From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up—Capturing readers’ attention from the very first page, this book is an excellent resource for both teenagers and their teachers. From the development of characters, setting, voice, style, and plot, to the end with rewriting and polishing, readers are able to hone their writing skills. By using the “building your story” activities at the end of each chapter, they have opportunity to apply the techniques presented and experience the whole process. Hanley uses examples from familiar novels and authors such as “Harry Potter” and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005) to illustrate elements of writing. The book concludes with interviews with young adult authors, in which they include advice to aspiring young writers. This book is an excellent resource for creative writing classes as well as individuals.—Denise Moore, O’Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD
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Review
Written by an award-winning young adult author, Seize the Story is an excellent, comprehensive guide to writing fiction for teens . . . While Seize the Story is written with teens in mind, adults interested in improving their writing skills will also benefit from Hanley’s helpful prompts and exercises. This is a solid handbook for the aspiring author that can also be utilized by teachers in their creative writing classes.,Ohio Journal of English Language Arts, 7/14/11
Seize the Story is a really easy book to read, warm, sweet, and funny. It gives you a lot of tips to improve your stories, like for example, creating characters, the name of the characters, what to do when you have a writer’s block, the difference between Showing and Telling, and the different points of view that you can choose to write your story, and much more . . . But the best thing, is that when I started reading this book, with all those exercises and those tips, I just wanted to sit at the computer and start writing again. I felt that the door which was keeping my imagination-creativity closed, it opened again. And the best thing is that I feel it will help me to understand better the books I read, and it will improve the reviews I write. Highly recommended.,Idris Sandelis,Throwing Books Blog, 11/9/11
That’s the main reason why I really appreciate Seize the Story by Victoria Hanley. Aside from it’s really cool illustrated cover, it has some great writing advice in a reader-friendly format. I love that the author didn’t try to sugar coat things or “baby” the teen reader. It really just helps take the YA point-of-view and translate it into a finished piece. The author broke things down with cool examples and lists. I really found everything in here – plotting, editing, dialogue, etc . . . It was actually fun to read. I felt like someone was helping me out, rather than telling me what to do.,Naiche Parker,The Book Girl Reads, 1/11/12
About the Author
Victoria Hanley’s fiction novels for teens are published in dozens of countries in ten languages. Her books have received many honors, including placement on the Texas Lone Star Master List, the Oklahoma Sequoyah Award Master List, the Utah Beehive Award List, and the Colorado Blue Spruce Award List, as well as earning an International Reading Association Young Adults’ choice selection, the Colorado Book Award, and a Kallbacher-Klapperschlange Award (Germany).
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