Can you suggest a good guide book?

jennifer75 · Jan 16, 2007

I'm currently debating on the following titles:

Line by Line: How to edit your own writing by Claire Kehrwald Cook

Grammatically Correct: the writers essential guide to punctuation, spelling, style, usage and grammar by Anne Stilman

The Classic Guide To Better Writing: step by step techniques and exercises to write simply, clearly and correctly

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing by Gary Provost

Writing Tools: 50 essential strategies for every writer

If not these, can you suggest a starter book for me?

By "starter book" I mean this would be my first guide book on writing.

rugcat · Jan 16, 2007

The Elements Of Style, Strunk & White

Azure Skye · Jan 16, 2007

I really liked Line by Line. It seemed like Elements of Style on steroids. I liked how it gave not just one example but several. But, I also second the Elements suggestion.

farfromfearless · Jan 16, 2007

Check out Garry Disher's "Writing Fiction" It's an excellent little primer and without going into excruciating detail about this or that, he prefers instead to give some top-level examples. The writing is straightforward and the insights can be applied across genres.

zornhau · Jan 16, 2007

Dwight V. Swain "Techniques of the selling writer"

It's the best one-stop book, and even covers sentence construction.
http://zornhau.livejournal.com/tag/dwight+v.+swain

nevada · Jan 16, 2007

A Passion For Narrative, by Jack Hodgins. Covers everything. One of the gems out there.

RedandGold · Jan 16, 2007

Bearing in mInd that I haven't even finished a novel yet, so it could be easily said that i don't know what I am talking about. . .

look at the articles by Holly Lisle:
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/

And the articles by Morgan hawke (but be warned she is talking about erotica mainly - not a lot of adult words though):
http://darkerotica.blogspot.com/

Siddow · Jan 16, 2007

Hit the library, and read section 808. All of it! Now!

PeeDee · Jan 16, 2007

The books in whatever field you intend to write in.

Also, the books that capture your attention and hold onto it, even if they're NOT the area you want to write in.

jennifer75 · Jan 16, 2007

PeeDee said:
The books in whatever field you intend to write in.

Also, the books that capture your attention and hold onto it, even if they're NOT the area you want to write in.

Are you always this helpful?

PeeDee · Jan 16, 2007

It is helpful, honest. Textbooks and "how to write" books are useful, for a given value of usefulness. They can be valuable for strictly mechanical stuff, but a lot of that you'll pick up anyway over the process of reading and, more imporantly, the process of editing your own stuff.

jennifer75 · Jan 16, 2007

PeeDee said:
It is helpful, honest. Textbooks and "how to write" books are useful, for a given value of usefulness. They can be valuable for strictly mechanical stuff, but a lot of that you'll pick up anyway over the process of reading and, more imporantly, the process of editing your own stuff.

I get that, but I don't have time to read ALL THOSE BOOKS. I need a good "STARTER" book

Something to sort of guide me in the sort of right direction.

PeeDee · Jan 16, 2007

I'm not suggesting you read EverySingleBook in your entire field of writing. I've been reading my field for years and years, and mostly I've just found more and more books that I really want to read.

I'm just saying that the best learning experience is writing, and the best guide for that is all the books you've been reading all your life, and all the books that you're going to pick up and read from this day hence.

Fine, fine, guide book. Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. Steve King's On Writing.

jennifer75 · Jan 16, 2007

PeeDee said:
I'm not suggesting you read EverySingleBook in your entire field of writing. I've been reading my field for years and years, and mostly I've just found more and more books that I really want to read.

I'm just saying that the best learning experience is writing, and the best guide for that is all the books you've been reading all your life, and all the books that you're going to pick up and read from this day hence.

Fine, fine, guide book. Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. Steve King's On Writing.

I knew you could do it. I think I'm gonna try the "On Writing", I've heard lots of good stuff about it here on AW.

PeeDee · Jan 16, 2007

It *is* a good book. Not very technical, which is just perfect.

Adagio · Jan 16, 2007

A Writer's Workbook by Caroline Sharp.

Creating Fiction - Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs, edited by Julie Checkoway.

Description, by Monica Wood -- excellent. By the same author, The Pocket Muse. I know she published a second volume of this Pocket Mse but I don't know the exact title. If you Google Monica Wood you'll find it. She also has a link to Writing Tips.

Writer's Companion, by Marcella Frank.

The Artist's Way - A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron.

The Elements of Storytelling -- How to Write Compelling Fiction, by Peter Ruhie.

I should stop here. There are more.

As for authors who used 1st person narrative, I recommend Margaret Atwood.

PeeDee's advice is excellent. Ditto Nevada's.

jennifer75 · Jan 16, 2007

PeeDee said:
It *is* a good book. Not very technical, which is just perfect.

I just ordered it on Walmart.com. Woooohooooo!!!!

willietheshakes · Jan 16, 2007

nevada said:
A Passion For Narrative, by Jack Hodgins. Covers everything. One of the gems out there.

You can always tell the canucks on the board...

Yeah, Jack's book is one of the best, but not published in the US.

Danzer · Jan 16, 2007

Jennifer,

You've got some really good suggestions here, which I can only underscore as great starters. I have read most of them and gotten great results, but the breakthrough for me was attending Robert McKee's Story Structure seminar. He's now produced it in book form called Story. I can't vouch for the book, but it can't be too different from the seminar.

McKee is about screenwriting, but the principles apply to novels as well. He takes a lot of Joseph Campbell's precepts and, at least for me, makes them vivid and practical. At least have a look at the book if you can, because McKee, Campbell, and Chris Vogler (The Writer's Journey) give us the essential ingredients so often lacking in "technique" books. They tell us how "story" works for the human mind, what we expect subliminally, how story structure has endured for millennia of storytelling, and how it builds our ideas into a cohesive whole.

Best of reading to you.

Sean D. Schaffer · Jan 16, 2007

I've suggested this book on other threads, but I find it's a good 'starter book' for me, so I'll mention it here, as well.

How to Write Almost Anything Better by Arthur Herzog.

It's not all that thick a volume, I'd say around the same length as Elements of Style, which I would also highly recommend.

But it is decently written and has a lot to do with a writer's attitude.

Good luck to you!

jennifer75 · Jan 17, 2007

Ian D. Mecantie said:
How to Write Almost Anything Better by Arthur Herzog.

Is "How to Write Almost Anything Better and Faster!"
by Arthur Herzog the same book?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0595400590/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

jennifer75 · Jan 17, 2007

Danzer said:
Robert McKee's Story Structure seminar.

Thank you for this recommendation. I was just about to complain about the price of the book when I saw the seminar registration fee!

I'll look into the paperback. Thanks again!

engmajor2005 · Jan 17, 2007

Bradbury's Zen, King's On Writing, and of course Elements.

You will find that most of the "how-to" books out there repeat the same advice, and these are The Big Three, so hit them hard and fast.

Next, you'll need a good book of prompts. The Writer's Book of Matches by the staff of Fresh Boiled Peanuts. That's the only one I have personal experience with because at the time, I could only afford one.

jsh · Jan 18, 2007

PeeDee said:
Also, the books that capture your attention and hold onto it....

Like The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, which was a pleasure rather than a chore.

Sean D. Schaffer · Jan 18, 2007

jennifer75 said:
Is "How to Write Almost Anything Better and Faster!"
by Arthur Herzog the same book?

http://www.amazon.com/Write-Almost-Anything-Better-Faster/dp/0595400590/sr=8-2/qid=1169055343/ref=sr_1_2/002-7859869-1950440?ie=UTF8&s=books

I'm not sure. It could be a revision of the book I have at home. The volume I possess dates from, I think, the 1980's, so it could be the same book, just revised.

I hope this helps.

Can you suggest a good guide book?

SupahStah!

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