Books on Writing · 4:31am Apr 22nd, 2014
Okay, so I've answered a few questions about this before in PM, so I thought I might as well make a blog post about it.
(Also, to remove the 1400 word story that isn't a story from my user page)
There are some books that I have in my personal library that I like to call "Craft" books. They are books on the art, and craft, of writing. Some of these books I came across by recommendation by others, others I just picked up at random and found them to be useful, so kept them.
A couple of notes about my collection. This is not a collection used for checking up on the grammar, spelling, etc, of writing. Those are the basics. Sentence construction, word choice, and proper spelling are the foundations of a writer's skill. They are not the end-all-be-all of it. Every writer needs feedback and outside input, otherwise we would never grow. (By that, I mean any kind of outside input, including reading other stories)
These are books that I refer to when I want a second opinion on a particular subject that I'm struggling with, be it scene construction, dialogue portrayal or overall plot and pacing development and I don't feel like asking for it on here. These books help me to look at a problem sideways and decide what I want to do. They can be sources of inspiration, even if the only inspiration is a look in a different direction that I was too tunnel visioned to see before.
So, without further ado, and without taking up more of your time:
Scene and Structure, Description & Setting, and Beginnings, Middles, and Ends from the Elements of Fiction Writing series
The Emotion Thesaurus from Angela Ackerman;Becca Puglisi (Not what it sounds like)
Dialogue, Revision and Self Editing, and Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint from the Write Great Fiction series
Each of these books has a special spot on my Kindle and I will frequently just flip through them to get to the section I want to look at. You may choose to read these all in one go, and that'll give you a good overview of the books, but you will also find yourself coming back to them from time to time to get another opinion.
Enjoy!
