Looking for help on editing, revising, inspiration, craft, writer's block? Here are some books that have helped me in the past. There is no particular order, some are better than others. If you have any books that have helped YOU as a writer, email me and let me know!
BOOK LIST
ANOTHER NEW BOOK!
2010 Writer's Market
This is any serious writer's Holy Bible. While there are Writer's Market books for poetry and songwriting, children's books, and literary agents, the compete writer's market is the only place to go for everything. They have small presses, large presses; presses that specialize in genre fiction, liike horror, mystery, sci-fi. The book lists every nonfiction publisher, memoir, history, etc. (It lists just about every publisher in the United States) It has a large section on the how to's of publishing your fiction, with examples of good query letters, cover letters. There is advice from professionals. It gets into everything. It even lists writing contests all over the country . Basically, and I can't say it any other way than this, if you don't have this book, you will not get published. There, I said it. If you don't have the Writer's Market--if you know someone in the industry this doesn't count for you--but if you aren't lucky enough to know someone in the industry, like me and millions of other writers, you need this book.
Robert's Rules of Writing by Robert Masello (Very unconventional advice from someone I've never really heard of, but who knows what the hell I know, right? One of his big pet peeves is journal writing, something I take very seriously. journal writing can help with writer's block by freewriting or just jotting down ideas, recording a conversation or toying with a scene. He hates them. I mean, he wants to burn them in a bonfire ala Hitler's Germany. So when I say it's unconventional, I mean it's VERY unconventional. Some of it will throw back in your face everything you've learned about writing. His words are to be taken with a grain of salt. Yet, keep the salt handy, there is some advice that is not only good advice, but makes some of the advice I've gotten downright ridiculous. He takes things and twists them to make more sense; as if I have gone this far and this one fundamental ideal I had is wrong, and yet IT'S RIGHT ON! So it's a certainly helpful, but at the very least, is an entertaining reference book, and those area quite rare.)
Revising Fiction by David Madden ISBN: 0-7607-3101-2 (Absolutely the best book I've read on revising. It goes through all the elements. The "style" section is astounding. This guy gives you the early drafts of major works by great authors and then says what's wrong with them, then shows you how they changed it. Highly recommended.)
Imaginative Writing by Janet Burroway ISBN: 0-321-35740-x (Good stuff in here. Some of it is basic, but some of it is rock solid. Lots of good exercises to get the brain going. Recommended)
The Portable MFA in Creative Writing by The New York Writers Workshop ISBN 13: 978-1-58297-350-0 10: 1-58297-350-4 (Some of it is pretentious, some of it is really great, some of it is really stuff you should have learned in high school creative writing. But it's good, and I recommend it. It's a bit pricey though. It's not a necessity if you're already a decent writer. But it does go in depth about a lot of stuff that can make you a BETTER writer)
On Writing by Stephen King ISBN: 0-684-85352-3 (some good advice, take it or leave it advice, and some is just shit in a shoe. But there is some good stuff in here)
The Writing Life edited by Marie Arana ISBN: 1-58648-149-5 (Again, some of this is basic shit like in the King book. Some of it really helped inspire me, though. At times you sit there thinking, "Right, got it, you can move on." But there's some really good advice about the writing life and about what can get your mind going. Craft is also discussed ad nauseam. It gets a little dry at times, but I recommend it.)
Creative Writer's Handbook by Philip K. Jason and Allan B. Lefcowitz ISBN: 0-13-787912-1 (This is very technical, but invaluable stuff. There's a lot of academic sounding techniques that gets very dry and boring at times. But in the end, there's a lot of information that simply gets you to write better)
Deepening Fiction by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren ISBN: 0-321-19537-x (I thought this was a very helpful book, but some may disagree. I thought their advice was helpful for me because while they stress the need for straight fiction, they do delve into a little more modern style work. The sections are very well set up, and the language is pretty clear. Good craft book. Not a necessity, but recommended)
Building Fiction by Jesse Kercheval ISBN: 1-884910-28-9 (Very basic stuff. I'm not sure how far along you are in creative writing, but this book is VERY basic stuff. Like plot structure, the importance of a coherent ending that satisfies the reader. I don't know if I'd recommend it if you're already pretty well into your novel. If you're just starting out, it might be helpful. But my guess is that you already know most of the stuff in here)
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard ISBN: 0-06-091988-4 (Great, great, great book! This is the kind of book that when I'd read one chapter I was ready to write all night. There's advice on craft, motivation, meditation. It's really terrific. Highly recommended)
Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster ISBN: 0-15-609180-1 (If John Gardner seems like a total jackass-pompous-prick to you--as he does to me--Forster is a little more mellow. He's traditional, so it's like having your grandfather, who wrote during a time when there was almost a taboo on being experimental (save Joyce, Woolf, and Henry Miller, et.al.), telling you how to write when you're a modern writer. You take it or leave it, but there's some basic things in here that every novelist should know. Real, true advice that I think you should read, if not for the advice, then to at least know what you DON'T want to do)
Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress ISBN: 0-89879-815-9 (I thought this was a fantastic and very useful book. I read this while I lived in New York City when a roommate gave it to me. I used this book to help create Dolby--in part, mind you. A lot of the elements of this book are gone over in Revising Fiction, but if you really want to delve into character, this book is just about as good as it gets. That's my opinion anyway. Highly recommended)
A Writer's Paris by Eric Maisel ISBN: 1-58297-359-8 (This book I used to get me in the writing mood. Reading it is like sitting at a cafe in Paris and writing in a leatherbound journal. It's very intimate and gets the juices flowing. Reading it makes you proud to be a writer. It's very inspirational--that's what I found anyway. It's a book you read a little at a time, but it's something that soothes the soul and gets you ready to sit down and make art. Recommended)
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg ISBN: 1-59030-316-4 (Very "hippy-dippy" if you ask me. A lot of "get inside your soul and write what you see." I thought some of it was good. She takes a zen approach to writing that I found kind of annoying. But in the end, there are some very good advice about getting your brain going. The subtitle is called: Freeing the Writer Within. So you can already tell she's into the spiritual side of writing. I'm more into the craft side. I don't do a lot of meditating when I write, so this wasn't too helpful; but I think there are some great tidbits in it. That probably sums it up best in my opinion. Give it a shot, but it's not one of my better experiences)
The Spooky Art by Norman Mailer ISBN: 0-8129-7128-0 (I thought this was a great book. It really got me inside my own head and made me think like a writer. Unlike the King book, I took this one a bit more seriously. Because King wrote Maximum Overdrive and Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead. So you decide. King says a lot of great stuff about craft and how to work your novel. Mailer tells you how to think like a writer. Both were good, I liked this one better. Recommended)
Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block by Karen E. Peterson ISBN: 1-59337-503-4 (Technical, yes, but very useful if you get yourself so frustrated that you can't write anymore. I was at a point where I hadn't written anything of substance for something like four months and I read this, and slowly I came back out of my shell. Use this only for emergencies)
How to Write and Sell Your First Novel by Oscar Collier ISBN: 0-89879-770-5 (Good, useful, pretty basic. I used this when I was writing Pretty Things back in 2003. It's good, but it's probably too basic for a writer of your talent. The selling part was interesting, but at this point that probably isn't what your looking for. Use only when desperate for easy answers)
I have a few other books on getting books published, getting agents, writing queries and coverletters. To be honest, some of the most useful books I've used haven't been writer's reference books. I used books on quotes, books on vocabulary, small trade paperbacks that cost six bucks.
Also, I have some links on this website that may be helpful. Take a look if you have time. But these are the books that I have that I've USED that have given me some kind of help. The best of them are: Revising Fiction; Dynamic Characters; Deepening Fiction; Dillard's Writing Life; A Writer's Paris and just to throw in another one, Creative Writer's Handbook. The MFA book is good, and you might want to consider it, but it's mad expensive and it's VERY pretentious. Not as bad as Gardner, but still: get a group of New York writers together in a room and you get a very different sounding book than, say, a group of writers from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Anyway, I hope this helps. There are other books I know of that might be of some help. If you get Revising Fiction there are LOADS of books listed in the bibliography that are very useful. If you're getting one book, get that one. Basically it helps you revise, but if you read it first, you can write with the information already in your head, which makes revision a LOT easier.
~AC