Forum / Books on Writing

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    Wesley Baines
    May 29, 06:14pm

    A question for everyone: what are some your favorite books on writing? They don't necessarily have to be about the craft of writing, but I'm curious to see what books helped you all the most in your journey as wordsmiths.

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    whatwouldbukowskido
    May 29, 06:18pm

    http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fiction-Notes-Craft-Writers/dp/0679734031/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401386678&sr=1-1&keywords=john+gardner

    http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Novelist-John-Gardner/dp/0393320030/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401386678&sr=1-3&keywords=john+gardner

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    James Lloyd Davis
    May 29, 06:45pm

    From Charles Baxter, the best I've ever read on the subject of writing:

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Subtext-Beyond-Plot/dp/1555974732

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    David Ackley
    May 29, 07:15pm

    MYSTERY AND MANNERS by Flannery O'Connor

    The Paris Review Interviews, available online.

    THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, Strunk and White. ( Sorry to be so obvious, but there it is.)

    MODERN ENGLISH USAGE,Fowler. My edition is copyright 1946 and still rides pretty well.

    The Letters of Anton Chekhov

    WRITING DEGREE ZERO, Roland Barthes

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    Christian Bell
    May 29, 08:01pm

    For me, the best books are the ones to which I keep returning:

    Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

    Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes by Roberta Allen

    Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer by Bruce Holland Rogers

  • Frankie Saxx
    May 29, 09:00pm

    Marcus Speh turned me on to Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer.

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    Barry Basden
    May 29, 09:46pm

    Love these lists. Always find more to buy.

    Lately I've used these:

    Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, Tara Masih, ed.

    A Pocket Guide to Flash Fiction, Randall Brown

    Self-editing for Fiction Writers, Browne and King

    Sisson's Synonyms, An Unabridged Synonym and Related-Terms Locator

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    Joani Reese
    May 30, 12:57pm

    Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett
    The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
    A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
    The Practice of Poetry, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twitchell

    Strunk and White Elements of Style
    Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss
    The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

    Any short story by Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, or Ernest Hemingway

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    Sandy Ebner
    May 30, 06:06pm

    Oh, where to start?

    Elements of Style
    On Writing/ Stephen King
    Bird by Bird/ Anne Lamott
    On Writing Well/ William Zinsser
    The Forest for the Trees/ Betsy Lerner
    The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression/ Angela Ackerman

    The Secret Miracle, The Novelist's Handbook/ edited by Danial Alarcon

    Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction/ Jeff VanderMeer (You won't believe how good this book is. You have to see it to believe it. Great for any writer, no matter what kind of fiction you're writing. You can thank me later.)

  • Frankie Saxx
    May 30, 07:15pm

    @Sandy Just got Wonderbookfrom a pal who had an extra copy. I haven't really gotten deep into it yet, but the book itself is gorgeous.

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    Sandy Ebner
    May 30, 08:30pm

    @ Frankie. It's one of a kind, for sure :-)

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    Charlotte Hamrick
    May 31, 04:53am

    Agree with Christian, I always go to Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.
    Another go-to for me is Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge

    I'm definitely buying Wonderbook. It looks wonderful.

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    Chris Okum
    May 31, 05:47am

    Tintin and the Secret of Literature by Tom McCarthy
    The Delighted States by Adam Thirlwell
    The Counterfeiters by Hugh Kenner
    City of Words Tony Tanner

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    Amanda Harris
    May 31, 12:06pm

    I don't use as many craft books; I just generally take hints from other writers and read the things that inspire me.

    With that being said:

    Stuff that Influenced my creative writing:

    The Naive and Sentimental Novelist--Orhan Pamuk
    Paradise Lost, especially Book I
    Anything by Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski or Amanda Auchter

    Stuff that Influenced my criticism:

    A Manual for Writers on Research Papers-Kate L. Turabian
    Cruel Optimism--Lauren Berlant
    Anything by Foucault or Barthes

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    Ann Bogle
    May 31, 02:29pm

    LOVE THESE LISTS! (ABOVE)

    Not a book _about_ writing but her writing, that I desire -- for now this bit by Mavis Gallant:

    "I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe -- something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing -- how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?"

    --from the Introduction to Margaret Atwood's _Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing_ (Cambridge UP, 2002), the Empson Lectures, that includes these lecture chapters:

    1 Orientation: Who do you think you are? (What is "a writer," and how did I become one?)

    2 Duplicity: The jekyll hand, the hyde hand, and the slippery double (Why there are always two)

    3 Dedication: The Great God Pen (Apollo vs. Mammon: at whose altar should the writer worship?)

    4 Temptation: Prospero, the Wizard of Oz, Mephisto & Co. (Who waves the wand, pulls the strings, or signs the Devil's book?)

    5 Communion: Nobody to Nobody (The eternal triangle: the writer, the reader, and the book as go-between)

    6 Descent: Negotiating with the dead (Who makes the trip to the Underworld, and why?)

    Notes
    Bibliography
    Acknowledgments
    Index

    Many epigraphs enclosed therein, including this from Henry James, "The Lesson of the Master":

    "I refer to the mercenary muse whom I led to the altar of literature. Don't, my boy, put your nose into that yoke! The awful jade will lead you a life!"

    That seals it. I thought Henry James was gay, as Colm Toibin takes him, G-string vaudevillian-performance gay. Colm wrote that Mary may have been gay, too. Happy birthday, Colm, May 30!

    Torah, Old and New Testaments, diverse translations.

    Study Questions:

    I NEED INFORMATION ABOUT CHILDBEARING DURING TIME OF JESUS. B/C ME. WAS FERTILITY REPRESSED OR SUPPRESSED THEN? I READ THAT THE WORLD POPULATION WAS 300 MILLION. WHY IS JESUS' VERY BIRTH HERALDED AS MIRACULOUS? YET HIS BIRTH IS REGARDED AS NATURAL, WHILE HIS CONCEPTION IS REGARDED AS DIVINE. DO PAINTINGS OF HIS BIRTH EXIST?

    In other news (to me): Pushkin published his play, "Mozart and Salieri," in 1832.

    RECOMMENDED CRAFT GUIDE:

    Josip Novakovich, _Fiction Writer's Workshop_ (2nd ed., Story Press, 2008)

    1 Sources of Fiction -- Where and How to Find Material

    2 Setting -- Evoking a Vivid Sense of Place and Time

    3 Character -- Inventing Fictional People

    4 Plot -- Strategies of Organization and Structure

    5 Point of View -- Selecting the Best Viewpoint

    6 Dialogue and Scene -- Handling Dramatic Action

    7 Beginnings and Endings -- Options and Techniques for Opening and Closing

    8 Description and Word Choice -- Choosing Effective Details, Matters of Style

    9 Voice -- Finding the Narrative Voice, Creating the Voices of the Characters

    10 Revision -- Transforming the First Draft into Finished, Polished Fiction

    Brief Anthology of Short Stories
    Index
    About the Author

    "Many writers avoid laying out the setting because they fear boring their readers, but the lack of a vivid setting may, in turn, cause boredom." (p. 26)

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    Ramon Collins
    May 31, 08:25pm

    ON WRITING WELL -- William Zinsser

    FAST FICTION -- Roberta Allen

    SCREENWRITER'S BIBLE -- David Trottier

    REVISING FICTION -- David Madden

    ELEMENTS OF STYLE -- Strunk & White

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    David Ackley
    May 31, 11:12pm

    Speaking of Henry James, Ann, for those in shape for heavy lifting ( always the case with James) his collected prefaces to his novels--THE ART OF THE NOVEL--is likely the best text ever on the subject.

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    Ann Bogle
    Jun 02, 06:03am

    Will do, David, when I've finished feather dusting Pound (_ABC of Reading_) ... no one yet has answered my questions: Was he interrogating Christianity in his work? Yes, according to an East Asian scholar. Was he in debt? Who knows, not found yet. He went to Italy in the early 20s. He broadcast 3 years around 1940. He was arrested after fascism fell. Was his March 15, 1942 broadcast as transcribed the most offensive, least, average -- is it indicative of his transcripts? Do poets stop to consider his poetry as neoclassicist? Is influence his humane gift? Asking these and other subjects and reestablishing myself as someone with one even two computers (after both old ones broke within weeks). ~~ Great lists! ~~

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    Tina Barry
    Jun 02, 10:18pm

    Zinsser's "On Writing Well" was my "go to" book when I first started. OKim Addonizio's "Ordinary Genius" generated some interesting work too.

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    Carol Reid
    Jun 03, 03:57pm

    A book about writers which is generating story ideas in my head: The Trip to Echo Springs, on writers and drinking by Olivia Laing.

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    Henry Standing Bear
    Jun 04, 12:33pm

    The Paris Review interviews. A great many of them are available online:

    http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews

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