Writing is a hard profession, let alone craft. The challenges that face you, from writing, revising, and submitting your fiction, to the uphill battle of publication, require endurance, strength, and courage. Not the same kind of endurance, strength or courage a Tommy in the battle of the Somme needs, to be sure, but required just the same.

As rejection pile high, and editorial advice helps or hurts, most writers worth their salt try to become better by not just writing, but taking the advice of other writers in workshops and writing books. I’m a believer in using both to improve your craft and gain insight on how you write so you can, on your own, write the best story you can. But both workshops and writing books can be a retreat from writing rather than an aid to it. Robert Sawyer once talked about things that “feel” like writing that keep you away from your number one job: getting the words on the page. Writing books can certainly be like that. If you finish reading any writing book and do not get back to work, you’re missing the point.

I take a mercenary approach to writing books. Almost all of them have the same advice for the young writer to do with the fundamentals. Those are nice to brush up with, especially if there is part of your skill set you’ve been letting get rusty. But I skip the “writing is hard” chapter because I know it. I skip the “strategies to find time to write” section because I have never needed someone to put a gun to my head to write. I skip any of the inspirational chapters dealing with god or angels or muses because they mean next to nothing to me and my approach to writing. In short, I only take the good bits that apply to me. As such, I have a large stack of writing books. Some have provided more insight than others. Here are my top three that I read about once a year.

1. Lawrence Block, Spider, Spin me a Web. Block’s third non fiction writing book follows the method of its predecessor (Telling Lies for Fun and Profit), a collection of essays originally printed in Writer’s Digest on a host of writing issues. Most of these self contained essays are nice gems on particular issue: writer’s block, revisions, on writing for yourself, etc. These aren’t lessons so much as ruminations on particular aspects of writing and many of them are great and, at times, inspirational (without inviting gods and angels and mystical forces into the discussion)

2. Nancy Kress, Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. Like Block, Kress wrote for Writer’s Digest and has many other fine writing books out there. I’d argue her non fiction on writing is the best in print from a pro writer. Terrific examples, lessons, and a clearly organized, structured, and well executed chapter system on the nature of plot make this a must re-read. Her section on the form of the literary short story helped me decipher some of the wonder in Carver’s short stories that I had only glimpsed. Any writing book by Kress is worth the price. Period.

3. David Morrell, Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing. Morrell’s book has helped me more than I can say. The form of outlining he detailed, of having a conversation with yourself about the story, provided me a method of plotting that had been hidden from me for years (I hate formal outlines and index cards). His section on finding his great themes and how to look inward to project outward on the page just rang true to my ears. I got less out of his chapters on working in Hollywood, but pound for pound this book has helped me more than any other in terms of writing better stories.

Other books I just steal bits from. Carol Bly’s The Passionate and Accurate story infuriated me on an average of once per page, but some of the exercises were very helpful. Walter Mosley’s novel writing aid was slight and over priced but the first chapter, dealing with despicable characters, was what I needed to hear with regards to some of my stories. Richard Rhodes How to Write was an early favorite, and his point about pushing past the first idea to find a better one has always rang true for me.

Writing books can become addictive and act as a replacement for actually doing the job. But, if used in a mercenary manner, they can sharpen your skills and provide new tools of creation and analysis to improve the next story.

JSR

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