The writer's portable mentor : a guide to art, craft, and the writing life / Priscilla Long.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Long, Priscilla, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authorship--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Authorship.

Writing--Handbooks, manuals, etc.

Writing.

Authorship--Style manuals.

Genre:

Handbooks and manuals.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (227 unnumbered pages)

Edition:

Second edition.

Other Title:

Guide to art, craft, and the writing life

Guide to art, craft, & the writing life

Place of Publication:

Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, [2018]

Summary:

"Designed to mentor writers at all levels, from beginning to quite advanced. The Writer's Portable Mentor offers a wealth of insight and craft models from the author's twenty-plus years of teaching and creative thought. The book provides tools for structuring a book, story, or essay. It trains writers in observation and in developing a poet's ear for sound in prose. It scrutinizes the sentence strategies of the masters and offers advice on how to publish. This second edition is updated to account for changes in the publishing industry and provides hundreds of new craft models to inspire, guide, and develop every writer's work"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Half title

Title

Copyright

Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction: A Writer's Practice

How to Use This Book

Part I. Your Move

1. Daily Writing

2. Working with Language

Gathering Words

Diction Primer

Where to Find Good Words

The Lexicon Practice

Words as Notes

Sound Effects

Repetition

Verb Work

3. Writing to See

Observing the Here and Now

Seeing Color

Observing Persons

Observing Gesture

Observing Voice

4. Object and Setting

Part II. Finding a Structure

5. Thinking Structure

Finding the Right One

Inventing a Structure

Structuring a Book

Word Counts

6. Theme Structure

"Ben Webster" by Ira Sadoff

"Home" by John Olson

7. Collage Structure

"Babylon" by Eula Biss

"Laughter" by Patrick Madden

8. The A/B or Two-Strand Structure

"The Servant of Two Masters" by Amit Majmudar

"Buzzards" by Lee Zacharias

9. Dramatic Story Structure

"A Dream of Sleep" by Steve Almond

10. How to Open

Part III. The Art of the Sentence and the Art of the Paragraph

11. Sentence Craft

12. Fragments

13. The Simple Sentence

14. The Compound Sentence

15. The Complex (and Compound-Complex) Sentence

Compound-Complex Sentences

16. The List Sentence

17. The Phrase

The Prepositional Phrase

18. Passive Voice

19. The Art of the Paragraph

Type 1. The Direct Paragraph

Type 2. The Climactic Paragraph

Type 3. The Turnabout Paragraph

Type 4. The Other One

20. Transitions

Transition by Repetition

Transition by Synonym or Pronoun

From This Time to the Next Time

From This Place to the Next Place

From Facts to Meaning

Moving with the Mind

From Real to Magic or Mythic Real

And, But, or So at the Beginning

21. The Practice of Punctuation

Commas and Semicolons in a List.

Phrasal Adjectives

Dash and Colon

Interrupters

Part IV. Honing, Deepening, Stretching

22. Metaphor and Simile

Avoiding Literary Shipwrecks

Definitions and Principles

Forms of Metaphor

23. Extending Connections, Deepening Insight

Ask Questions

Connect with a Wider World

Reading

Intention

24. On Revision

Work vs. Talent

Part V. Getting the Work into the World

25. Literary vs. Commercial Writing

26. First Time Out

Writing Buddies

Critique Groups

Presenting and Performing

27. Sending Your Work Out

Simultaneous Submissions?

Read the Market

What about Self-Publishing?

"It's Who You Know"

28. The Practice of Productivity

The List of Works

Working and Playing with the Work

29. Success

Acknowledgments for the First Edition

Bibliography

Credits

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780826360069

0826360068