Writing The Blockbuster Novel

Albert Zuckerman, legendary literary agent, has worked with many bestselling authors, including Ken Follett, Olivia Goldsmith, Antoinette Van Heugten, Michael Lewis, and F. Paul Wilson. Zuckerman is a master at teaching writers the skills necessary to crack the bestseller list. For this revised edition of Writing the Blockbuster Novel, Zuckerman has added an analysis of Nora Roberts's The Witness, which he uses along with classic books like Gone With the Wind and The Godfather, to illustrate his points. Zuckerman's commentary on Ken Follett's working outlines for The Man From St. Petersburg provide a blueprint for building links between plot and character. A new introduction discusses social media and self-publishing. Writing the Blockbuster Novel is an essential tool for any aspiring author. As Dan Brown said in an interview: "Not long ago, I had an amusing experience meeting the author of a book I received as a gift nearly two decades ago a book that in many ways changed my life. I was halfway through writing my first novel when I was given a copy of Writing the Blockbuster Novel. [Zuckerman's] book helped me complete my manuscript and get it published. [When] I met Mr. Zuckerman for the first time. I gratefully told him that he had helped me. He jokingly replied that he planned to tell everyone that he had helped me write The Da Vinci Code." At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Albert Zuckerman, legendary literary agent, has worked with many bestselling authors, including Ken Follett, Olivia Goldsmith, Antoinette Van Heugten, Michael Lewis, and F. Paul Wilson. Zuckerman is a master at teaching writers the skills necessary to crack the bestseller list. For this revised edition of Writing the Blockbuster Novel, Zuckerman has added an analysis of Nora Roberts's The Witness, which he uses along with classic books like Gone With the Wind and The Godfather, to illustrate his points. Zuckerman's commentary on Ken Follett's working outlines for The Man From St. Petersburg provide a blueprint for building links between plot and character. A new introduction discusses social media and self-publishing. Writing the Blockbuster Novel is an essential tool for any aspiring author. As Dan Brown said in an interview: "Not long ago, I had an amusing experience meeting the author of a book I received as a gift nearly two decades ago a book that in many ways changed my life. I was halfway through writing my first novel when I was given a copy of Writing the Blockbuster Novel. [Zuckerman's] book helped me complete my manuscript and get it published. [When] I met Mr. Zuckerman for the first time. I gratefully told him that he had helped me. He jokingly replied that he planned to tell everyone that he had helped me write The Da Vinci Code."

Plotting a story filled with memorable, engaging scenes from beginning to end can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Having the right plan - and the tools to execute it - can make all the difference. Writing Blockbuster Plots pulls back the curtain on story structure with step-by-step strategies and visuals that turn plotting and scene writing into a no-stress endeavor. In this completely revised and updated edition, celebrated writing instructor and plot consultant Martha Alderson helps you navigate the intricacies of story with the help of her exclusive Plot Planner and Scene Tracker tools. Using Alderson’s effective, accessible techniques, you'll be able to: • PLOT your story from beginning to end with a focus on dramatic action, the emotional development of your characters, and thematic significance. • ENSURE that each scene contributes meaningfully to the narrative by tracking the seven essential elements of scene. • LINK scenes by cause and effect to create a tight, seamless narrative. • INJECT tension and conflict to keep readers glued to the page. • TARGET weak areas in your story and learn how to fix them. Filled with examples from both classic and contemporary novels, as well as illustrations of the Plot Planner and Scene Tracker in action, Writing Blockbuster Plots strips the confusion out of the plotting process, enabling you to write a story that deserves a standing ovation.

Take your fiction to the next level! Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list limbo. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel - one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists. Maass details the elements that all breakout novels share - regardless of genre - then shows you writing techniques that can make your own books stand out and succeed in a crowded marketplace. You'll learn to: • establish a powerful and sweeping sense of time and place • weave subplots into the main action for a complex, engrossing story • create larger-than-life characters that step right off the page • explore universal themes that will interest a broad audience of readers • sustain a high degree of narrative tension from start to finish • develop an inspired premise that sets your novel apart from the competition Then, using examples from the recent works of several best-selling authors - including novelist Anne Perry - Maass illustrates methods for upping the ante in every aspect of your novel writing. You'll capture the eye of an agent, generate publisher interest and lay the foundation for a promising career.

John Truby is one of the most respected and sought-after story consultants in the film industry, and his students have gone on to pen some of Hollywood's most successful films, including Sleepless in Seattle, Scream, and Shrek. The Anatomy of Story is his long-awaited first book, and it shares all of his secrets for writing a compelling script. Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby's own unique approach for how to build an effective, multifaceted narrative. Truby's method for constructing a story is at once insightful and practical, focusing on the hero's moral and emotional growth. As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with—specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience. The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable—and essential—to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction.

"What if there was an algorithm that could predict which novels become mega-bestsellers? Are books like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl the Gladwellian outliers of publishing? [This book] boldly claims that the New York Times bestsellers in fiction are predictable and that it's possible to know with 97% certainty if a manuscript is likely to hit number one on the list as opposed to numbers two through fifteen. The algorithm does exist; the code has been cracked; the results are in"--

It's a typical summer Friday night and the smell of popcorn is in the air. Throngs of fans jam into air-conditioned multiplexes to escape for two hours in the dark, blissfully lost in Hollywood's latest glittery confection complete with megawatt celebrities, awesome special effects, and enormous marketing budgets. The world is in love with the blockbuster movie, and these cinematic behemoths have risen to dominate the film industry, breaking box office records every weekend. With the passion and wit of a true movie buff and the insight of an internationally renowned critic, Tom Shone is the first to make sense of this phenomenon by taking readers through the decades that have shaped the modern blockbuster and forever transformed the face of Hollywood. The moment the shark fin broke the water in 1975, a new monster was born. Fast, visceral, and devouring all in its path, the blockbuster had arrived. In just a few weeks Jaws earned more than $100 million in ticket sales, an unprecedented feat that heralded a new era in film. Soon, blockbuster auteurs such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and James Cameron would revive the flagging fortunes of the studios and lure audiences back into theaters with the promise of thrills, plenty of action, and an escape from art house pretension. But somewhere along the line, the beast they awakened took on a life of its own, and by the 1990s production budgets had escalated as quickly as profits. Hollywood entered a topsy-turvy world ruled by marketing and merchandising mavens, in which flops like Godzilla made money and hits had to break records just to break even. The blockbuster changed from a major event that took place a few times a year into something that audiences have come to expect weekly, piling into the backs of one another in an annual demolition derby that has left even Hollywood aghast. Tom Shone has interviewed all the key participants -- from cinematic visionaries like Spielberg and Lucas and the executives who greenlight these spectacles down to the effects wizards who detonated the Death Star and blew up the White House -- in order to reveal the ways in which blockbusters have transformed how Hollywood makes movies and how we watch them. As entertaining as the films it chronicles, Blockbuster is a must-read for any fan who delights in the magic of the movies.

Blockbuster Plots Pure and Simple presents step-by-step strategies that demystify the structure of story. Track the 7 most important elements of scene - pre-plot; cause and effect; conflict, tension, suspence; complex characters; compelling action; clarify theme; re-vision rewrites. You will be able to develop a multi-layered plotline for your story.