Comments on: Recommendations For Books On Writing Generally

Question: Recommendations For Books On Writing Generally

xenization — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:21:32 -0800

I need recommendations for books on writing that address general craft issues - help?

I'm doing a research essay for school about how university textbooks and commercial books tackle the subject of writing. The former I've got covered. As for the latter, I'm currently putting together a list.

The wrinkle: I'm looking for popular/commercial titles that address writing in a general sense, rather than paying specific attention to the conventions of a given form (memoir, fiction, poetry, etc.). Even ones that talk about a specific form AND more general issues (idea generating, revision, sentence construction, etc.) would be fair game. Some examples:

On Writing by Stephen King
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Other suggestions? Thanks!

By: spectrevsrector

spectrevsrector — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:29:46 -0800

I love Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark. 50 short chapters, each on an aspect of writing. It goes from real nuts and bolts - choosing words, constructing a sentence - to structure and dialogue. He's addressing fiction and non-fiction, with examples from journalism as well as novels.

I have a few writing manuals sitting around (I do tend to pick them up if I see them secondhand, possibly as a form of procrastination), but this is the only one I've found genuinely useful, and I've bought a couple of friends copies when they've become interested in writing.

By: 256

256 — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:34:52 -0800

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin

By: Egg Shen

Egg Shen — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:35:59 -0800

John Gardner's The Art of Fiction

By: BibiRose

BibiRose — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:46:54 -0800

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

By: BibiRose

BibiRose — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:49:36 -0800

Writing the Breakout Novel is extremely commercially oriented, much more so than any others mentioned so far, but it has become very popular, along with a companion workbook.

By: BibiRose

BibiRose — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:51:38 -0800

Last one, I promise: I You Want to Write by Brenda Euland.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:56:12 -0800

Seconding Gardner's book, and emphasizing that, while "fiction" is in the title, much of the book is about how to write an English sentence that sounds right and feels right and makes sense, which applies to any kind of prose writing.

By: rumposinc

rumposinc — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:00:40 -0800

Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter--taught in a lot of MFA programs, including those that have workshops for commercial and genre fiction.

By: knile

knile — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:03:45 -0800

From my own experience, two readable & useful references:
Ann Longknife & K.D. Sullivan - The Art of Styling Sentences
Italo Calvino - Six Memos for the Next Millenium

And one I haven't read but just learned about the other day: Robert McKee's Story, which is screenwriting-centric but surely applicable to story-crafting in general. Watch him give his seminar in YouTube clips. Other artists have represented it in other forms.

By: Longtime Listener

Longtime Listener — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:18:46 -0800

The Critical Writings of Ford Madox Ford has some great observations and advice.

His description of a neophyte finally getting it:

He will come into his own when, reading those works a final time in a spirit of forgetfulness, for pleasure and with critical faculties put to sleep, he shall say: "Such and such a passage pleases me," and casting back into his subconsciousness shall add: "This fellow gets that effect by a cadenced paragraph of long, complicated sentences, interspersed with shorter statements, ending with a long, dying fall of words and the final taptaptap of a three monosyllabled phrase..." Just like that.

By: Picklegnome

Picklegnome — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:25:41 -0800

Techniques of the Selling Writer.

By: fivesavagepalms

fivesavagepalms — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:29:42 -0800

"On Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular," by L. Rust Hills.

By: Ghostride The Whip

Ghostride The Whip — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:31:45 -0800

Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:49:57 -0800

Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block, Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress

By: 5_13_23_42_69_666

5_13_23_42_69_666 — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:44:57 -0800

Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters