Writers on writing?

December 11, 2006 2:55 PM

Writers on writing?

I'm looking for books and essays where writers talk about the process of writing.
Not the 'starving artist in a garret' lifestyle pieces so much as the actual nuts and bolts stuff, the how tos, the dos and don'ts, and theories of what makes a piece of fiction work or fail. I've read 'On Writing' by Stephen King but I'm hungry for more because:
a) every author has their own perspective to bring
and
b) I think a lot of the prose he cites as examples is pretty crappy
Suggestions of on- and offline material (still in print, if possible) would be fantastic.

posted by RokkitNite to Media & Arts (39 answers total)

From Ursula K. LeGuin:
Steering the Craft, here is an excerpt
The Wave in the Mind
Also, several articles (including a rejection letter!) on writing on her website.
posted by nelleish at 3:04 PM on December 11, 2006

There are lots of great collections of interviews with authors out there. This year I read three that were all excellent. Lawrence Grobel's Endangered Species, The Believer's Book of Writers Talking to Writers, and The Paris Review Interviews vol i.

Reading Myself and Others by Philip Roth is also interesting.

Invariably, someone will enter and recommend Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I'll cast my anti-vote for it right now. I hate it. ;)

Not exactly what you're looking for but I can't recommend Keys to Great Writing enough to people looking for books on writing. I've never found a better book on grammar, punctuation, style, etc.
posted by dobbs at 3:07 PM on December 11, 2006

Writing Down the Bones - found in just about every bookshop in the whole wide world
posted by parmanparman at 3:07 PM on December 11, 2006

Hemingway never actually wrote a book about writing, but there is an interesting collection of excerpts from his personal letters called Ernest Hemingway on Writing.
posted by mauglir at 3:08 PM on December 11, 2006

You say you've already read Stephen King's book...you read the best one, right there.

Another good one is "Bird by Bird," by Anne Lamott.
posted by Milkman Dan at 3:09 PM on December 11, 2006

Journal of a Novel, by Ernest Hemingway.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 3:10 PM on December 11, 2006

I will second Le Guin's Steering the Craft, and add: Storyteller, by Kate Wilhelm. Your library will have both.
posted by jellicle at 3:10 PM on December 11, 2006

Eek! Journal of a novel is by John Steinbeck...I was reading the posts above while I was writing and flubbed up....
posted by whimsicalnymph at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2006

Also, I haven't read it, but I have heard good things about How to Read Like a Writer by Francine Prose.
posted by dobbs at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2006

On Directing Film by David Mamet really, really nails the essentials of good structure, even beyond the screenplay. I've read my copy several dozen times.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 3:12 PM on December 11, 2006

Also, Editor of Genius, the Biography of Max Perkins is excellent. (He was Hemingway's, Thomas Wolfe's, and Fitzgerald's editor.)
posted by whimsicalnymph at 3:12 PM on December 11, 2006

Ones that I have read or had recommended to me:
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, a book of short essays and exhortations from her time teaching fiction writing that's been useful to me at times and has been very, very useful to other people I know.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser (a style guide rather than essays; the style guied I've seen recommended most often)
A Stay Against Confusion by Ron Hansen, essays about writing fiction and its connection to religious faith
If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino, a surreal novel that's partly about writing novels and the nature of fiction

Other ones that came up in an Amazon search:
Illuminations, anthology of great writers' comments on writing.
On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner and Raymond Carver
Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher
Take Joy by Jane Yolen
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

Jack Hodgins' "A Passion for Narrative" Lesser-known and worth searching out. He was my fiction prof in my senior year at UVic.
posted by solid-one-love at 3:20 PM on December 11, 2006

As dobbs notes, Bird by Bird is a polarizing book. Some people love it; some hate it. Check it out at the library, or read an arbitrary section at the bookstore before buying it since Lamott's voice might drive you crazy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:22 PM on December 11, 2006

Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist is about as good as the genre gets; he has an essay collection, On Writers and Writing, that's also superb, with a compelling bonus short story about a werewolf. Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel is pleasant but not as interesting as you might hope (it's his diary, basically, and reads like it).

Here's a left-field suggestion: Dave Sim's Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing. Cost you about two bucks from half.com, and it's about writing and publishing comic books, but it's as inspirational and blunt as anything written about novel-writing. He doesn't attempt to be cute, he just lays out how to be a creative professional, from Day One (how to hold your pen - I'm serious, and it's a great read) through one's dotage. His grotesque moral views notwithstanding, Sim's writing on the creative process are a goddamn treasure. If you google for 'dave sim notes from the president archive' you'll get much of the text of the Guide, but it's nice to have it in print in one place.

Then go read William Goldman's first Hollywood book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, and its sequel, Which Lie Did I Tell?. They're about screenwriting and Hollywood, and have more to teach about story construction as a profession than almost anything in the more explicitly literary section of the bookstore.

Pynchon's introduction to his Slow Learner early-short-stories collection is a valuable resource as well.
posted by waxbanks at 3:29 PM on December 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

I very much like Bird By Bird, by the way. But her maxims (e.g. let yourself write 'shitty first drafts') might be more digestible in a less sentimental form. I'm with Dobbs and LobsterMitten: Lamott's writing very well might not be your cup of tea, but it's one of those books that tend to change lives.
posted by waxbanks at 3:31 PM on December 11, 2006

You know, all of my English professors, even and especially those who taught writing courses, emphasized the need for good ol' Elements of Style by Strunk & White. Heavy on nuts and bolts if for some reason you haven't heard of it.

I get fed up with many writing guides because many writers give advice through the lens of their own specific style. I would not, for example, take advice from Dickens or Hemingway if my style tended more towards Danielle Steel or John Steinbeck, you know? Strunk and White will teach you the very, very basics from a more objective view.
posted by landedjentry at 3:42 PM on December 11, 2006

On closer preview:

I hear Writing Down the Bones and Steinbeck's book are good, although I did enjoy On Writing.
posted by landedjentry at 4:03 PM on December 11, 2006

How to Write a Damned Good Novel by James Frey. I don't think it's the same person as Oprah's fraud author, but I really liked Damned Good Novel because it addressed practical issues in how to construct an exciting, fun-to-read story, whereas some of the other how-to books have spent a little too much time glorifying the mystique of being a writer.
posted by FYKshun at 4:15 PM on December 11, 2006

The New York Times column "Writers on Writing" archive is here.
posted by xod at 4:15 PM on December 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed The Writer's Chapbook very much.
posted by Failure31 at 4:21 PM on December 11, 2006

I got the audiobook of Bird by Bird (she reads it herself) and I found that a very enjoyable way to consume it (on long walks).
posted by birdie birdington at 4:45 PM on December 11, 2006

If you can swallow Ayn Rand, there's her "The Art of Fiction" and "The Art of Nonfiction".

Both of them are intended to be practical (the fiction one is based on a seminar she gave to a few close friends). Of course, being Ayn Rand, it's about writing the "right" (read: her) way, but I suppose you'll get a unique perspective, especially since she does talk about stuff like philosophy in fiction and what the writer should do.
posted by champthom at 4:49 PM on December 11, 2006

Lawrence Block's books on writing, in particular Telling Lies For Fun And Profit and Spider, Spin Me A Webare EXCELLENT. I found them very helpful in my own writing.
posted by Rubber Soul at 4:57 PM on December 11, 2006

These may not be exactly what you're looking for, but they're damn useful.

There are many nuggets of information dispersed throughout The Paris Review's interviews, but you may have to dig around. It's full of fascinating stuff, though, so hopefully it won't be a chore.

There's an archive of 50 Poynter articles, which is very helpful.
posted by theiconoclast31 at 5:02 PM on December 11, 2006

On Moral Fiction - John Gardner.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:23 PM on December 11, 2006

My absolute favorite piece of writing on writing is George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. It is not precisely about fiction, but can be easily applied to fiction.

The reason it is so very excellent is that Orwell understood the need for preciseness in language, especially political language (but in a rather broad sense, all fiction is "political," i.e., having to do with the human condition). The essay gives you great examples of imprecise language, and why it fails to communicate any thing at all, and then supplies equally great examples of very exact, evocative writing that communicates extremely well. Orwell then breaks down why each example is poor, or good.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 5:52 PM on December 11, 2006

• The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. John Gardner.
• Aspects of the Novel. E. M. Forster.
• Becoming a Writer. Dorothea Brande.
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anne Lamott.
• Dancing Naked: Narrative Strategies for Writing Across Centuries. Di Brandt.
• In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop. Steve Kowit
• Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing. Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer.
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Stephen King.
• A Passion for Narrative: A Guide to Writing Fiction - Revised Edition. Jack Hodgins.
• Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual. Rita Mae Brown.
• Steering the Craft: Exercises on Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew. Ursula K. LeGuin.
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. Robert McKee.
• The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. Richard Hugo.
• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Natalie Goldberg
• The Writing Life. Annie Dillard.
• Writing Maniac: How I grew up to be a writer (and you can, too!) Sheree Fitch. (IIRC this is aimed at kids.)
• Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity. Ray Bradbury.

posted by joannemerriam at 6:02 PM on December 11, 2006

This may not be useful to you, but it might be useful for others in the thread. Michigan publishes an entire Poets on Poetry series. You can read a list of titles and authors for the entire series here.
posted by theantikitty at 6:04 PM on December 11, 2006

There are great quick n' dirty online glimpses into the writing life. Here are three of my favorites:

-Last month, NPR.org had "Novel Ideas," a series in honor of NaNoWriMo, where authors of all stripes were interviewed about the writing process.

-I once spent an entire afternoon looking through the author interviews at Powells.com. These interviews aren't as focused on the craft, but I gained some great insights nonetheless.

-Poppy Z. Brite is very honest about what difficulties may come with not only the writing process, but the writing life. I highly recommend her journal.She said in her last entry that she may be taking a break from putting her life online. This may be really selfish of me to say, but I hope she doesn't.
posted by princesspathos at 6:43 PM on December 11, 2006

The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera
posted by Bistle at 7:15 PM on December 11, 2006

Wow, dozens of suggestions go by, including two by John Gardner himself, before The Art of Fiction is mentioned. The only book that really speaks to the importance of how prose sounds. I learned more from Gardner about how to write a novel than from any other source.
posted by escabeche at 7:34 PM on December 11, 2006

Orson Scott Card has two books on writing (and teaches English, I believe at UNC).

How to Write Sciene Fiction.

Characters and Viewpoints.
posted by filmgeek at 7:35 PM on December 11, 2006

link 1

Link 2
posted by filmgeek at 7:36 PM on December 11, 2006

The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch is a collection of "writers on writing." Koch weaves advice and anecdotes from various famous authors into his own idea of the writing process. I read the book for a creative writing class, then again last month when trying to write a novel for NaNoWriMo. The book is fairly practical and gives an interesting spectrum of writerly advice.
posted by loulou718 at 7:47 PM on December 11, 2006

Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead: a Writer on Writing sounds like exactly what you're after. It's about the nuts and bolts of writing, as well as the larger questions of why people write, who they write for, etc.
posted by twirlypen at 8:35 PM on December 11, 2006

Write Away by Elizabeth George is about the practical approach to writing. A bit dry, but very interesting.

My own library contains many of the suggestions listed above, but I have to chime in the two Lawrence Block books. They're also highly entertaining.

I really recommend Self Editing for Fiction Writers. It illustrates good writing, bad writing, and how to write the difference. I found it very, very helpful.
posted by Savannah at 7:41 AM on December 12, 2006

the actual nuts and bolts stuff, the how tos, the dos and don'ts, and theories of what makes a piece of fiction work or fail

Self Editing for Fiction Writers does exactly this.
posted by Savannah at 7:42 AM on December 12, 2006

The First Time I Got Paid For It

and William Goldman as above
posted by vronsky at 2:59 PM on December 12, 2006