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What do you recommend as reading material to improve writing for beginners? If one recommendation is put per answer and can be voted separately a good list of resources should build up.
(37)More posts by @Radia543
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I'm thoroughly enjoying How to Write Like Tolstoy, which along with On Writing are the most relatable books about writing.
I admit that Richard Cohen's book caught me by the title (who wouldn't want to write like Tolstoy?), but it's much, much more than that - explaining the pros and cons of viewpoint, voice, style, even the "virtues" of plagiarism, whilst scattering all of the insight with gossip and snarky comments from famous and notable writers, much of which was witnessed first hand or from his network.
Richard has been an editor to some big names, and is an author himself, and the way he writes makes it feel incredibly achievable.
If you're past the blank page stage, this is a motivation to crack on. It's truly a well researched book which reads like a great article from a Sunday paper - immensely digestible and satisfying.
BTW I've not written a review for the book on Amazon. Having read what I've just written, perhaps I should.
For writing in general I found these titles helpful:
Keys to Great Writing by Stephen Wilbers
Words Fail Me by Patricia T O'Conner
Write to Ignite by Deborah Joyner Johnson
For writing dialogue I found the aptly named book
Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella very helpful
Virginia Woolf : "A Room of One's Own"
George Orwell : "Politics and The English Language," and "Why I
Write."
These are two books that have influenced my self study of the novel and narration.
Letters to a Young Novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa. MVL writes to a fictional young novelist about process and the conceptual work of writing a novel.
Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster. EMF writes about the elements of a novel: plot, narration, etc. Originally delivered as lectures at Cambridge.
Together, the two books create a sort of 3D image of fiction writing that spoke to me. Of course, there is not one, singular best book in this space. You will find one (or more) that helps you in the way you want to learn and grow.
Paul Carr is a British writer, one of the best I have read. Have a look here thebooksmap.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/books-for-writers-and-enterpreneurs.html
A friend of mine recommended James N. Frey’s work (How to Write a Damn Good Novel, and so on). I was underwhelmed by those books, but I noticed that Frey frequently cited Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing, which I did find very helpful.
I also recommend John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction.
Professional Writing Skills: A Write It Well Guide
Author : Natasha Terk
This book can serve your purpose. It provides a step-by-step process for planning business letters, memos, e-mail, and other business documents. It teaches how to position your message from the reader's point of view, write persuasively, include the right information, and organize the information logically,expanded sections on language, punctuation, and grammar offer busy professionals the tools they need to get their message across clearly, concisely, and professionally.
Having books to teach you those fundamentals is great. But, perhaps you don't need a book at all if your purpose is to learn the basics. There are a lot of resources online where you can learn the building blocks of the craft of writing.
Here are some websites that I find quite informative and useful:
DailyWritingTips (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/)
ChompChomp
Grammar Girl
If you decide to get serious in your writing, then you should read these three books:
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark
A lot of people also recommend Stephen King's On Writing. If you want to be an author, then I think reading that book will do you great.
Bonus Tip:
Since like me, you're concerned about your grammar, punctuation, etc. I want to share with you a free online tool that I regularly use: SpellCheckPlus.com. Have fun writing!
P.S. I apologize being unable to provide a direct link in the majority of sites. Since I'm a new user, I still have limitations on the amount of links that I can use.
I think I have a new favourite book about writing:
Story Engineering
This book made me go from pantser to outliner. It focuses on story creation, not writing techniques. Do note that it's very much about making sellable, commercially popular stories. So much that it might turn a few people off. I write mostly to entertain, and not so much for the art of it, so I loved it.
Death Sentence: The Decay Of Public Language, by Don Watson is an incredibly astute and witty look at the abuses of language in modern business-speak. It's not explicitly about how to write well, but it does point out what not to do, and will help develop critical thinking about writing in general. It's also very entertaining :)
Annie Dillard's The Writing Life
Umberto Eco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
bell hooks's remembered rapture
Behn & Twichell's The Practice of Poetry
I recently stumbled upon How NOT to Write a Novel a few months back and have read it twice already. Well worth the time and money, IMHO, and I own most of the other titles on this list.
Here's a link: www.amazon.com/How-Write-Novel-Misstep-Misstep/dp/0061357952
The Elements of Style and The Chicago Manual of Style will keep you from having to reinvent the wheel.
The Art of the Novel by Henry James is perfection yet a bone-dry read. Thankfully, this nineteenth century gem is condensed into a 20 page afterword to be found in.
The House of Fiction, an Anthology of the Short Story (Charles Scribner's Sons, NYC, 1950/1960) by Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate. Tagging Henry James' insight to these stories really works. This anthology is the definition of a good read. It will keep you on the road.
For a great book on becoming an artist, a writer, a painter, or a musician: No Longer Human (New Directions 1958) by Osamu Dazai is the whole story.
Joesph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces
I think that writers tend to love mythology, which jives perfectly with how helpful it is for writers to know mythology. This book recounts and unites myths from many cultures throughout the ages under the thesis that important stories-- from parables to fiction to the way we announce breaking news or share personal experiences-- are reappearances of a single, enduring story whose structure lies in the "Hero's Journey."
With inspiration from this book, a new writer can not only gain a better sense of her characters' (and possibly her own) grand story, but will also find inspiration to continue writing, even if only to further contribute to the grand story that unites her with story-tellers from all times and grounds her work in what touching stories are really all about: a universal human connection.
Two companions to this book are The Power of Myth in book form, an interview of the author by journalist Bill Moyers, and the actual The Power of Myth documentary-interview on DVD.
To make his points, Campbell draws from psychology, religion, mythology, cultural ritual, and philosophy; and he lays out character archetypes and stages in a hero's journey. If you want the same information but prefer it in a bite-sized portion, there is Christopher Vogler's The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, which scoops an extra dollop of Carl Jung on top of Campbell's work and flattens it out into an undemanding template for writers, chiefly screenwriters.
Aristotle's Poetics
Several translations are available for free online and can be purchased in bookstores.
Sample:
With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is
always preferable to the improbable possible.
In Haruki Murakami's novel 1Q84, the main character is a writer. It's possible to get a pretty good idea of Murakami's writing methods just by reading the story. There are some extremely simple tips and tricks in there, and I learned a lot about writing just from reading it.
Here are some of the books I am always going back to and recommending:
Writing Fiction: A guide to Narrative Craft, by Jannet Burroway - This is an awesome book that you can keep re-reading and learning new things from. Burroway sets out a series of guidelines for your prose which remain true to all genres. You don't have to adhere to all her advice, there is certainly room within her guidelines for experimentation, but you'd be wise to seriously consider Burroway's advice.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott - If you're looking for a bit of encouragement and life lessons, look no further. When I was first assigned this book I was really worried. It sounded like self help and I didn't want to read it. These days I still look over it every now and again. It reads more like a memoir than a writer's tips and tricks book, but certainly worth your time.
On Writing, by Stephen King - If you in any way enjoy him as a writer, it might be another way to go. He discusses many elements of the craft, but the first half of the book discusses his life as a writer. The whole thing is a very fast read, and his ideas and opinions on craft decisions later in the book are certainly worth considering.
If you're interested in reading a bit more about the creative process for a number of writers, check out The Paris Review Interviews. You can find some of them online, and the rest are published in a series of volumes. It's always interesting to hear other people's opinions and takes on how they write.
I have a large number of writing books, but the only one that I really keep going back to is Artful Sentences by Virginia Tufte. The book is a collection of 1000+ beautiful sentences organized by structure. Reading each sentence and writing my own sentence in the margins using the same structure has had an incredible effect on my writing. The book added a huge number of great "sentence great" to my writing toolkit.
"Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" is a nuts-and-bolts book that taught me an awful lot about how to write effectively.
for exercises, check out the gotham writers' workshop writing fiction guide.
for inspiration, i really like brian lamb's booknotes books in which lots of great writers talk about their habits and processes.
I would strongly recommend these three books for any author, published or aspiring:
On Writing by Stephen King
Plot & Structure by James Campbell
Characters and Viewpoints by Orson Scott Card
I'd also commend the yearly Writer's Market books - they have great articles in there for writers.
And you can't beat Strunk and White's Elements of Style. You don't have to follow every single rule, but it's a good idea to know them anyway, if for no other reason than to know when to break the rules for maximum emphasis. It's the difference between sloppy writing and truly creative writing.
I must add to the praise for Bird by Bird. I've been a professional, full-time writer and editor for 18 years, but I found Bird by Bird immensely supportive (especially her advice about getting the words written down first, without worrying about editing) and laugh-out-loud funny. It's not only for beginners.
I'm not a fiction writer, but my husband was quite fond of Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card and Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress.
My own "Wow, that helped!" book was The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, which helped me figure out the difference between "that's an idea" and "that's a story." It was a gift from a mentor/editor and I just gave a copy to a mentee of my own.
The following are the books I have found especially helpful over the years
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative
Craft (8th Edition) by Janet Burroway
et. al. This is the first book on the
craft I bought based on the
recommendation of the instructor in
the first fiction writing class I
took back in college. It is now in
its 8th edition.
Points of View edited by James Moffett & Kenneth R. McElheny. This
is a collection of short stories
written from different points of
view. I find it helpful now and then
to go back and help find the
narrative voice for a piece I am
working on.
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster
Hope this helps
I found 'Get Started in Creative Writing' tremendously inspiring. A good quick intro that covers several genres and media, and has a lot of good exercises for creativity and getting started.
Orson Scott Card: Characters and Viewpoint
Keith Johnstone: Impro for storytellers (intended for improv actors, but energizing to read and it gives useful tips about what makes a story roll)
Jerome Stern: Making shapely fiction
Paul Matthews: Sing me the creation (exercises intended for poets, but useful for prose writing, too)
The following were very informative for me, for various reasons:
How to Write Best Selling Fiction, by Dean Koontz: no-nonsense, practical, full of real-world examples, though a bit dated.
The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells, by Ben Bova: examines the mechanics of what the craft of writing good fiction consists of (note Bova was an editor for many years, so his insight is doubly valid).
On Writing, by Stephen King: more of a biography of how he did it (as he admits), but incredibly insightful and very well written.
Writing Fiction for Dummies - I really enjoyed that one. I also found Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach very useful.
Christopher Vogler's summary of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, "A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces".
Story by Robert McKee is one of my favorites. It's about screenwriting, but has a huge amount of information on storytelling in general.
A few of my favourite writing books:
Steven King's On Writing - hands down the most inspirational read on writing I've read (and his process is different than many).
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves - a witty read on punctuation, great for sharpening that part of your brain.
Sin and syntax - a book of examples of good and bad syntax, some of the most fluid writing I've seen.
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