Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
The Writer's Idea Book
by
Jack Heffron
Where do you get your ideas?"
It's a question and a quandary that bedevils every writer. And once you've got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts.
In "The Writer's Idea Book," Jack Heffron, former senior editor at Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will help you find the answer. Utilizing over 400 prompts and exe...more
It's a question and a quandary that bedevils every writer. And once you've got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts.
In "The Writer's Idea Book," Jack Heffron, former senior editor at Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will help you find the answer. Utilizing over 400 prompts and exe...more
Paperback, 262 pages
Published
November 15th 2002
by Writer's Digest Books
(first published 2000)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
755)
If you’re looking for a treasure trove of writing exercises to get you started writing, look no further than The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron. He starts by identifying what he calls the Enemies of Creativity: The Procrastinator, The Victim, The Talker, The Critic and the Judge and discusses how to subdue them strategies to subdue them. He then outline some genereal techniques for generating story ideas (such as clustering, listing, cut and paste in Chapter Four: Getting Ready to Write). Su...more
Overall: The doctor's medicine for writer's block? Maybe.
This is quite simply a book of writing prompts. I've found it useful when I have been wanting to practice particular writing techniques to dip into this book and try a random prompt. For me, this book is good but I'd rather learn how to prompt myself into inspirational sparks than just have a never ending book of Heffron's ideas.
So... If you've suffered or are currently suffering from writer's block then this could be the book for you. Jus...more
This is quite simply a book of writing prompts. I've found it useful when I have been wanting to practice particular writing techniques to dip into this book and try a random prompt. For me, this book is good but I'd rather learn how to prompt myself into inspirational sparks than just have a never ending book of Heffron's ideas.
So... If you've suffered or are currently suffering from writer's block then this could be the book for you. Jus...more
Many good prompts, but they are not the true value of this book. The book's tone keeps me writing when I want to stop. It's about "quite you're whining and just WRITE for god's sakes." And it makes me keep writing and writing even when I want to stop because it's all crap flowing onto the paper, and nobody will ever want to read this crud, and how in the world am I going to convince anyone I'm a writer, and on and on. I keep this book on my desk for those critical sessions of debilitating self-d...more
Excellent book packed with ideas to get the creative thoughts going. Twenty nine chapters in 4 main sections: bending and stretching, exploring, finding form, assessing and developing.
Each chapter has a brief introduction and is then packed with prompts giving writers and aspiring writers plenty of opportuity to noodle around and explore different ideas.
Each chapter has a brief introduction and is then packed with prompts giving writers and aspiring writers plenty of opportuity to noodle around and explore different ideas.
This book is really great for just getting some ideas rolling around in your head that you can turn around and do something with. A couple of times, the prompts were confusing and the reading got stale. Though this was only a few instances, otherwise his tone was light and encouraging and the prompts were really unique.
Some interesting ideas in this for anyone looking for writing exercises, but best bought in paperback - it's the sort of book you will want to dip in and out of. I ploughed through it on kindle, and it was a long, hard slog.
This is my writer's bible. I like to always have it by my side or in my bag, ready for when I get a spare ten minutes writing time.
Jam packed full of writing ideas, as the title promises. Wonderful.
Jam packed full of writing ideas, as the title promises. Wonderful.
This is a fantastic book! I will be using it for years I'm sure! Each chapter starts out with a description of what you'll be working with whether it is the basics of making sure you are writing every day or more complex topics as character development. Then throughout the chapter you get different prompts and exercizes to work through to help work on those topics.
I found the backstories to be very interesting and the exercizes to be fun and ones that can be done many times.
I found the backstories to be very interesting and the exercizes to be fun and ones that can be done many times.
Recommended to all writers and writers-to-be. If you are running out of ideas, there are lots of prompts that you can use to get yourself writing, again.
I'm reading sections out of this book to help inspire me to write and push myself back into the writing realm and I believe it's doing a good job. It's my first book like this, so it maybe seem obvious to some people some of the stuff in the begining. There is a begining part about different stresses that writers have on them to not write-- like feeling we have other more important responsibilities, or writing/thinking as "The Author" rather than just letting the creative juices flow. So far I q...more
Has some good ideas to jump start your creativity with writing, especially fiction!
Basically a bunch of writing prompts.
I picked up this book because it's full of writing prompts, though only a portion are fiction-specific. There were some good tidbits of advice sprinkled throughout, but some of the book's encouraging nature became tired after a while. This book is one I would recommend to writers who feel they suffer from so-called writer's block (I personally feel that's a lame excuse for laziness), or to writers in the early stages of the craft or who are in need encouragement.
Lots of great prompts in this book but there are enough typos and grammar errors to make some parts a bit confusing.
A handy resource with plenty of writing prompts.
Oct 13, 2008
Amy Saunders
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Any writer.
Shelves:
writing-prompts
One of my favorite prompt books. Heffron offers a little coaching but this book is all about the writing. I've found it very helpful in tapping into my own life, past and present, for traits and emotions I can project onto my characters. It makes you dig, even into things that hurt, and as a result my characters and stories now go deeper. It's excellent for getting a handle on raw emotions but also for jump starting ideas.
So I didn't actually finish this one. It was due back at the library. But while I had it, it was great. I'd certainly check it out again. I picked it up for some, you know, 'ideas', of which there were plenty. In some ways it's 'just another writing' book. Good ideas and plenty of excercises to do that are helpful. As far as advice, etc. it's nothing I haven't heard before. Just keep writing!
This is an excellent resource for writers! I thoroughly enjoyed Jack Heffron's voice and his advice. The prompts are some of the best I have seen!
Only read a couple pages but the few that I did were very inspiring.
This is an excellent resource for prompts. This book contains well thought out ideas in a variety of categories...quite enough to keep any writer busy for quite some time. I have read through all the prompts and have already written many.
I just stared this last night and so far it's talking about one of the most important things any writer can do, getting your butt in the chair.
Good advice so far. Stop thinking about it and just get your butt in the chair.
Good advice so far. Stop thinking about it and just get your butt in the chair.
This is a great resource for writing prompts.
Such a fun little motivational book. I dont "read" this book as much as I scan it for ideas of things to write. Lots of great prompts.
You will never have writer's block again. Or if you do, you can only blame yourself.
This book looked so interesting, that I accidentally bought it twice.
Read January 2011
May 22, 2013
Alex
marked it as to-read
May 20, 2013
Jack
added it
May 19, 2013
Randhir Sinha
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
