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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Landing on November 10, 2010, 06:24:13 PM
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Hey guys I’m working on my Christmas list and I wanted to know what books you guys think are best on the subject of writing fiction. If you can tell me a bit about the books that would be great, I don’t have that much money to spend and can only buy a couple.
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I'm a fan of On Writing by Stephen King. The advice is good if you understand he doesn't always take his own advice.
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I'll second and third On Writing. It spends less on what's required of writing--grammar and such--and more about actually writing. From what I recall. Need to reread that.
Off the top of my head, I'd add Donald Maas's Writing the Breakout Novel and his Fire in Fiction(not certain about that title). Both are very good, and he knows what he's talking about. His agency has a lot of well-known authors--Jim's one of them.
Aside from those, I'd have to check my books when I get home. Also, are you interested more in specifics on writing or seeing how different authors go about doing it? For myself, I prefer the latter; I find those more interesting and inspirational. And somehow more helpful.
One that some recommend is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont--I would suggest reading samples of that before buying it. I personally found it to be somewhat self indulgent and kinda toxic.
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I'm not really sure what type of book I am looking for, I am new to writing so I am leaning more on what yall feel was the most helpful book rather than any particular kind.
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Were my dad here he'd fourth On Writing, he uses pieces of the book in his Freshman Comp class. fwiw
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Were my dad here he'd fourth On Writing, he uses pieces of the book in his Freshman Comp class. fwiw
I got my copy in one of my writing classes in college; I think it was for my novel writing class.
Oh, also, not so much a book on writing, but one that's handy to have read at least once--Strunk and White. I forget the actual title, just the authors, but it's pretty much a grammar handbook.
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Tor is having a series of columns on Books on Writing. You all may be interested in following it. The first one reviewed is John Scalzi's: You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/11/writers-on-writing-youre-not-fooling-anyone-when-you-take-your-laptop-to-a-coffee-shop-by-john-scalzi (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/11/writers-on-writing-youre-not-fooling-anyone-when-you-take-your-laptop-to-a-coffee-shop-by-john-scalzi)
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The first one reviewed is John Scalzi's: You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop
I really LOVE the name of that book! Oh, I wonder how true it is?!!
Donald Maass' book is called The Fire in Fiction, one of the books Starbeam referred to. I recommend it for an overall writing book any day.
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Oh, also, not so much a book on writing, but one that's handy to have read at least once--Strunk and White. I forget the actual title, just the authors, but it's pretty much a grammar handbook.
Elements of Style
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Elements of Style
Yeah, that one.
Other books I have--
101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists--This one has snippets and quotes from lots of different authors on different topics like procrastination, ideas, agents, editing, etc.
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury--Collection of essays Bradbury wrote about how he writes, and some are just reflective about what he's written, like one looking back at writing Fahrenheit 451.
A book by Terry Brooks, similar to the one by Bradbury
A book with lots of questions and answers by Janet Evanovitch. Haven't read it completely, but skimming through looks like a lot of it was taken from the FAQs on her website, with maybe some extra stuff.
Others that I haven't read yet--Danse Macabre by Stephen King, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers(though I don't know that this one will be helpful for me, skimming it, it looks like a lot of what I learned in writing classes), On writing Horror, On writing Mystery--both Writer's Digest Books, Orson Scott Card's book about writing science fiction, a Writer's Digest thing about writing science fiction/fantasy--it excerpts Scott Card's book, and has some stuff from Terry Brooks, I think, and Time to Write. The last I haven't read because I've been too busy writing, and most recently reading through the draft to revise.
Most of my stuff tends to lean towards speculative fiction cause that's what I write, and I get more out of essays and such than most How-tos. I might have some other books, but at least a couple of them I stopped reading because I found them less than useful.
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Josh Vogt who sometimes posts here, has a website, http://www.jrvogt.com/writerresources.htm (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.
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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.
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The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. It's a great read, focusing mainly on the Hero's Journey story method. Highly recommended.
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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.