Story Sparks: Finding Your Best Story Ideas and Turning Them into Compelling Fiction

Anyone who has been hamster-wheeling a story idea for years or has hundreds of pages exploring various approaches on their hard drive knows there must be a better way. There is. Successful young adult novelist Denise Jaden shows exactly how to create the captivating stories that prevent dispiriting wasted time. Busting the “visitation from the muses” myth, she shows that inspiration is a skill that can be learned by understanding how story ideas work (or don’t), fertilizing the ground for fresh and sound ideas, and moving swiftly through stuck points. Practical and inspiring, Jaden’s approach celebrates the imaginative sparks that make innovations of all kinds possible while pinpointing the precise tools writers need to fan their unique creative flames.

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Fast Fiction: A Guide to Outlining and Writing a First-Draft Novel in Thirty Days

Whether readers have a great idea for a novel, but can’t get started, or have been working on one for five years, one tactic that helps thousands of would-be novelists move past procrastination to a finished draft is a deadline. In this case, a very short one: 30 days. Fast Fiction is inspired and informed by the author’s yearly participation in NaNoWriMo, a web-based 30-day writing challenge each November with over 256,000 participants in 2011, over 35,000 of whom completed the program’s stated goal of a 50,000-word novel. Fast Fiction is a quick, inspirational, step-by-step and day-by-day guide to writing a structurally sound and engaging first draft in the shortest amount of time possible. It provides a great starting point for writers as they ditch time-wasters, detour frustration, and overcome self-doubt, and it helps them decide where to go with their story and how to get there quickly, with results. Told in the empathetic and accessible voice of an author who can provide an insider’s look at her own craft and publishing experiences, Fast Fiction provides readers with their own writing coach as they embark on a quick, fun, and challenging 30 days to a first draft.

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Writing With A Heavy Heart: Using Grief and Loss to Stretch Your Fiction

In her first non-fiction book, Denise Jaden explores the stages and outlets of grief and how to implement them into your fiction to create more interesting characters and a more engaging plot. Some topics of this book include: grieving before the loss, spiritual matters, and how grief affects different ages, personality types and gender.

“Jaden’s Writing With A Heavy Heart is a must-have for any writer’s craft shelf. The combination of clear guidance and practical exercises allow writers to take their manuscripts to a deeper level.” – Eileen Cook Author of With Malice

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