I'm a 25yo guy from the UK who's been writing stories and half-finished books since school, but always ended up crafting pretentious rubbish with serious problems (my last "book" had three passive protagonists lol). So I'm going back to basics; starting again with short stories and focusing on the fundamentals, and looking to share thoughts and ideas with everyone here. Look forward to speaking with you!
Welcome, J! You can look at it the flip-side too - you're aware enough to notice the failings in your previous work, so you're now a better writer because of it!
Any recommendations would be appreciated! I've been looking back over my old stuff and reading up online about the tropes and techniques that I've been overusing/worst at, and done some groping around the resources section here. My general take-away so far is that (re. setup, prose, character motivations, etc.) less is often more
Ah yes—trope-groping for the win!! You are discovering wisdom and advancing nicely. Give me a little time and I'll list some books I like.
There are several categories of writing advice. I'll list some books in each that I've found helpful. —The Basics (foundational skills)— First there's what we call SPaG here on the forum—that's spelling, punctuation and grammar. Most of us haven't improved on this since grade school (might still be called grammar school in the UK, not sure) and in fact have probably forgotten much of it due to years of neglect. I went whole hog and bought myself some books from a home-schooling grammar course to really address this. But that's doubtless overkill, you can get a few targeted books on grammar and syntax (sentence construction) written for adults. I looked at several syntax books and I like this one: It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences by June Casagrande There's a compact little style book considered a bible for all writers: Elements of Style by Strunk and White Every writer should have this and consult it frequently. Then there are the massive tomes known as Style Guides. The industry standard in the US is called: The Chicago Manual of Style CMS for short. This is vast and not inexpensive, but if you REALLY want to make sure you understand all the rules, it's the way to go. Of course you can also just check online for rules of style on an individual basis. There are also probably similar books specifically for British usage. —General writing advice— These are books of, well, general advice for writers. Some I enjoy: The Art of Fiction John Gardner On Becoming a Novelist John Gardner On Writing Stephen King How Fiction Works James Woods Attack of the Copula Spiders Douglas Glover Into the Woods John Yorke How To Grow a Novel Sol Stein Stein on Writing Sol Stein Steering the Craft Ursula K LeGuin Self Editing for Writers Renni Browne and Dave King The Art of Dramatic Writing Lajos Egri The Craft of Scene Writing: Beat by Beat Jim Mercurio A Story is a Promise Bill Johnson —Separating creative thought and editing— I've found 2 excellent books stressing the importance of not editing your ideas while generating them. This is supported by a lot of science. I personally love these books: Writing with Power Peter Elbow Writing the Natural Way Gabriele Rico I'll add this, one of the best books I've ever run across. Not specifically about writing but how to generate and develop ideas creatively, and is based on the same science as the books just above. This one is an essential life bible for any creative person, or anyone who wants to be: The Universal Traveler Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall And finally there's —Story Structure— Story Robert Mckee The Anatomy of Story John Truby Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters Michael Tierno I won't list them here, but K. M. Weiland has written many books on story structure, plus some on outlining and other related aspects of story. Check out her blog Helping Writers Become Authors—she writes pretty extensively there about her books. After digging in there for a good long while I just decided to go to Amazon and buy a whole bundle of her books on Kindle for a great price. If it's been a while since you saw this post I added a bunch at the bottom of the General Writing category.
