
Throwing Books Blog
