A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages bound together and protected by a cover. It can also be a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex. In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page.
A pen name, also called a nom de plume or a literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
Exquisite corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.
In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in First Lines of Physiology: Designed for the Use of Students of Medicine, when he wrote,
If we separate from this mingled and moving stream of consciousness, our sensations and volitions, which are constantly giving it a new direction, and suffer it to pursue its own spontaneous course, it will appear, upon examination, that this, instead of being wholly fortuitous and uncertain, is determined by certain fixed laws of thought, which are collectively termed the association of ideas.
A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of a reference work in support of the text.
Jack Dann is an American writer best known for his science fiction, as well as an editor and a writing teacher, who has lived in Australia since 1994. He has published over seventy books, the majority being as editor or co-editor of story anthologies in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He has published nine novels, numerous shorter works of fiction, essays, and poetry, and his books have been translated into thirteen languages. His work, which includes fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism, and historical and alternative history genres, has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, J. G. Ballard, and Philip K. Dick.
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake created two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.
Academic writing or scholarly writing is nonfiction writing produced as part of academic work in accordance with the standards and disciplines of each academic subject, including:
A short story collection is a book of short stories and/or novellas by a single author. A short story collection is distinguished from an anthology of fiction, which would contain work by several authors. The stories in a collection may or may not share a tone, theme, setting, or characters with one another.
The 1632 series, also known as the 1632-verse or Ring of Fire series, is an alternate history book series and sub-series created, primarily co-written, and coordinated by American author Eric Flint and published by Baen Books.
Les Chants de Maldoror is a French poetic novel, or a long prose poem. It was written and published between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautréamont, the nom de plume of the Uruguayan-born French writer Isidore Lucien Ducasse. The work concerns the misanthropic, misotheistic character of Maldoror, a figure of evil who has renounced conventional morality.
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.
An addventure, also known as a collaborative gamebook, is a type of online interactive fiction that combines aspects of round-robin stories and Choose Your Own Adventure-style tales. Like a round-robin story, an addventure is a form of collaborative fiction in which many authors contribute to a story, each writing discrete segments. However, like a gamebook, the resulting narrative is non-linear, allowing authors to branch out in different directions after each segment of the story. The result is a continually growing work of hypertext fiction.
Chimera is a 1972 fantasy novel written by American writer John Barth, composed of three loosely connected novellas. The novellas are Dunyazadiad, Perseid and Bellerophoniad, whose titles refer eponymously to the mythical characters Dunyazad, Perseus and Bellerophon. The book is an example of postmodernism, which can be seen in its metafictional content and its incorporation of stylistic elements that go beyond the traditional novel genre. It shared the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction with Augustus by John Edward Williams.
A vignette is a French loanword expressing a short and descriptive piece of writing that captures a brief period in time. Vignettes are more focused on vivid imagery and meaning rather than plot. Vignettes can be stand-alone, but they are more commonly part of a larger narrative, such as vignettes found in novels or collections of short stories.
The Glasgow Science Fiction Writers’ Circle is a group of amateur, semi-professional, and professional fiction authors that has met regularly in Glasgow, Scotland since 1987.
Collaborative or collective poetry is an alternative and creative technique for writing poetry by more than one person. The principal aim of collaborative poetry is to create poems with multiple collaborations from various authors. In a common example of collaborative poetry, there may be numerous authors working in conjunction with one another to try to form a unified voice that can still maintain their individual voices.
Fan fiction or fanfiction is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional subject. Common bases for fan fiction include novels, movies, comics, musical groups, cartoons, anime, manga, and video games.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books:
Chain writing, also known as relay writing or estafet writing, is a type of collaborative writing in which a group of authors collectively write a piece of literature by each writing separate, subsequent sections of a larger story or critical work.
