Mom was not only a piano teacher well into her eighties, but she was also a piano student. The books below in alpha order by author represent a fraction of those available. You could read one per day for the rest of your life and not exhaust the resources. But, in my opinion, these are the best books on writing available. This book came from ten years of Ms. More than fifty fiction and nonfiction authors share how they discovered they were writers and how they work. I was fascinated by what pleases and annoys them. Arana also profiles each writer. Click here to get the book. Anything but a dry textbook, this breezy guide is from a former trial lawyer who keeps you entertained while covering basics like how plot impacts structure, the difference between popular and literary fiction, and how to serve as your own book doctor.

Calling on her theater training, Collins teaches bringing characters to life the way actors do on stage. She draws on the Method Acting approach to explain and adapt characterization techniques for novelists. I resonate with her honesty about how grueling the craft can be. This is one of the best books on writing available. You learn a ton while being wildly entertained. It informed the way I wrote the Left Behind series, which has sold more than 60 million copies and still sells six figures every year, nearly a decade since the last title was released.

I use this as a textbook when I teach writing. Lamott has you howling with laughter one minute and weeping the next as she recounts, with brutal honesty, the joys and travails of the writing life, single parenting, overcoming addiction, and coming to faith. His career spans decades, and he shares insider stories of famous novelists and their work, as well as everything he learned along the way. I sat under his teaching years ago and still follow his advice. He was a graceful classicist as a writer, and this million-seller has been lauded for its warmth and clarity. Zinsser offers sound tips on the fundamentals of writing any kind of nonfiction you can think of. Failing to start your reading on writing with anything other than this undisputed classic would be akin to reading the top ten Christian classics while ignoring the Bible.

This short paperback is recommended by every writing teacher I know. Its simple truths cover everything from style and grammar and usage. Make them second nature. Les is one of the most powerfully edgy writers in the business, and you must have your big kid pants on to read his novels. Maybe what King means is that if, as Ron Carlson describes, you really open yourself and let the story take over, it will plot itself. From the start, you have to know the particulars of the murder, so you can work your way toward it. Out of that, however chaotic and uncertain it might be, you get a plot. But the plot is the structure of the narrative.

Things happen to people, you have surprises, and you have a beginning, a middle and an end. King also has tips on where to write — your desk should not be in the middle of the room, for example. But we were always asking one another, where do you work? When do you work? What is your room like? What is your desk like? Trying to get clues… I love it when writers talk about where they write, when they write. In the book, I ask people about it, and then I tried to take pictures of them, sitting at their desks. Joyce Carol Oates, in her book, talks about where she writes, which is a big glassy, open porch. When I started reading it I thought it read like something she might have tossed off on a Saturday morning. She also talks a lot about other writers.

I really recommend it to young writers. The whole book is about reading as a writer, and all the stuff Joyce Carol Oates has been reading. When does she find time to read? She not only reads all these great writers, but she also reads their diaries and criticism about them. She just has a wealth of insight. She emphasises again and again just how important it is for a writer to read. And to read not only good writers, but bad writers as well. Stephen King says the same thing. I can do better than this. I can get published too! But a lot of the people I interviewed for our book teach writing. Stephen King is also this obsessive reader, who just sits there in his room and reads and reads.

I like science fiction and mysteries — that supernatural kind of stuff just never did it for me. This whole book is about all the things that writers are afraid of. What a neurotic wreck I am. And beyond that, you need to be a neurotic wreck to be a good writer, because the fears and the anxieties you have energise the prose. I love the fact that a big chunk of the book is this inventory of fears, and all the things that writers are worried about and scared about. Did you know about the typo on page 38? Keyes talks about that particular fear. There are dozens of things writers have to be afraid of, from the start to the finish, and I got a big kick out of it because it was so true.

To have someone articulate these fears for you, and list them, is comforting. This is what it means to be a writer. Then he has a section about how to put the fears to work. Use that anxiety to focus your work on the moment. A couple of the people in here are people I interviewed — they were my classmates when I was at Iowa, like TC Boyle and Jayne Anne Phillips. A lot of the writers talk about the workshop itself, the experience, the workshop method. Like Carlson and King, her chapter talks about the importance of detail and how you handle detail. This is a particularly useful chapter, again, for young writers.

His job is to interview alleged perpetrators of crimes and victims and witnesses, and get their stories. How do you know when a person is lying? But he says that people always start talking and talking, thinking they can talk themselves out of the rap. They give all these details, and they start lying. You can tell a person is telling the truth when the details are fairly limited. That is exactly what Francine Prose is talking about, when she writes about good detail in fiction. Which goes back to Stephen King and what he said about detail — that usually the first details that come to mind are the right details. Once you have those, stop layering on. Which actually is good advice to liars, too.

The first details that come to mind, as you lie to the police, are the best details. Stop there. Stop elaborating. Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books or even just what you say about them please email us at editor fivebooks. Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount. We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week. Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases. Support Us. MENU MENU. Language » Writing Books The best books on How to Write recommended by Eric Olsen From their egos and anxieties to the way they work, writers have more in common than we might think. Buy all books Read. Writing Books. Support Five Books.

Make Your Own List. From their egos and anxieties to the way they work, writers have more in common than we might think. The journalist and editor takes us inside the writing process and reveals who gives the best advice for aspiring authors. How did you select them? What a young or beginning writer is going to get out of all of them is how similar all writers are in many regards — when it comes to process, fear, neuroses, and the pleasures that are derived. These are books by well-known writers; they give examples of other well-known writers. They show how writers, at even the highest level, obsess about the same things that the rest of us obsess about. I was going to ask if they contradict each other. When we did the interviews for our book We Wanted to Be Writers , several people talked about the pleasure in losing control as you write.

The work begins to write itself. Ralph Keyes, in The Courage to Write , makes note of the fact that writers have huge egos, which is true. One of the points of difference that struck me is that in one of these books, The Faith of a Writer , Joyce Carol Oates talks about how the writer has to be in control. But otherwise they all get at the same points. Is writing something you can learn? Boy, that is the question. If I just brought chicken soup to class every week the writers would get better. This is an ongoing debate, which has been going on since the workshop was first started 75 years ago. Among the people that we interviewed, the consensus was that there are a lot of aspects of writing that certainly can be taught.

You can speed up the process of maturation of young writers, by talking about the mistakes you made in your career. As a teacher, you can speed up the process towards getting better. There are always ways that you can help a writer along. That seems to be a given. That is a kind of teaching too…. Your first book is the Ron Carlson book, Ron Carlson Writes a Story. What I found fascinating too is that he does such a neat job of talking about letting the story write itself. It was an exploration — he was just following the story as it went along. But I just love his very clear and precise description of the way he puts the story together. This is a terrific book for any young writer or even a not-so-young writer. Ron talks about three sources of story idea.

Some of the authors, like Joyce Carol Oates, are, I think, of the school that serious writing is done from your own personal neuroses and experiences and fears and torment. So they disagree with Carlson and say you really do need to stick to your personal experience to write well? I got some crap for that in the workshops, because the real serious stuff was supposed to be people writing about their dysfunctional families. I wanted to write science fiction. It was forbidden. So I would write other stuff, but it was never about me, or drawn from my own experience.

This is such a good read. My old man had some issues with alcohol, too. I remember once, when he was on the wagon, that he also had a momentary lapse involving mouthwash. You also live through it all with King, as he makes it as a writer — all the rejection letters and then, his first acceptance letter for a story. Also, later, when he gets the telephone call the first time he is paid a lot of money. There was one in particular I made a note of, on page In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind.

A lot of writers pile on details. This notion, just pay attention to your own thought process. What are the first details that come to mind? Those may be the best. This book is full of little things like that about how he works, just tossed off. Yes, all writing teachers hate adverbs. Actually, somewhere not too long ago I read a defence of adverbs. Explain this part of the King book to me. But the fossil struck me as rather like a plot. My feeling is that it gets back to writing as discovery. For one, if an outline gets too detailed it takes away the discovery. Two, when I start to write, if it goes well, I end up tossing the outline. When I interviewed John Irving for our book, he told me that he writes the last sentence first.

And then he writes towards that. Maybe what King means is that if, as Ron Carlson describes, you really open yourself and let the story take over, it will plot itself. From the start, you have to know the particulars of the murder, so you can work your way toward it. Out of that, however chaotic and uncertain it might be, you get a plot. But the plot is the structure of the narrative. Things happen to people, you have surprises, and you have a beginning, a middle and an end. King also has tips on where to write — your desk should not be in the middle of the room, for example. But we were always asking one another, where do you work?

When do you work? What is your room like? What is your desk like? Trying to get clues… I love it when writers talk about where they write, when they write. In the book, I ask people about it, and then I tried to take pictures of them, sitting at their desks. Joyce Carol Oates, in her book, talks about where she writes, which is a big glassy, open porch. When I started reading it I thought it read like something she might have tossed off on a Saturday morning. She also talks a lot about other writers. I really recommend it to young writers. The whole book is about reading as a writer, and all the stuff Joyce Carol Oates has been reading. When does she find time to read?

She not only reads all these great writers, but she also reads their diaries and criticism about them. She just has a wealth of insight. She emphasises again and again just how important it is for a writer to read. And to read not only good writers, but bad writers as well. Stephen King says the same thing. I can do better than this. I can get published too! But a lot of the people I interviewed for our book teach writing. Stephen King is also this obsessive reader, who just sits there in his room and reads and reads. I like science fiction and mysteries — that supernatural kind of stuff just never did it for me. This whole book is about all the things that writers are afraid of. What a neurotic wreck I am. And beyond that, you need to be a neurotic wreck to be a good writer, because the fears and the anxieties you have energise the prose.

I love the fact that a big chunk of the book is this inventory of fears, and all the things that writers are worried about and scared about. Did you know about the typo on page 38? Keyes talks about that particular fear. There are dozens of things writers have to be afraid of, from the start to the finish, and I got a big kick out of it because it was so true. To have someone articulate these fears for you, and list them, is comforting. This is what it means to be a writer. Then he has a section about how to put the fears to work. Use that anxiety to focus your work on the moment. A couple of the people in here are people I interviewed — they were my classmates when I was at Iowa, like TC Boyle and Jayne Anne Phillips.

A lot of the writers talk about the workshop itself, the experience, the workshop method. Like Carlson and King, her chapter talks about the importance of detail and how you handle detail. This is a particularly useful chapter, again, for young writers.

So how do you go about creating that outline for your book? Next, it's time to learn how to execute the way successful authors do. And yet, leaving a bit of yourself on the page might produce brilliant and resounding writing, especially if you follow the advice that Lara — an award-winning author, columnist, and writing coach — is dishing out in Naked, Drunk, and Writing. Sure, the old Word spellcheck feature is great for… Grammarly vs Ginger: Which Grammar Checker Is Best for You? Rather, it acknowledges that art cannot be created in a vacuum, and encourages writers and all other artists to be open and receptive to all sources of inspiration. Sharing his wisdom and experiences as one of the most prolific writers in America, Bradbury gives plenty of practical tips and tricks on how to develop ideas, find your voice, and create your own style in this thoughtful volume. Did you know about the typo on page 38?

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