I read King's "on writing" years ago and remember it being more like an autobiography. Currently I'm reading "bird by bird" and have a couple of others waiting like Gardner's "tips for young writer's" and "100 ways to improve your writing". Good post topic by the way, I'm finding more books to add to my shopping list!
"The weekend novelist rewrites the novel: A Step by Step Guide to Perfecting Your Work" A great book on character arcs, conflict and plotting
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is what first inspired me to start writing, but the book won't make you a better writer on any level. However, I do recommend Lamott's book to make you pick up that pen or start typing. And as a bonus, Bird by Bird is a fun read.
Does anyone here use books to help guide themselves in their writing? I'm going to buy some beginners book on writing fiction eventually, I just don't have time with school right now.
Please do a search before posting a thread which is likely to have come up before on a writing forum.
About reading "How-To-Write-Fiction" books So much to read and learn but so little time. I've been reading a lot of fiction to learn how to write. Other than John Gardner's "The Art of Fiction", I have not read any other how-to books. Do you read how-to books on fiction writing? Why?
In general, I don't, because I feel you have to have already learned most of what those books cover already in order to tell what advice is good, what is good for that author but may be awful for someone else, and what is total bull. I learn far more by reading good books, mediocre books, and even a few awful books, and digging in to discover what makes them so.
This looks like it can relate to the "show don't tell" way of writing. The how-to books sound like they are telling you, while great books by great authors such as Tolkien or Feist show you, in a way, how its done. I've come across so few of these how-tos. IMO, you might as well spend your time writing your fiction rather than reading on how to write it. All I can say is that if a "writing for dummies" how-to comes out, I know I won't read it...
Why only read good books? If you read bad books and good books, you will not only know how to do it, but how NOT to do it.
Those how-to books are a joke, as I was one of the dummies who bought one. I agree with all the others too. Reading an actual story is the most fundamental way of really learning how it's done. Any dope with brains will tell ya, you can't be a writer, if your not a reader. And you certainly DO NOT need a how-to book to tell ya what you already know. In my opinion, they are a waste of time and money. Your better off educating yourself in writing forums like this...while your reading a good book on the side in the meantime. Besides how can anyone resist curling up to a good book this time of year? Mmm, with some hot cocoa and those tiny little marshmallows too... Haha...ok, well you get my point.
I agree. But it seems a lot of people stop reading a "bad" book after a couple of chapters or pages. I guess my definition of a good book in this case would be anything one finishes reading. Another issue that comes up is the subjectivity of good and bad, but that's pretty much irrelevant for this thread. To the OP: read and reread books by authors you admire and think are good writers. Learn from them rather than from some random how-to book.
Rather than trying to only read 'good' books, try analysing WHY you like one of your personal favourites. Of course, you're not going to copy the writer but it might help you to think about the pace, genre and writing style that you are naturally drawn to. Reading some 'bad' books can also help the learning process. Dip into them from time to time, and think about why you dislike them, and why they were considered worthy of publishing--maybe styles have changed, maybe it was riding the bandwagon of a trend etc. I have to say here that one or two 'How to' books have been very helpful as a jumping-off point for me over the years, although it's been a while since I've used one so I can't give a name off hand. They did help me build up my confidence at first and in the days before the Internet they helped me with certain things like plotting, layout and style.
On Writing by Stephen King offers practical and useful advice, as well as information on publishing, surviving as an author, and just lots of great anecdotes. I recommend it =D
I have heard that it is good to read lots of books, but when I find a book I simply cannot read or get into at all, I can't seem to figure out why. It is normally too long-winded for me, giving me a lot of info at the start that I really don't care to know. But this is from authors that are big, and respected, hitting the bestseller lists, so I am totally confused, and want to keep drudging through it all, thinking maybe it will improve as I go along. So far, I have been wrong. So I don't know how a couple of these authors have made such huge names for themselves, if I can't even get into one of their books. Maybe it is simply a matter of my taste being different. Maybe it is the targetted audience of older book-readers are more patient than I. I do tend to bore easily, and need something a little faster paced to keep my attention. They say the younger generations today with access to everything here and now tend to be that way though, and tend to bore more easily. so maybe my writing would be more appealing to a different audience than the books I have been trying to force myself to read. I think I just sorted out my problem. Thanks for asking. Oh, and the how-to books: If you do not know the author, and enjoy the way the author of these how to books writes, then taking advice from him won't really work for you when you try to make your own writing interesting to yourself, will it? Different things interest different people. Some big authors write books that you will find boring. Do you really want to learn how to write boring books?
I have a shelf of how-to books and most of them were a total waste of time to read. Most of them are along the lines of "First you think up a plot, then you make some great characters and then you type it all down." They were most likely written by people who kept failing as authors and that's how they ended up accumulating so much theory about writing... Do you really want to be like them? I have some other books of a more academic nature that analyse storytelling and those are pretty interesting and gave me alot of insight. 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell is the end-all heavyweighter on mythology and folk-tales, or the "lite" version of the same 'The Writer's Journey' by Christopher Vogler as well as 'The Seven Basic Plots' by Christopher Booker These are professor-level writings and while they're not cookiecutters for writing a bestseller, they'll give you some understanding of the deeper psychology of stories in general.
Apart from actively reading all you can, I'd suggest joining a writing circle/group (if there's one near you) where you'll find the practical give and take beneficial to enhancing your writing and critiquing skills.
I find that writing how-to books tend to be more of a general interst thing for me, than a guide. I think it's partly because I view writing as a personal thing, that is different for everyone. So whilst reading a how-to book can be interesting from the point of view of seeing how others go about it (and potentially picking up some good ideas), I would never use one as a hard and fast guide. And I certainly wouldn't buy one. That's what libraries are for.
You learn more about writing from reading one good piece of fiction than you do from reading one hundred how-to books! Save your money and ignore them. I would, however, recommend english grammar books etc. for those who have difficulties in that area...
I've reads dozens of how-to-write books, none of which struck me with the weightiness of John Gardner's books on writing, including THE ART OF FICTION. I haven't bothered buying or reading any others since his, with one exception. Because Gardner's books struck me as the first books I'd read that seemed to emphasize the art of writing more than technique (and that, I'm sure, is why I thought they were so exceptionally good), I did pick up Sol Stein's very interesting technique book entitled STEIN ON WRITING. The parts of his that impressed me most were about dialogue, but I think he's awfully good when it comes to explaining the rationale behind various kinds of effects and why they work and do not.
I maintain, like several others on this thread, that the best way to learn to write is through reading a broad range of fiction and not through a how-to book. When I was 16 I took a book out of the college library called 'How To Write Science Fiction' (don't ask me the author; it's a while since I read it). It was an interesting enough book, and it gave me a few useful hints and tips, but what I got from it was more an idea of what science fiction is rather than what I need to do to write it. Compare that to 'Rendezvous With Rama': Arthur C. Clarke showed me what it was to use one's imagination on a concept, bringing in other ideas and themes throughout. It showed me how to write SF, rather than just giving me an idea of what SF is. I'm not saying such books are completely useless, especially to a beginner who perhaps hasn't read much and wants to create a loose skeleton plot and have some benchmark, but I certainly don't set much store by them.
It might be How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card. I have it, and there are a few interesting observations. However, I don't think it is all that useful as a way to learn how to write.
If George Martin wrote a how-to, I'd buy it. I'm sure it's interesting to learn how your favourite writers go about their craft, but strictly adhering to any one author's guide seems misguided. It might do you more harm than good. I haven't read any yet, though I probably will, eventually--more from curiosity than anything else. I prefer learning from interactive environments (writing communities, classes) and observation (reading).
'the writer's art' is probably the only book about writing i'd ever suggest that any beginners read, to learn about how to write... the only exceptions to my 'no how-tos' rule are for writing song lyrics and scripts for film or stage, since idiosyncratic structure and industry mandated format are vital aspects of those most-specialized forms of the writer's art...
I'll second that recommendation. I'm just reading "Self Editing for Fiction Writers - How to edit yourself into print" (Renni Browne / Dave King) which seems very useful... all stuff you could pick up from elsewhere, but nicely succinct and with lots of relevant examples to make their points.
