Lately I take a dim view of such things as “craft books.” They can be like training wheels that take you in circles. They also carry the whiff of “rules,” which are useful for beginning to write, but are stultifying after you’ve digested the basics. Some of these books are more useful than others and more useful to some people than others. I contend that the best way to learn how to write is by reading and dissecting the masters, and reading widely across the spectrum of human knowledge. You can discover useful tools and insights anywhere. And the more you can cram experience into your life, the more material you will have to draw from. But even if you are forced to be a shut-in, the best thing is to write tirelessly every day with absolute faith in your own vision. And while you’re developing as a writer, keep away from contests (at least until you’ve developed a voice and sense of self). Above all, to ensure your own fragile sense of self-confidence as a writer (uncertainty is a desirable quality in a writer, I think) pay no attention to what others are writing, that is, never, never NEVER, compare yourself to others. Here, then, is a list of those little crutch books we sometimes need to lean on:
- About Writing – Samuel R. Deleny
- Aspects of the Novel – E.M. Forster
- Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
- Burning Down the House – Charles Baxter
- Doing it with Style – Quentin Crisp & Donald Carroll (not a writer’s book per se, but speaks to creating personal style in everything we do, which shows up in our art, in any case)
- How Fiction Works – James Wood
- How to Write a Novel – John Braine
- If You Want to Write – Brenda Ueland
- Mystery and Manners – Flannery O’Connor
- Olipo Compendium – Mathews & Brotchel
- On Becoming a Novelist – John Gardner
- On Writing – Stephen King
- Points of View – James Moffett
- Rebel Yell – Lance Olsen
- Ron Carlson Writes a Story – Ron Carlson
- The 3 a.m. Epiphany – Brian Kiteley
- The 4 a.m. Breakthrough -Brian Kiteley
- The Art of Fiction – John Gardner
- The Art of series by Graywolf Press
- The Conversations – Michael Ondaatje [particularly the section on "Blue Light Theory"]
- The Lie That Tells a Truth – John Dufresne
- The Mind of Your Story – Lisa Lenard-Cook
- The Scene Book – Sandra Schofield
- The Stuff of Fiction – Douglas Bauer
- The Writing Life – Annie Dillard
- What If? – Bernays & Painter
- Writers at Work (Paris Review series – especially the earlier collections)
- Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose – Jill Jepson (liberating & useful – gets to the spiritual bond between the work and writer)
- Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg
- Writing Fiction – Janet Burroway
- Writing Past Dark – Bonnie Friedman
- Writing Shapely Fiction – Jerome Sterne
SOME (RANDOM & EVANESCENT) WEBSITES THAT PERTAIN TO CRAFT
- 25 Things Every Writer Should Know
- Resources for Writers (“Reading Like a Writer: A Guide to Annotations”) Peter Turchi
- Sub Rosa: A Blog Partly Dedicated to the Study of Virginia Woolf
- The Almost Totally Random Writing Exercise Generators (If you like this sort of thing)
SOME POSSIBLY USEFUL .PDF FILES
writing is safer, somehow
because my pen cannot stutter like my lips do,
and words get stuck in throats,
not fingertips, can’t stumble
on paper trails of blue lines
because writing is definite and clear
and no one can tell if i am crying
or laughing
through written words alone-{unknown}
