What is your favorite book on writing?

[Vnator]

Elements of Style has helped me the most, but that's with making my general writing nicer and easier to read. It doesn't do much for the story plot or structure itself, but it takes what I do have and makes it much higher quality.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I have a book on this site which gets binged every weekend that is not a popular story. If they can binge a 118k long story, they can take the time to leave a single heart.

"If I don't get at least 10 hearts by the end of business Friday, I will strangle a kitten."
Just post that at the bottom of each chapter. I'm sure it work. You can have some of my kittens, just don't hog all the good strangling ones. I prefer kittens that give you a nice satisfying CRUNCH. Ya know what I'm saying?

Or go the Disney route and tell them giving you hearts fights racism and if they don't, they're a bigot.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Nyi don't nyave nya favorite book on writing nya! Nyi just watch whatnyever videos I nyeed meow~!

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Just write a lot. You will grow into it and find your style.

Started with 1st person povs. Hates it now.

Started rambling. More synthetic now.

My background education probably helped. Highschool proved useful as it was literary focused in a certain sense.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Presenting to Win

It's a great book for presentation and interesting way to catch reader attention.

Obviously I haven't been able to practically use it's points in this post. But, it's still a great book about presentation.

Because it's popular classic, There's lot of PDF and Epub of it on the internet.

 

[gaylolis]

i enjoy metafiction from time to time.

it at least tell about writing in an entertaining way.

 

[CubicleHermit]

I read a bunch of writing books back in high school, and in terms of technique the best I found were the "Elements of Fiction Writing" series.

I revisited a few of them a few years ago when I started writing again a few years ago, and the ones I reread and remember liking were:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898799473 - Dialog, by Lewis Turco (unlike the others, out of print)
https://www.amazon.com/Characters-Viewpoint-Elements-Fiction-Writing/dp/1599632128 - Characters and Viewpoints, by Orson Scott Card
https://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Middles-Elements-Fiction-Writing/dp/1599632195 - Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress

 

[Representing_Tromba]

None. And this is coming from a guy who has probably read hundreds of them by now, both popular and obscured ones.

Are they useful? Sure. They're tools you can use to achieve specific effects, but if you wanna read them, read them with an open mind and know that whatever they're teaching is only one way of doing it.

Never forget the kind of story you want to tell. If any of the tools don't resonate with what you're trying to do, then feel free to throw them away.

Here are a few you can check out:

- Brandon Sanderson's lecture series on YouTube.
- Check out this guy's channel: @Story_Marc
- Story by Robert McKee.
- The Anatomy of Story by John Truby.
- Manga in Theory and Practice by Araki-sensei, the author of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
- Story Trumps Structure by Steven James.

I appreciate the shout-out big time! And I agree with the sentiment here entirely. What's important is understanding, not advice.

Regardless, if I were to recommend a single book, it would be Wired for Story. It's the book that made the biggest difference for me.

I agree.

 

[HungrySheep]

The entire 86 light novel series and the entire Ascendance of a Bookworm light novel series.

86 is great at including all members of its cast in the plot, leaving almost none of them behind while creating emotional scenes and demonstrating excellent use of similes and metaphors. It has decent worldbuilding that is very simple and easy to follow along, though I think it tries a little too hard with making one of the protagonists have a special bloodline. This would've worked better if it was already established during the first volume or hinted at throughout the series instead of being "foreshadowed" mid-series. I say that in quotations because it's less foreshadowing and more of a bomb drop. Outside of that, the series boasts a very solid cast and excellent development scenes.

Ascendance of a Bookworm is a masterclass in worldbuilding and setup, demonstrating that it's possible to write an isekai without making it braindead useless. It starts off extremely slow, but every volume has a clear-cut goal, expands on the world in what appears to be an overly complex way that soon makes an incredible amount of sense. The internal logic within the world of Ascendance of a Bookworm is just unmatched, though the one criticism that I have is the very slow pace at which the plot progresses and the dubious intelligence of some characters.

You may have noticed that neither of these series are actually books on writing. You are correct. I think the best way to improve is to read something good and then considering why it was good. This is far better than reading a book that supposedly "teaches" you how to write. It simply doesn't work because it does not show you a complete story that is good. You can also pick up some stylistic habits from good authors and learn how to better worldbuild or set up plot points. Part of me wishes I could've picked up those habits earlier, but writing itself is a learning process.

tl;dr read good book write good book ooga booga

I just want to write stories which will get hearts and comments. More than they do now. For hearts, I have just one heart giver, sometimes two. For comments... it is a desert. I want to move people. Narcissistic of me, yeah, but I wish to make someone smile.

Does your story move you though? That's the first step to moving others.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

Since I get 0 feedback, I figured I could read a book to get better. Why? I don't know. Maybe one day I will read all of my stories, perhaps not.

So, what is your favorite book on writing?

the art of war