Bøger af Rayne Hall

Do you want to showcase your stories in a book? Do you want to become an anthology editor and select other author's short works? Does your writers' group plan a publication for its members? In this book, Rayne Hall shows you the professional way of publishing a collection of short tales, how to choose, organise, edit and present them, how to reach audiences and persuade readers to buy this book. You'll learnHow to find fantastic storiesWhich themes have the greatest potential for successCreating guidelines for contributorsHow to select the right submissionsPhrasing rejections and acceptancesHow to structure the contents, which tale to place at the start and which at the endEditing techniquesHow to use teasers to hook readersIf, when and how much to pay the contributorsWhat to put into the publishing agreementsPitfalls to avoidHow to secure book reviews, guest post slots and social media attentionand much more, taking your project to a professional level. You'll get a look at the best ways to present an book showcasing your writers' group, and how to publish an anthology to raise funds for a charity. Is a collection the same as an anthology? 'Collection' is a broad category which includes 'anthology'. If you gather several stories in a book, it's a collection, regardless of the number of authors involved. Only if the stories are by multiple authors, it's an anthology. So, an anthology is a collection, but not every collection is an anthology. While most chapters in this guide apply to either, some equip you with the specific skills you need as an anthology editor. Rayne Hall has worked in publishing for 40 years, and during this time she edited many anthologies - some in the employ of publishing houses, others for her my own publishing business, Rayne Hall Ltd - and also collections of her own works. ln this guide, she shares her experiences so you can learn from them without needing to make your own mistakes.

Do you want your readers to feel like they're really there-in the place where the story happens? Whether you want to enrich stark prose with atmospheric detail, add vibrancy to a dull piece or curb waffling descriptions, this guide can help. Learn how to make your settings intense, realistic, and intriguing. This is the tenth book in Rayne Hall's acclaimed Writer's Craft series.

Learn how professional authors craft scenes, and apply the techniques to your fiction. This book shows you how to choose the cast of characters and the point-of-view, how to work with plot events and create conflict, how to build tension and conflict, and how to rework a dull scene to make it sparkle.It teaches you professional techniques for specific types of scenes, with a full chapter for each of the following: - novel-beginning scenes- novel-ending scenes- black moment scenes- climax scenes- outdoor scenes- indoor scenes- scary scenes- creepy scenes- love scenes- erotic scenes- chase scenes- confession scenes- fight scenes- duel scenes- battle scenes- night scenes- relationship break-up scenes- argument scenes- travel scenesWhatever kind scene you're writing or revising, this guide can help.Please note: some of the content overlaps with Rayne Hall's other books and articles

Do you want your characters to feel such strong emotions that the readers' scalps prickle, their mouths go dry and their hearts thud like they're sharing the experience? Do you want to convey fear or happiness in ways that make the readers feel heat radiating through their chest or cold sweat trickling down their spine rather than the tired 'he was afraid' or 'she felt happy'? Step by step, you'll learn how to express feelings through body language, dialogue, thought, similes, visceral sensations and mood-rich descriptions. The book also guides you through layering emotions and varying their intensity. It shows you how to subtly reveal a character's secret or suppressed emotions. The book also flags mistakes to avoid and reveals tricks used by professional authors. At the end of each chapter, you'll find assignments. If you like, you can use this book as an advanced fiction-writing course. Please note: This book is not suitable for absolute beginners. It assumes that you have mastered the basics of your craft and know how to create characters and write dialogue and are ready to to take your craft skills to the next level. British English.

Do you want to entertain readers with short tales? Do you want to know how to construct a powerful story plot that grabs the readers' attention and won't let them go? Step by step, this guide shows you how toFind ideas that make great fictionBuild solid plot structuresCraft great characters, compelling conflicts and sparkling dialogueKeep stories from growing too longSell your stories for publicationand much more. Author Rayne Hall shares insider tips, such as how to win writing contests and how to make sure your story catches an anthology editor's attention. This book is structured as a self-study course with lectures, professional tips, hints about novice mistakes to avoid and practical assignments which will guide you to write at least one complete story. British English.

Genuine, thoughtful, positive reviews help sell books. This guide shows strategies to get the reviews your book deserves.

Forget the cardboard evil-doers with their evil laughter and stinking breath. Your villains will have personality, ideals, feelings and conflicts. They will challenge your heroes, chill your readers, and give your novel excitement and depth. This book is part of the acclaimed 'Writer's Craft' series.

Do you want to create compelling characters about whom the readers care deeply? This book reveals professional technique to invent individuals who are so real that your readers will love or hate, fear or root for them, and so fascinating that your readers will remember them forever.

Are your frightening scenes scary enough? Learn practical tricks to turn up the suspense. Make your readers' hearts hammer with suspense, their breaths quicken with excitement, and their skins tingle with goosebumps of delicious fright. This book contains practical suggestions how to structure a scary scene, increase the suspense, make the climax more terrifying, make the reader feel the character's fear. It includes techniques for manipulating the readers' subconscious and creating powerful emotional effects. Use this book to write a new scene, or to add tension and excitement to a draft. You will learn tricks of the trade for "black moment" and "climax" scenes, describing monsters and villains, writing harrowing captivity sections and breathtaking escapes, as well as how to make sure that your hero doesn't come across as a wimp... and much more. This book is recommended for writers of all genres, especially thriller, horror, paranormal romance and urban fantasy. British English.

Do you want a synopsis that persuades agents to request the whole manuscript? Does your book need a description that entices Amazon customers click the 'Buy Now' button? This guide shows you step-by-step how to create six effective short forms for selling your manuscript to publishers and your indie-published book to readers: * The SYNOPSIS synopsis shows the novel's plot structure. You use it to communicate with industry professionals - publishers, editors, literary agents. * The CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER OUTLINE tells industry professionals about your non-fiction book or short story collection. * The PITCH serves to convince publishers, editors, literary agents, booksellers and marketing people of the book's commercial potential. Use it during pitching appointments when you have only few minutes to talk about your book, and as a hook in query letters. * The BLURB is a product description for the book's back cover and Amazon page, designed to entice readers. * The ENDORSEMENT BLURB recommends another writer's book. * The TAGLINE is a short slogan to hook readers. Click 'Look Inside' or 'Download Free Sample' to see how this guide can help give your book the success it deserves. Rayne Hall is the author of over seventy books, both indie and traditionally published.

Do you want to give your novel a powerful story line? Do you want to power up a draft you've written? This guide shows professional techniques for developing and structuring your fiction book. It solves plot problems such as slow beginnings, sagging middles and flat endings, and guides you to write specific story parts such as the 'Black Moment' and the 'Climax'. The focus of this guide is on plotting full-length novels, but there are also chapters on plotting short stories, series and serials.

You've written a novel, and the draft brims with promise. Now you're revising it to shape it into a gripping work of fiction readers can't put down. Revising a novel is fun. With each change, you see your book grow closer to your vision and gain more power. This book offers you ideas on how to bring out your novel's full potential. Play with them, experiment, explore where they'll lead. To help you find the kind of prompts you need right now, they are sorted into three groups: Plot Revision Use this section if you have a first draft - perhaps after completing a NaNoWriMo sprint - and want to shape it into a powerful, emotion-rousing book. Scene Revision Here you'll find ideas to transform dull, dragging scenes into riveting reads with tension and sizzle. Line Editing Before you indie-publish your book or submit it to agents, enhance your style with sharp writing and a strong voice, where every word pulls the reader in. The polishing prompts help make your book sparkle with diamond quality. With most prompts come tips on how you can put the idea into practice. Interpret them creatively and adapt them to suit your unique story. If you've already applied an idea, or if it isn't a good fit for your novel, skip to a different one. Pick the prompts that make you tingle with excitement.

Give the book the attention - and sales - it deserves.

Do you want to write fast-paced, exciting, sizzling dialogue? This book reveals professional dialogue technique to characterise the speaker, carry the plot forward and entertain your readers. This is not a beginner's guide. It assumes that you have mastered the basics of fiction writing, and don't need an explanation of what dialogue is and why it matters for your story. But your dialogue isn't yet as strong as your story deserves. Perhaps it drags, perhaps the characters all sound the same, and perhaps it lacks tension, wit or sparkle. This book offers you a toolbox filled with techniques. These are not 'rules' every writer must follow, but tricks you can try. Pick, mix and match them to suit your characters and your story. Some of these tools work for all kinds of dialogue, others solve specific problems-how to create male and female voices, how to present foreign languages and accents, how to present historical dialogue and flirtatious banter, how to write dialogue for alpha characters, for children and for liars. If you like you can use this book as an advanced dialogue writing course, working your way through each chapter, doing the exercises in the chapter and the assignments at the end of each chapter. Or you can simply read the whole book to get a feel for what's in it, then choose the techniques you want to study and apply for the chapter you want to write or revise. (British English grammar and spelling.)

Learn to haunt your readers with powerful, chilling tales. Make their spines tingle with anticipation and their skins crawl with delicious fear. Disturb their world-view and invite them to look into the dark corners of their own souls. This book gives you a wealth of tools and techniques for writing great short stories. It is part of the acclaimed Writer's Craft series.

Tighten and tone your writing style, and use simple revision tricks to slim down your manuscript. Shed thousands of words without changing the plot. Strip away the word fat and reveal the muscle of your unique author voice. This book is short, but potent. It is perfect for - self-editing before you submit your book to agents and publishers, or before self-publishing - understanding why your stories get rejected, or why so few readers buy your book after downloading the sample chapters - taking your writing craft skills to the next level - polishing your writing style for the move from amateur to professional The book is based on Rayne Hall's popular class of the same title which has helped many writers shed word weight and develop a leaner, stronger writing style. Some authors say the class was the best investment they ever made. Now you can study the techniques in book form at your own pace. Please note: This book assumes that you have some fiction writing experience. You'll benefit most if you've already mastered the basics of the craft and want to learn specialist techniques. It is not recommend for absolute beginners.

This book is crammed with fertile seeds for fiction that will thrill, disturb or scare your readers. Each prompt comes with a wealth of suggestions for how you can develop it to suit the kind of story you want to write. Plant those seeds into the rich ground of your own imagination, and watch them grow.

Learn step-by-step how to create fictional fights which leave the reader breathless with excitement. The book gives you a six-part structure to use as blueprint for your scene. It reveals tricks how to combine fighting with dialogue, which senses to use when and how, how to create a sense of realism, and how to stir the reader's emotions. You'll decide how much violence your scene needs, what's the best location, how your heroine can get out of trouble with self-defence and how to adapt your writing style to the fast pace of the action. There are sections on female fighters, male fighters, animals and weres, psychological obstacles, battles, duels, brawls, riots and final showdowns. For the requirements of your genre, there is even advice on how to build erotic tension in a fight scene, how magicians fight, how pirates capture ships and much more. You will learn about different types of weapons, how to use them in fiction, and how to avoid embarrassing blunders. The book uses British English.

Learn how to touch your readers' subconscious with subtle tricks. Certain sounds have certain effects on the psyche. By using words which include those sounds, you influence how the reader feels. Euphonic techniques are popular in poetry, but seldom used in prose. This guide shows how you can apply them to make your prose fiction sparkle. For the purpose of this book, I define euphonics as the use of sound devices for prose writing. Poets, musicians and special effects engineers have their own definitions. I'll show you which sounds to apply when manipulate your reader's psyche the way you want. You'll learn how to impress your readers with power, how make their hearts race with urgency, how to creep them out and how let them linger in a sensual scene. Part 1 is a thesaurus of sound effects where you can look up the best sounds to enhance the mood of your scene. In Part 2, you'll learn how and when to apply the sounds and how to combine them with rhythm for best effect. This book isn't meant as a definitive scholarly tome for academics. but a practical kit for working authors who want to refine their voice. I'll avoid literary theory and grammatical jargon. Instead, I'll give you useful tools. Novice writers can have inspiring fun playing with euphonics. In the hands of skilled writers - for whom this guide is intended - euphonics are power tools. Euphonics can't replace basic fiction crafting skills, but they can add impact and polish to a well-written piece. In print, the effects are very subtle, serving only to enhance what's already there, and need to be combined with other techniques. But if you plan to perform author readings or release an audiobook, the euphonics will hold listeners enthralled with poetic power. I'm writing in British English. Some spellings, grammatical rules and word choices differ from American English, but the euphonic effects are the same. Now open your manuscript draft give it that special polish.

Do you want to give the readers such a vivid experience that they feel the events of the story are real and they're right there? Do you want them to forget their own world and worries, and live in the main character's head and heart? This book reveals professional techniques for achieving this step by step.

Do you want a daily dose of inspiration to carry your novel plot forward? Conventional lists of writing prompts are great for starting new projects, but don't work if you're already well into a story with developed characters and an ongoing plot. This book can help.Whether you seek to boost your own imagination, to rekindle your passion for a book project or to release a creative block, these prompts will get the juices flowing.

Nine fantastic stories of hellish punishment and wicked temptation by authors Tara Maya, Douglas Kolacki, Alice Gaines, Jonathan Broughton, Rayne Hall, John Blackport, Siewleng Torossian, John Hoddy, April Grey. Edited by Rayne Hall. Each of the nine authors in this book presents a different approach to storytelling, a different writing style, and a different interpretation of the theme. Some of the stories are very short, others are long. In some tales, the devil is a literal figure, in others a metaphorical one, and in several he is something else altogether. 1. The Sacrifice by April Grey Be careful what you pray for. 2. The Angel and the Jungle God by Siewleng Torossian Ali's special day has arrived. 3. The Best of all Possible Worlds by Tara Maya Personal Paradise Inc. caters for a special clientele. 4. Round and Round the Garden by Jonathan Broughton Children will listen. 5. Mean Dick Skyler by John Blackport Is this deal as sweet as it first appears? 6. The Devil, You Say by Alice Gaines Was he the devil, or an angel in disguise? 7. Devil Take It by Douglas Kolacki Being blind and getting jerked around by the bus lines was bad enough. But now... 8. Rejection Letter by John Hoddy An editor gets some of his own. 9. The Devil Eats Here by Rayne Hall Join the prince of hell for lunch at your local diner. Most of these stories have been previously published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.

Six short stories from the mystical Bronze Age world of the dark epic fantasy novel Storm Dancer: Kin Greywalker The Water of Truth Each Stone, A Life The Colour of Dishonour A Horse for a Hero The stories span the fantasy and horror genres, varying in tone from light to dark, from quirky to disturbing, and they may make you think after you've put the book down.

Humorous, Dark, and Heart-breaking stories await you in this anthology. Tales of Cats, Dogs and Birds from the pens of brilliant writers like Rayne Hall, Mark Cassell, Amy Grech, Jonathan Broughton, Carole Ann Moleti, Steven Van Patten, Anya Davis, Phillip T. Stephens, Yurika S. Grant and April Grey.

This book is crammed with fertile seeds for fantasy fiction. Each prompt comes with a wealth of suggestions for how you can develop it to suit the kind of story you want to write. Plant those seeds into the rich ground of your own imagination, and watch them grow.

This book teaches professional techniques for slowing down the pace for emotion and suspense, and for speeding it up for action and excitement Please note: this is an advanced-level book, not suitable for beginner writers.

Do you want to write a novel in a month? Has your writer's group set its members a fast-writing challenge? Has your publisher given you a tight deadline for delivering your next book? Are you planning to take part in the next National Novel Writing Month? If so, this book will help you gather ideas, develop a plot, do your research, and plan your project in the days or weeks before you begin writing, so when the marathon begins, you'll be in a great starting position, ready to sprint. This guide will help you write a killer first draft, and write it fast. You'll gather ideas, recruit characters, plan your plot, and plan for the eventualities that could prevent your success. This is not a 'How To Write A Novel' book. You'll find plenty of those in your local bookshop or online. Instead, this is a workbook. You can view it as a do-it-yourself workshop: you're in charge, you do the work, and you own what you create. You can flip forward and backward between sections, working on the assignments you feel inspired to tackle, and return to others later if you wish. You can also go back to some sections and add to them as new ideas come up. What you jot down in this book is not written in stone, so feel free to make changes later. During the month, new ideas will emerge, the novel will take detours, and characters will present you with their own agenda. Your advance planning should boost your creative freedom, not restrict it.

Do you write fantasy fiction? This book is a resource for authors. Crammed with information, tips, and plot ideas, it helps you create stories about magic and magicians which are believable and exciting. Learn about power-raising, ritual, training, initiation, love spells, sex magic, costuming, equipment, correspondences, magical weapons, healing, protection, miracles, spells, amulets, talismans, curses, hexes, illusionists, charlatans, natural and ceremonial magic, witchcraft, shamanism, alchemy, necromancy, ethics, conflicts, secrecy and more. Draw up a psychological profile for your magician, invent fictional spells that work, avoid blunders, and create trouble for your characters.

Your personal observations are fantastic material for fiction. Pay attention to the places you visit. Describe what you hear, see and smell. Jot down those little telling details most people don't even notice. Capture your impressions of the atmosphere. Some weeks from now, or even years later, these notes will be a gold mine for a fiction project. When you want to write a scene set in a cave, a children's playground, a castle ruin or a pub, you can look up your notes and create authentic, original setting descriptions. These will be far more vivid than what you can create from your imagination or memory. Take this book with you on your journeys and holidays, and to all the places you've never been before. Fill in a section whenever you have time to kill, for example in the laundrette, at the bus stop, or in the doctor's waiting room. You can also establish a daily or weekly writing ritual, regularly completing a section about a different place. Soon you'll have a wealth of material to draw from.