The Urban Setting Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to City Spaces (Writers Helping Writers Series) - Softcover

Ackerman, Angela; Puglisi, Becca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098977256X ISBN 13: 9780989772563

Publisher: JADD Publishing, 2016

Synopsis

Making readers care and feel like they’re part of the story should be the number one goal for all writers. Ironically, many storytellers fail to maximize one of fiction’s most powerful elements to achieve this: the setting. Not only can the right location become a conduit for emotion, it can also provide conflict, characterize the story’s cast, reveal significant backstory, and trigger the reader’s own emotional memories through sensory details and deep point of view.

Inside The Urban Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• A list of the sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds for over 120 urban settings
• Possible sources of conflict for each location to help you brainstorm ways to naturally complicate matters for your characters
• Advice on how to make every piece of description count so you can maintain the right pace and keep readers engaged
• Tips on utilizing the five senses to encourage readers to more fully experience each moment by triggering their own emotional memories
• Information on how to use the setting to characterize a story’s cast through personalization and emotional values while using emotional triggers to steer their decisions
• A review of specific challenges that arise when writing urban locations, along with common descriptive pitfalls that should be avoided
• Downloadable tools to help you plan each setting so you can choose the right one for a scene, providing the biggest storytelling punch

The Urban Setting Thesaurus helps you tailor each setting to your characters while creating a realistic, textured world readers will long to return to, even after the book closes.

About this title

About the Author

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are bestselling authors, writing coaches, and international speakers. Their books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. Angela and Becca also co-founded their popular Writers Helping Writers site, a hub where authors can hone their craft, as well as One Stop for Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Review

"Another practical how-to book from Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi, this time to help you flesh out your descriptive writing of rural settings. No more driving out to the countryside to bait the bull so you can describe the shape, size and smell of a cowflap. It's all right here, right down to the flies. While not a replacement for soaking up the atmosphere when you can't get there yourself, this book will help you flesh out all five senses." ~Anna Erishkigal, writer

Edition details

• Publisher: JADD Publishing
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 098977256X
• ISBN 13: 9780989772563
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 308