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Writers on Writing Volume 1 - 4 Omnibus: An Author's Guide by [Joe Mynhardt, Jack Ketchum, Brian Hodge, Tim Waggoner, Kealan Patrick Burke, Jonathan Janz, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Jasper Bark, Kevin Lucia, Kenneth W. Cain, Monique Snyman, Todd Keisling, Dave-Brendon de Burgh, James Everington, Mark Allan Gunnells, Lucy A. Snyder, Daniel I. Russell, Theresa Derwin, Paul Kane, Jonathan Winn, Hal Bodner, Ben Eads, Nerine Dorman, William Gorman, Lynda E. Rucker, Doug Murano, Sheldon Higdon, Steve Diamond, Michael Knost, Patrick Freivald, Crystal Lake Publishing]

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Joe Mynhardt

Mercedes M. Yardley

Writers on Writing Volume 1 - 4 Omnibus: An Author's Guide Kindle Edition

by Joe Mynhardt (Author), Jack Ketchum (Author), Brian Hodge (Author), Format: Kindle Edition

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Learn the craft of writing from those who know it best.

This is the Writers on Writing Vol.1 - 4 Omnibus – An Author’s Guide where your favorite authors share their ultimate secrets in becoming and being an author.

Includes:

The Infrastructure of the Gods by Brian Hodge
The Writer’s Purgatory by Monique Snyman
Why Rejection is Still Important by Kevin Lucia
Real Writers Steal Time by Mercedes M. Yardley
What Right Do I Have to Write by Jasper Bark
Go Pace Yourself by Jack Ketchum
A Little Infusion of Magic by Dave-Brendon de Burgh
Confronting Your Fears in Fiction by Todd Keisling
Once More with Feeling by Tim Waggoner
Embracing Your Inner Shitness by James Everington
The Forgotten Art of Short Story by Mark Allan Gunnells
Adventures in Teaching Creative Writing by Lucy A. Snyder
Submit (to psychology) for Acceptance by Daniel I. Russell
Character Building by Theresa Derwin
Heroes and Villains by Paul Kane
Do Your Worst by Jonathan Winn
Creating Effective Characters by Hal Bodner
Fictional Emotions; Emotional Fictions by James Everington
Home Sweet Home by Ben Eads
You by Kealan Patrick Burke
The art of becoming a book reviewer by Nerine Dorman
Treating Fiction like a Relationship by Jonathan Janz
How to Write Killer Poetry by Stephanie M. Wytovich
Happy Little Trees by Michael Knost
In Lieu of Patience Bring Diversity by Kenneth W. Cain
Networking is Scary, but Essential by Doug Murano
Are You In The Mood? by Sheldon Higdon
What if Every Novel is a Horror Novel? by Steve Diamond
Description by Patrick Freivald
A First-time Novelist's Odyssey by William Gorman
I Am Setting by J.S. Breukelaar
Finding Your Voice by Lynda E. Rucker

Are you ready to unleash the author in you?

Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing – Tales from the Darkest Depths

Interview with the authors:

So what makes Writers on Writing so special?

Stephanie M. Wytovich: I think what makes Writers on Writing a standout craft book is that Crystal Lake Publishing pulled writers from different genres and different mediums to give readers a massive insight into the industry in regards to film, screenwriting, poetry, prose, etc. It’s a meaty collection of advice that speaks to everyone at any point in their career, and I think readers will be wildly excited about the essays inside.

Tell us more about your essay.

Jack Ketchum: Mine's about pacing, crucial to grabbing and holding the reader's attention, and music to the reader's ear. Both, I think, important things to consider.

Kenneth W. Cain: I speak of using diversity in your fiction, of pulling from the known world to create more realistic characters without relying on stereotypes and generalizations. It’s much a reflection of myself, of course, but I fully believe in letting characters breathe, allowing them to become what they will, good or bad, male or female, deviant or prude.

Why should authors read Writers on Writing?

Stephanie M. Wytovich: To me, it’s a great way to see how other artists are making things work, while at the same time gain insight into different approaches to the craft. I also think that books like Writers on Writing are great teaching tools for instructors and editors because they can help students both inside and outside of the classroom, and as an instructor myself, I find the essays to be extremely refreshing reads that excite and prepare me for lecture and workshop.

Print length

284 pages
Language

English
Publication date

November 29, 2016
File size

2289 KB
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From the Publisher

Tales from the Darkest Depths

Since its founding in 2012, Crystal Lake Publishing has quickly become one of the world’s leading publishers of Dark Fiction and Horror books. With multiple award nominations and wins (including the HWA’s Specialty Press Award), we put integrity, honor, and respect at the forefront of our publishing operations.

Join the Crystal Lake adventure as we strive to present only the highest quality fiction and entertainment, while also supporting authors along their writing journey.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The essays are a mixture of the business side of writing as well as craft and they all feature topics that most writers would do well to read about. Whether you struggle with finding time to write or with self-confidence and putting yourself out there as an author or indeed how to create three-dimensional characters, this series has you covered." - A.E. Siraki --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01N1JRVH3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crystal Lake Publishing (November 29, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 29, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2289 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 284 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,132,592 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,223 in Authorship
- #1,726 in Writing Skill Reference (Kindle Store)
- #2,620 in Authorship Reference

Customer Reviews:
14 ratings

About the authors

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Joe Mynhardt
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Joe Mynhardt is a Bram Stoker Award-winning South African publisher, editor, and mentor.
A former primary school teacher, Joe is now the owner and CEO of Crystal Lake Publishing, which he founded in August, 2012. Since then he’s published and edited short stories, novellas, interviews and essays by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Charlaine Harris, Ramsey Campbell, John Connolly, Jack Ketchum, Jonathan Maberry, Christopher Golden, Graham Masterton, Damien Angelica Walters, Adam Nevill, Lisa Morton, Elizabeth Massie, Joe R. Lansdale, Edward Lee, Paul Tremblay, Wes Craven, John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Mick Garris, and hundreds more. Yes, hundreds.
Just like Crystal Lake Publishing, which strives to be a platform for launching author careers, Joe believes in reaching out to all authors, new and experienced, and being a beacon of friendship and guidance in the Dark Fiction field. In 2017 he started a coalition of small press publishers to support both each other and their authors.
Joe also became a work-from-home dad in 2018. His daughter, Cayleigh, is named after his childhood influences, Bruce Lee and Stan Lee. Joe’s other influences stretch from Poe, Doyle, and Lovecraft to King, Connolly, and Gaiman (and so many more). Not to mention other great stories found in comics, movies, and television.
You can read more about Joe and Crystal Lake Publishing at www.crystallakepub.com or find him on Facebook.
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Mercedes M. Yardley
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Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of many diverse works, including Beautiful Sorrows, Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy, and the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love.
She recently won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for her realistic horror story Little Dead Red and was a Bram Stoker finalist for her short story "Loving You Darkly." Mercedes lives and creates in Las Vegas with her family and menagerie of battle-scarred, rescued animal familiars. She is represented by Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin and Fountain Literary Management.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

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Top reviews from the United States

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Mr. & Mrs. V

Good advice, especially for beginners

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2021

Verified Purchase

An expansive collection of writing advice--both in terms of putting the words on the page and building a career--from people who have been there and done that. Some of the sections regarding digital books are a bit outdated at this point, but even still some of that advice remains beneficial. Worth the time to read though, especially for beginnings. This Omnibus might at least keep you from wasting some time going astray and making mistakes early in your career that might have been avoided.

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PMC Book Reviewer

Excellent Collection of Essays for the Horror Writer

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent collection of essays by Horror writers for Horror writers. The topics covered include style, setting, finding your voice, and more. Even non-Horror writers will get something useful out of this collection. I highly recommend this for all aspiring and new Horror authors.

One person found this helpful

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Tony Evans

Highly recommend this book

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great story with lots of practical advice from well known and established authors. CLP nailed it with this one! Highly recommend it to anyone interested in writing.

Helpful

Eddie Generous

much of the time these read like reheated supper

Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2017

Unnerving Magazine Review
There seems to be endless how-to essays and books on writing. I’ve read a handful and numerous blog posts, much of the time these read like reheated supper. This had some reheated supper, sure, but, like lasagna, sometimes the re-issuing of a dish has more impact than the first run.
From the initial book of this omnibus –and by far the strongest and most generally insightful portion– it proves a valuable expenditure of time. Often, horror related essays on writing touchback to a particularly revealing and helpful memoir by Stephen King, aptly titled On Writing. The technical side of it anyway. The authors of this collection also make notes and direct quotes themselves, but it did not feel like regurgitation. There was application to it.
What the first book of this omnibus excels at above the others is entertainment. It is one thing to write a operation/repair manual, it is another to ensure that thing holds the attention of the reader. Holding attention is the only way to convey a message.
The second book of the omnibus loses some of the momentum with a pair of essays seemingly written by authors wanting nothing more than to shower themselves in praise and shill copies of their works –see what I did here, and here, oh and what about how awesome I did it there? This noted, most were fine and a few were stronger than that.
The third book shifts to an all-new tone, clear and narrow, the essays cast light over the intention and in the case of one essay, Hal Bodner’s Creating Effective Characters, entertainment, information and accessible placement of information roll together wonderfully. The third is also where the collections break away from honing skills on paper to focus on skills aside from writing, something that comes up –in useful and realistic terms– far less often.
The fourth focusses on many of the lesser discussed items. It is more in-depth than the previous in a particularly technical standpoint. Subjects of less glamor than characters and setting, but no less important, receive the full objective treatment.
Overall, I was impressed and in the case of a handful I felt veils lifting behind questions I hadn’t known I had, which is truly helpful –imagine if you read the frequent screw-ups by other weekend carpenters before trying buying the tools and supplies to into a deck on the back of your house and had the chance to apply their knowledge, you might have a deck you could stand on!
As a collective –beside the self-aggrandizing bits– Writers on Writing is a wealth of knowledge presented in a readable package, and made interesting by a horror leaning and the sensibility to know reader still needs a little something-something more than blueprints and checklists. Definitely of more value than the price tag and in some cases, one of few truly honest sources of information when it comes to the indie horror world.

Helpful

Shane .D Keene

A tome of extremely high quality essays packed with useful wisdom and advice

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2016

This is the first review of a non-fiction work that I’ve written so please forgive me if I stumble a bit. I’m used to talking about plot and character and setting and that sort of thing so, as you can see, this is uncharted territory. That said, I do read a lot of books like this. And what I inevitably find is that the work is often mediocre to terrible. There are a ton of books out there written by “authors” who don’t seem to have written anything but writing instruction manuals and not only do they generally throw credibility right out the window, they toss quality and usefulness out along with it. But every great once in a while you come across a gem, a piece that has been penned by a writer that has written stories and novels with some degree of success and that brings knowledge and veracity to the table and produces something worth reading, often even worth going back to repeatedly for reference.

In Writers on Writing Volume 1 – 4 Omnibus: An Author’s Guide, Crystal Lake Publishing gives us just such a book and they do so in spades, bringing together a collection of essays from an eclectic gathering of authors from all walks of life and every branch of the profession you can imagine. Here you’ll find excellent guidance and advice from horror authors, poets, screenwriters and editors, all of whom excel in their chosen field and who bring together years of experience and talent culminating in a referential volume that you’ll find yourself turning to again and again in your writing adventures, no matter what kind of writing you do. With articles about pacing from the great Jack Ketchum, poetry advice from horror’s young phenom Stephanie M. Wytovich, a brilliant essay on the relationship between heroes and villains by Paul Kane, and an outstanding piece on setting from J.S. Breukelaar just to name a few, you can’t go wrong with this exceptional collection of wisdom by some of our favorite genre writers, poets, and editors, as well as a great essay on book reviewing by Nerine Dorman.

In addition to those already mentioned, you’ll also find work by such greats as Mercedes M. Yardley, Tim Waggoner, Kealan Patrick Burke, and Lucy A. Snyder. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to books like this, you could do much worse, but you couldn’t find much that’s better than this. Every piece in here is rock solid, based on concrete knowledge and experience, and all extremely useful. There is zero fluff to be found here, but you will find a plethora of wisdom on just about any writing subject you can imagine. Highly recommended for both new authors and more experienced authors looking to hone their skills.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mrs. Sarah Crabtree

An Author's Guide

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is one for the aspiring writers among you. As soon as I started reading it, I was taking notes. I can see I shall be dipping in and out of this one and re-reading advice from people who know what it takes to be an author.
A must for anybody thinking of setting up a writers' group. Highly recommended.

Valerie Adolph

Practical and up to the moment

Reviewed in Canada on December 31, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is a collection of essays on writing coming from up-to-the-minute modern writers. Their focus is horror writing (after all, that's what the publisher specializes in). However, there is much in here that applies widely to authors of any genre. The ideas and crystallization of experience are down-to-earth and practical. There's a minimum of meandering on.

I liked the conversational tone of most of the writers and the level of intelligence and generally well-used vocabulary. A minor quibble would be that most of the writers in this collection speak with a masculine voice. Interesting that the final essay "Finding your Voice" was written by a woman and spoke most clearly to me.