Want to know what's on my Writer Resource Shelf at home? Check out these books below! These are resources I both use and personally recommend for writers at any stage of their writing careers.
Interested in purchasing a copy of any of these books for yourself? Please click on each image to be taken to the corresponding product page on Amazon.com.
The Emotion Thesaurus, The Negative Trait Thesaurus,
and The Positive Trait Thesaurus
All three books by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
Not sure how to convey a character's skepticism effectively? Your protagonist coming off a bit too clean cut? Or your super villain evoking lackluster evil? If you're looking for a way to shake up your character development style or receive some inspiration on how to make your characters more well-rounded, these books are all top-notch resources that I very strongly recommend. Written in a convenient "grab-and-go" style, you can easily reference each table of contents for whatever emotion or trait you are desiring to bring to life on the page: from adoration to worry, from confrontational to sentimental- and anything and everything in between! -Ms. Ackerman and Ms. Puglisi have you and your character assets and flaws covered. These ladies are even so thorough as to to provide not only the definition of each emotion or trait, but to provide physical signals/associated behaviors and thoughts, internal sensations, mental responses, acute/long-term signals, similar emotions/traits, possible causes of a given emotion/trait, challenges that a character who is insert-trait-here would most likely encounter, and much more.
Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript, Third Edition
By Chuck Sambuchino and the Editors of Writer's Digest Books
I actually own the second edition of this book (by Cynthia Laufenberg and the Editors of Writer's Digest Books gang), which I picked up a few years ago from a used book store out in Connecticut. The third edition, featured above, is a more current version of everything you need to know about submitting your manuscript to either a literary agent, editor, or contest (both in hardcopy, as well as electronic formats). What makes this resource very useful, in particular, is that is breaks the formatting process down step-by-step and specifically caters to the professional standards expected by each genre. Novels, magazine articles, screenplays, poetry, short stories...if you can write it, this book has your back on how to format and submit it. Query letters are also covered! This book is an absolute must and an invaluable resource, especially for anyone new to the writing/publishing industry and how the submission process works.
