How to Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion

This is the best idea for a writing book that I’ve ever seen. It’s like sitting in a room full of professional writers, and after each one delivers a riff on one aspect of writing, the others weigh in to buttress, amplify, refine, or add to what was said. It’s an extended conversation with writers who know what they’re talking about–and what matters in writing fiction that really communicates with readers.

–Orson Scott Card

… … How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion is a compilation of essays originally published on MagicalWords.net, a popular writing blog with thousands of regular followers. Distilling three years worth of helpful advice into a single, portable volume, it contains nearly 100 essays covering such wide-ranging topics as:

• Getting Started … Again
  
• Creating Characters in Small Spaces
  
• Storytelling Tropes: Belief
  
• Binding Character and Narrative: Point of View
  

• Word Choice and Pacing

• Metaphors, Similes, and Analogies, Oh My …

• Writing Action Scenes

• The Beginning of the End

• Developing Your Internal Editor

• Artistic Choices and the Market

• Business Realities for the Writer

Many of these essays are accompanied by comments and questions from the blog’s readers, along with the author’s response, making this volume unique among how-to books on any subject.

The core members of Magical Words–David B. Coe, A.J. Hartley, Faith Hunter, Stuart Jaffe, Misty Massey, C.E. Murphy, and Edmund R. Schubert–have experience writing and editing fantasy, mysteries, thrillers, romance, science fiction, non-fiction, and more. This group is uniquely qualified to cover the full spectrum of writing-related issues. How To Write Magical Words: A Writer’s Companion is a book that belongs in the library of anyone interested in the craft of writing, the business of writing, and the writing life.