The truth is, I started reading writing craft and how-to books when I was very young. I would scour the library shelves for anything that even approached being a book about writing and I would check it out and read it from cover to cover. There are so many books about writing that made me who I am that I could never list them all, if I even remembered their titles.
But here are a few of the more recent that I do remember. :D
These books taught me something about writing.
- Scene and Structure (This is really for early in a person’s writing journey, but once you learn it, you’ll never look at a scene the same way again. It’s one of those things you should learn, then immediately put into the back of your head while you work and let it inform your choices but not constrain you.)
- Writing Dialogue
- I.Asimov: A Memoir
- The War of Art
- Writing in Overdrive
- The Fiction Factory, 1912
- The 7 Secrets of the Prolific
- Bird by Bird
- A great many Lawrence Block books on writing:
- Spider, Spin Me a Web
- Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
- The Liar’s Companion
- The Liar’s Bible
- Afterthoughts
- Self-editing for Fiction Writers (Absolutely hands-down one of the best books for writers around. The things I learned in this helped me learn to get what was in my head onto the page in a way that truly represented what I wanted there.)
These books taught me things that have helped me write more.
- A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder
- Do the Work