The Creative Writer's Toolbelt Handbook: Everything You Need to Be a Better Writer and Produce Great Work, Paperback

Here in one book are the tools you need to be a better writer and produce great work.

The Creative Writer's Toolbelt Handbook gives you practical, accessible advice for all of the dimensions of the craft, backed up with examples from classic and contemporary literature, together with insights from dozens of professional writers, artists, editors and agents.

Here's what others have said about the book:
- "A unique and comprehensive handbook... it lays the foundations and then helps you build."

- "A very useful practical (hands-on rather than theory) guide with many (many) examples...highly recommended."

- "I've found so few advice givers as competent and informative as Andrew Chamberlain"

Each chapter covers an aspect of the craft, giving you insights that you can apply immediately to your own writing, and providing you with the confidence to go on to explore and develop your skills.
Chapter 1: Creating a Story
Learn the classic shape of stories and understand why throughout history, one particular approach to story construction has been so successful.

Chapter 2: Characters and characterisation
Explore the two primary aspects of characterisation: character essence and goal motivation and passion. Learn why getting these aspects right is most of the hard work of character development.

Chapter 3: Setting, world-building, and research
Understand the two critical requirements of a setting - that it be credible and immersive. Grounded with examples, we also look at the best way to gather and apply research, with expert insights into the process, and guidance on the important issue of understanding and writing characters who do not reflect our own heritage.

Chapter 4: Tools of the trade
Understand how to use the most important tools of the craft; from 'showing not telling' to point of view and foreshadowing to exploiting the power of sensory description.

Chapter 5: The building blocks of writing
Explore the techniques for harnessing the power of punctuation and structure, understand the power of verbs in driving the pace of a sentence.

Chapter 6: The sound of your writing
Unlock the secrets of tone, style, and voice, and wield the sharpest tools available to you: clarity, brevity, and precision.

Chapter 7: Story identity - Genre and theme
Explore the strategies for harnessing genre and trope to reassure and absorb the reader. See how symbol, dilemma, and innovation interweave with theme and moral, and how to apply these aspects to enrich and enhance our work.

Chapter 8: The Writer's Life
Living well is a step towards writing well. From physical health to mental and emotional wellbeing, the handbook offers suggestions for the writer's life. This chapter also explores the author experience with publishers and some thoughts on how to effectively market both ourselves as writers and our work.

About the Author:

Andrew Chamberlain is a writer and creative writing tutor. He has ghost-written several commercially published memoirs, including the bestselling Once an Addict by Barry Woodward. His short stories and novel length fiction have been commercially and self-published, in print and online. Since 2014 he has presented The Creative Writer's Toolbelt, a podcast that gives practical advice on the craft of writing. Andrew's focus is on providing accessible advice to writers that they can apply straight away to their own work. The Creative Writer's Toolbelt Handbook, is a compilation of the very best advice and insight from the first 100 episodes of the podcast. With contributions from over twenty guests, the Handbook will cover all the fundamental dimensions of creative writing, with examples of best practice, from the writers, editors, and publishing professionals who have guested on the podcast. Andrew is a blogger for the Association of Christian Writers at the More than Writers website, and has been a regular speaker at the Lakes School of Writing autumn retreat. He has spoken at numerous writing events across the country and was a panellist at last year's Eastercon Science Fiction convention. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and their slightly over enthusiastic labrador Pippin. You can contact Andrew via his website at www.andrewjchamberlain.com