Word Magic

Dear Writer,

What's the difference between the two manuscripts cited above? It is the one factor that keeps them from being identical twins. Think of it as WORD MAGIC. The first manuscript was well researched, clearly written, solidly structured.

However, the writer of the second manuscript knew how to inject the kind of originality, flair, and expressive richness and sharpness into submitted work that made it grab and hold editorial interest all the way to publication.

That author had WORD MAGIC. Now you can have it, too--or greatly increase the amount you already have--from a single authoritative new source:

Here, finally, is a fascinating book that clearly shows you how to boost the success potential of your writing project, whether an article, speech, story, book, play, or advertising, by elevating and energizing--charging up--the language in which it is written.

From this one source, you'll discover how to craft beginnings that hook the reader, middles that compel him or her to stay on the hook, dialogue and descriptions that sizzle and enchant, and endings that leave the reader eager to read more of your work.

WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS will help you accomplish all this through dozens of proven language devices and secrets that successful authors use to lift their writing from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Some of these techniques you may already be using instinctively without knowing their complete value. WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS will bring you full knowledge of what they are, how and why they work, and how to apply them toward the greater fulfillment and success of your own writing.

When Dickens described Scrooge as ". . . secret, and self-contained and solitary as an oyster," he was using alliteration--beginning successive words with the same consonant sound - to give the description a decisive energy.

Alliteration can bring a character entertainingly and accurately to life, as in Richard Peck's "Well, I'm an old sod-bustin' son of the soil . . . got more toes than teeth" and Lauren Slater's vivid description in Harper's Magazine of a plastic surgeon "speeding toward the hospital where he reconstructs faces, appends limbs, puffs and preens the female form."

In the first section of WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS, you'll be delighted and stimulated by scintillating examples of alliteration and other proven sound devices that enable leading authors, journalists, and writers of every stripe to entice, involve, and hold their readers all the way.

You'll feast on examples like this of assonance where internal vowel repetition works its rhythmic magic . . . to assonance combined with consonance, as in "The glimmer of gold, the shimmer of silver" . . . to the wheezes, fizzes, growls, and screeches of that glorious mouthful of a word, onomatopoeia, which names a thing or action by the sound associated with it, as in Leif Enger's "the chuffs and growls of plow trucks" . . . and Poe's "the tintinnabulation that so musically wells from the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells. . . ."

Striking sound device examples and challenging, fun-filled exercises show you how to tickle your titles into intriguing hooks, and make your sentences snap and pop right up into your reader's stirred-up imagination and eagerness to keep your pages turning:

That's a sentiment all writers share. It's also an excellent example of the use of metaphor, one of a writer's most powerful tools, great for enhancing and clarifying your work.

A well-placed, fresh metaphor (in which one thing is referred to as if it were another) bears meaning beyond the obvious to create a striking image or idea, as in Churchill's "An iron curtain" or an engaging character description, as in Dickens's "Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile."

Your creative imagination will be stirred and stimulated by unforgettable metaphors created by Jeffrey Eugenides, Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Salzman, advertising copywriters, children's book authors, and other writers.

You'll learn how to make the best use of single and double metaphor . . . why some metaphors are apt and powerful . . . how to avoid cliches and the silliness of mixed metaphors . . . how to develop, out of your own experience and observations, the kind of metaphoric muscle that causes editors to sit up and take notice.

This striking image by poet Maya Angelou plunges you into the lively world of the simile, another word magic FOR WRITERS tool available to you for creating vivid descriptions.

Here, instead of one thing indirectly described as another, two dissimilar things are directly compared to another--dead as a doornail; as relentless as a guided missile; frozen in beauty, like a fly trapped in amber. WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS gets your imagination dancing with similes that sizzle, and shows you how to enrich your work with homegrown similes that delight the reader.

Author Cindy Rogers shows you many ways to add dramatic force, humor, and mood enhancement to your work by personifying trees, roads, snow, animals, even kindness, as in Naomi Shihab Nye's "It is only kindness that ties your shoes . . . that raises its head from the crowd of the world . . . and then goes with you everywhere."

Through a variety of scintillating examples from the works of writers like Roald Dahl, Jonathan Franzen, Dylan Thomas, Alice Sebold, Jane Resh Thomas, and Natalie Babbitt, plus creatively rewarding exercises, Ms. Rogers gets you bubbling with your own apt personifications.

Ms. Rogers herself is a sought-after word magician. An award-winning author for leading magazines and book publishers, Rogers is also an in-demand writing teacher.

Her experience together with her love for and delight in the richness and subtleties of the English language . . . combine to make WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS the immensely insightful, comprehensive, and valuable writer's resource that it is.

Cindy Rogers is a teacher, an editor, and the author of three books and more than 100 stories, plays, articles, essays, profiles, and word conundrums. Her most recent book, Word Magic for Writers, is the result of several years of research on the richness and subtleties of the English language. Numerous articles and columns on the use of language and writing have been published in Writer's Digest, Children's Writer, and Magazine Markets for Children's Writers.

Ms. Rogers' educational pieces have been published in Good Apple Newspaper, Educational Oasis, Parents of Teenagers and excerpts of her work have been used in testing materials by Harcourt Brace, McGraw Hill, SIRS, and Exploring English.

What child--or parent--could resist reading beyond this opening line from E. B. White's Charlotte's Web? WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS uses analyses of examples like this of first lines, titles, and final paragraphs to increase your ability to grab the reader's attention at the start--keep him on the hook--and turn him into a fan at the end.

You'll become skilled at taking the dullness out of exposition . . . crafting titles that startle and intrigue . . . replacing weak verbs with strong ones that keep the action building to a climax, as in "Tiger Woods roared into the Masters picture like a train. . . ."

That's a bit of zeugma, the use of a single word to modify two or more other words in different ways. WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS delivers to you more brilliant examples and clear definitions of language-enhancing devices than any other book in print.

It shows you how to use these devices judiciously and appropriately for maximum effect . . . when to write leanly and when to describe richly.

There's so much in this marvelous book that you won't find anywhere else--expertly designed to increase the focused power, range, and elegance with which you express yourself, in your writing, in your speaking, and in your personal and professional relationships. It's all in the words. Now you'll have your own unique word magic.

Enjoy WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS for 30 days. Use it to start putting magic into your own writing. If you don't agree that it is everything we have promised, simply return the book to us and we'll refund the full purchase price you paid.

No questions asked. No hassles. Guaranteed.

If you'd like to receive WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS for a 30-day, no-risk examination; simply complete the order form today. Just click on Order Now.

P.S.

See for yourself why Kate DiCamillo, author of Tale of Despereaux, the Newbery Medal Winner, 2004, and Because of Winn-Dixie, a Newbery Honor book, 2000, says "WORD MAGIC FOR WRITERS is a writing book like no other . . . joyful, exuberant, witty and wise. It manages to be many things at once: a celebration of language, an examination of its mysteries, and an invitation for writers of every ilk to pick up their pens and join the party. Wonderful."