Favorite books on writing

[PastMidnight]

What are some of your favorite books on writing fiction or on writing in general? Or any books that you use to help you in your craft? Any books that you really didn't like?

I tried searching for a thread like this among older messages but didn't find anything, so I apologize if I missed something.

[underthecity]

Stephen King's On Writing is the book every writer needs to read.

Behind that is Self Editing for Fiction Writers. If you're a writer and haven't read this book, stop what you're doing and get a copy now!

How to Write and Sell Your First Novel by Oscar Collier was the first book about writing I read in 1990 or so. I can recommend it.

Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint is a must-read.

B&N publishes a few nice topic-specific books, too. I have one titled Conflict, Action, and Suspense. There are others.

You certainly can't go wrong by reading Learn Writing with Uncle Jim.

allen

[Saanen]

Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages. I just sent my copy to a friend and now I want to reread it, so I foresee a trip to the book store today.

I also really like The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature, one of the few books solely about fantasy and certainly the one book I've found that treats the genre with respect instead of as some sort of little sister of science fiction.

Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy is good too.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Originally Posted by underthecity

Stephen King's On Writing is the book every writer needs to read.

Even if we don't care much for Stephen King?

I actually don't believe I own any books on writing. I have grammar books, dictionaries, thesauri, editing books, spelling books, Strunk and White's Elements of Style, but no writing books per se.

[DeniseK]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Ferret

Even if we don't care much for Stephen King?

I actually don't believe I own any books on writing. I have grammar books, dictionaries, thesauri, editing books, spelling books, Strunk and White's Elements of Style, but no writing books per se.

Then you are denying yourself a great deal of knowledge and inspiration.

Funny, the post I JUST finished in my blog is about how important I think it is for a new writer to read these kinds of books. And I listed books on writing in my blog a few days ago. I'm glad I ran across this thread. How could I have forgotten "Self Editing for Fiction Writers?" But I have several listed that aren't here. Check them out.

[Perks]

Originally Posted by Shadow_Ferret

Even if we don't care much for Stephen King?

I actually don't believe I own any books on writing. I have grammar books, dictionaries, thesauri, editing books, spelling books, Strunk and White's Elements of Style, but no writing books per se.

I listened to the audiobook version of this and it was wonderful - laugh out loud funny and full of tips that you'll actually remember.

You may not care for Stephen King's style, but his success is unparalleled.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Sorry if you misunderstood. I never begrudge success (show jealousy maybe, but begrudge? never!). I don't know Mr. King personally, so my comments were about his writing style. Granted I stopped reading him 25 years ago, maybe he's improved.

[mhughes]

I have to say the same as some of the other folks here.

I am not a big fan of Stephen King (horror isn't my thing) but On Writing is a book I sit down and read at least once a year or more if I'm getting bummed about my writing. It's nothing like his other works.

Self Editing for Fiction Writers really, really helped me during a time when I was struggling with improving my writing. Another one is the 38 Most Common Fiction Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them) is on my shelf but I don't read that as much for some reason.

The Elements of Fiction series (Characters and Viewpoints and Conflict, Action, and Suspense are part of them) have been quite good. Same with the How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy one.

[AdamH]

On Writing is excellent. It's part autobiographical (leading up to his unfortunate accident when he got hit by a car and was almost killed) and part writing book. So many great writing tips for anyone and a great fast read.

[Perks]

Originally Posted by Shadow Ferret

Sorry if you misunderstood. I never begrudge success (show jealousy maybe, but begrudge? never!). I don't know Mr. King personally, so my comments were about his writing style. Granted I stopped reading him 25 years ago, maybe he's improved.

I didn't take it that way at all! I was just saying that On Writing has value to those outside his core readership. He's an authority on creating commercially successful work, so this book should be viewed as a different animal all together.

The merits of King's talents have been debated elsewhere.

[underthecity]

Originally Posted by Jamesaritchie

I've never been big on writing books that try to tell me exactly how to do something in minute detail. I think they're mostly wrong, even when they're right, primarily because all such books tend to be writer specific. They really tell you what that particular writer does, or thinks he does, which doesn't mean it will work for you at all, or even that it really worked for him.

I agree, but it might be understood that writing books can teach you the basics and what to do right and what editors see as "wrong."

If you never pick up a book about writing, you might not understand that you're not supposed to use excessive dialog tags, adverbs, sentences that start with "As he was walking down the hall," and other mistakes that most beginning writers make. After I finished Self Editing for Fiction Writers, I had to go remove all my "As he was walking down the hall" type sentences and many dialog tags that I thought were OK. I already understood the adverb issue and don't use them very often.

Books about writing teach the writer what is expected in a manuscript, universal things the pros all know, but the amateur hasn't yet learned.

However, the only way to really learn is to use the methods outlined in the books and go from there. IOW, you can't read a book about writing and become a writer. Use the books as a roadmap to develop your own style.

Those who don't will always end up in the slush pile. Those who do have a shot at being in the 3% that might get read by the editor.

allen

[Jin_Tonik]

*Scribbles down a lot of these book titles and authors.* I need books on this subject, I have Strunk and White's book, but really that's about all at the moment. Now I can go down near the mall for more than one reason today, I'll see how many of these my Barnes & Noble has (hopefully more than I was able to find on another subject yesterday).

[DeniseK]

One of the best books, imo, was written back in the 80's by Leonard Bishop, and can be purchased from Amazon for less than $2 bucks paperback, but I found it at my public library. "Dare to Be a Great Writer: 329 Keys to Writing Powerful Fiction." He is hilarious in it and holds no punches. I read this three years ago and it is stiill the one that stands out as the best.

[goatpiper]

I loved On Writing.
I think Pat Walsh's 78 Reasons Why Your Book Won't Be Published And 14 Why It Just Might is awesome.
Steering The Craft by Ursula Leguin is great.

[goatpiper]

Leguin is very unique, imho. I haven't read much of her stuff, but I enjoy it a lot. I think she is an excellent writer - she uses the language very well, which is a lot of what I enjoy about her. Her book on writing does have exercises and such in it, I just don't do them. I think her perspective on writing is educational.

Pat Walsh's book is inspiring because it's very straightforward. He doesn't dress anything up. It's quite acerbic, and that makes it a fun read. I couldn't put it down.

I don't like the books that try to hold your hand through the process of writing. I'm struggling like mad on my first novel, and realize that I must find my own way. I love general advice and cool perspective, and I love learning more about the industry.

[goatpiper]

I just got back from the library. I grabbed O.S.C.'s 'Characters and Viewpoint' and that book 'Self Editing For Fiction Writers'.

[Tirjasdyn]

Terry Brooks: Sometimes Magic Works, and David Gerrold's book on Sci Fi are both great. Gerrold has a whole chapter on geting rid of the verb to be.

[badducky]

I saw this fanfic guide to writing once that I thought was interesting.


http://www.medievia.com/medwww/ms/writersguide.html

How to tell if your fanfic is bad: even the webmaster feels compelled to spell out how to write for you.
Stevey King it's not, but isn't it great to know that it's out there?

[madderblue]

Noah Lukeman also has a second book out The Plot Thickens. It goes past the first five pages into characterization, suspense, conflict, etc. (sigh...when will that man breakdown and represent me?)

Also loved King's On Writing. I was amazed at how hilarious he was, and he used 'big' words that I don't remember seeing in his novel writing.

[scribbler1382]

On Becoming A Novelist by John Gardner

To James' list of Block books I'd add Spider, Spin Me A Web

[mesh138]

First 5 pages and Stephen King's writing book are the only two worth a damn.

[pdr]

'Aspects of the Novel' by E. M. Forster for a great sense of what a novel is and does.

[Jin_Tonik]

After reading through the rest of things, and thinking about it myself (as well as buying a few of the books -- How to Write & Sell Your First Novel, and both King's and Bradbury's books) I must say that I've learned that books and segments I receive in my English class are particularly useful to me not for the reason that they tell me how to do things, but rather because they give me an idea to base my own ideas or better educate me one aspects of the novel. To tell the truth, I tend to do things my own way regardless of how I'm told to do them unless it makes sense to me and proves to work for me, otherwise I do my own thing (even if it means sacrificing a bit of my grade).

There are a few things that, when I approach my own pieces of writing, I learn that I don't have as firm a grasp on them as I had thought. I do read a lot, acclaimed authors because I find their writing to be good and their pieces interesting and not pointless like so many others that some people are into (specifically my own generation, which bothers me). Yet I have a problem with plot especially, and some of the character archetypes, so when I can get my hands on a good piece about elements of literature I like to read them so that I can better understand and thus use these elements in my own pieces (sometimes I even get ideas for my own pieces). That's the reason I like these kind of books and would caution others who are seriously starting out: don't use these as you would assembly instructions for your pool, use them instead as inspiration or materials to pick and choose from in order to create your own design or style, they'll serve you much better in this way.

With that said, I have a question for those of you who can provide me an answer: among these other books, and the majority of you seem to especially favor King's book, where would you place the Writer's Digest books in regard to their usefulness in writing?

I was looking at those which my Barnes & Noble had on their shelves and realized that if they were as good as some of these others that they might be worth my buying for later reference (that is if they have something that the others do not). I decided to get the opinions of others on this since these books were so specialized and were, on average, about fifteen bucks or something like that. I realized that they had exercises and such, but I had no intention of using those, I'm more interested in the rest of the book.

[BlackCrowesChick]

Stephen King's On Writing is the best! I could tell how much it helped me right after I finished it, in a matter of days. I could see an improvement that quickly. Long-term effect, even more so. I followed this book and it turned me into a novelist. I guess the ability was in me all along, but this book just helped me figure out how to tune in to it.

It also changed the way I look at books I read. If an author commits the Cardinal Sins of Writing, as I like to call them, (overuse of adverbs, bad dialogue tags, etc) I pick up on it right away. I started reading a book about a month ago that did these things, and I couldn't stand it, so I put it down. I won't name names, but it made me realize that I know more about (or at least abide by more) the rules of writing than do some well-known authors. If it weren't for On Writing, I wouldn't have learned these things. I don't think I committed them too much before I read it anyway, but it set the rules right out in front of me and set me straight about them.

[Prosthetic Foreheads]

Just wondering what you all think about Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.