This book is an excellent guide for writers who are starting out, or writers who are looking for ways to improve, broaden and vary their writing. It focuses on fiction and fiction genre - science, romance, horror and crime. It teaches how to create characters, set atmosphere, develop dialogue and create suspense. The book also covers non-fiction, in particular the ways to draw on personal experience to write articles on a wide variety of topics in a number of different styles. There is a chapter on writing for children, teaching the specialist skills that - once mastered - bring enormous satisfaction to both the writer and the reader. The internet's impact on the creative writer and the opportunities it presents are explored and described, and - crucially - there is also a chapter on how to present your work to a publisher and get it into print.

Contents: List of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Getting started; 2. Writing non-fiction; 3. Creating fictional characters; 4. Setting and atmosphere; 5. Showing not telling; 6. Writing realistic dialogue; 7. Finding true love; 8. Haunting, thrilling and killing; 9. Writing for children; 10. Sending your work to a publisher; Glossary; Answer to assignments; Useful addresses; Useful websites; Online dictionaries; Further reading; Index.