McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Books on writing?

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OZ:
Josh Vogt who sometimes posts here, has a website, http://www.jrvogt.com/writerresources.htm which includes, along with a lot of online helps, a pretty good list of books on writing. You might want to check it out.

Snowleopard:
Here's an idea, Landing since you don't have a lot of money.  Check out the books you're interested in at the local library. That way you'll know which ones appeal and/or work for you and which ones don't before you spend any money or ask someone to buy them for you.

King Shisa:
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. It's a great read, focusing mainly on the Hero's Journey story method. Highly recommended.

kingaling:
In an interview that I read recently, Jim mentions Jack Bickham and Dwight Swain. Looking into it I found that Jack Bickham wrote a book called "Scene and Structure" whereas Dwight Swain wrote "Techniques for the $elling Writer."

Scene And Structure: Shows writers how to construct solid, believable narratives that keep editors and readers anxiously turning the pages.

I checked this one out and am quite pleased with it, it's helped me soooo much.

Techniques of the Selling Writer: From an Amazon Review - "The book has 10 chapters. The first, Fiction and You, tells what the writer needs to know and gives common traps writers fall into. Then he discusses things like rules and the creative act of writing. His style is terse and sentences are short. That makes it easy to find specific information when you go back later to look for it.

In the second chapter he gets down to serious business -- words. How to find them, how to use them and make them clear and concise. The third chapter is all about feelings and how to use them. In the fourth he goes into the necessity for conflict, what to do and not to do in building it. Chapter Five presents the strategies of fiction. "Fiction..." he writes, "creates an especially vivid vicarious tension...Your job as a writer is to control and manipulate this tension." He also delineates the source of story satisfaction and describes how to produce it.

Chapter 6 is all about getting a story started, lining up story elements, developing the middle of the story and winding it up. Story people and the importance of characters and character development are covered in Chapter 7. Planning the story, recognizing good story material, preparing to write, and what you need in order to succeed as a writer wind up the last few chapters. He devotes one page to marketing advice and that simply directs the reader to study the markets."

I haven't had the chance to look at this one yet, but if it's one of Jim's main sources, then I think we should all be looking at them. These men have written various books (Jack Bickham has 72 under his belt). They also have several books on writing, just google them.

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