Favorite books on the craft and life of writing

I’m about to step out on the dance floor, only I forgot my shoes. And perhaps my pants. But here goes.

I’m going to start with something safely on-topic: my favorite books about writing and the writing life. And the random things my forgetful brain took away from reading them.

Would love to hear from others about their favorites.

Some of these books are rich with instruction and technique, others more tonic for the writing soul. When I feel lost and worthless in my writing (no, don’t ask how often that is), turning to a good writing book of either stripe is inevitably encouraging. Like a long cup of tea with a writer friend who for some reason, despite all your appalling inadequacies, believes in you. (Finding those actual writer friends is essential too, but if they’re on vacation or you’ve already emailed them fourteen times today, you can turn to the books).

In no particular order:

Becoming a Writer

by Dorothea Brande

Written in 1934, this jewel of a book was way ahead of its time in addressing the psychology of writing (without being memoir-ish). She talks about how to use both sides of your brain and develop meditation techniques to access your imagination. She may be the first one to suggest the practice of writing morning pages. And her tone evokes my fantasy about unfussy women of that era: just sit down and do it, enough whining. It’s an amazingly practical book about the less tangible aspects of writing. And there are some delightful bits at the end that invite one to play solitaire and call it work, go shopping for nice paper, and consider the benefits of drinking yerba maté instead of coffee.

If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

by Brenda Ueland

Writing is more important than a clean house. Written at a time when it was considered (even more) selfish and odd that a woman would want to write rather than iron underwear. But the message is still strangely relevant because it speaks to the need to cultivate and vigilantly guard the tiny space we -- of any gender and age -- carve out for writing in the face of all the other more socially-sanctioned things the world expects from us. 

Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity Third Edition/Expanded

by Ray Bradbury

He says loud and clear that you don’t have to suffer to write. This is an ecstatic book on writing and worth it just for his contagious happy heart. He does a lovely stretch on how story ideas come from the tiniest shards and images. Exuberant beginner’s mind meets the blank page full of grateful inquisitiveness. Where’d he get all that joy?

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

by Robert McKee

McKee is the Hollywood guru of screenwriting. He’s a thing. But the book is really quite brilliant, a most coherent presentation about how to build a story scene by scene, about the structure and arc of a good drama (or comedy). I was drawn to screenwriting initially (as the daughter of two engineers) because it was a story-telling form with lots of rules, a blueprint that you could fill in rather than a gaping blank page. But the lessons about how to think structurally about a story, how to plot it out, are widely applicable. I think all of us learning-to-write writers would do well to dip into the literature on screen- and play- writing (a separate list I could compile for another time).

Writing Alone and with Others

by Pat Schneider and Peter Elbow

This is my all-time favorite book on writing. It ranges from extremely specific and useful exercises (a whole curriculum for writing workshops) to the deeply psychological and philosophical. And it addresses creative writing as a social, communal, and political process which no one else I’ve read does. The best advice I got from this book was to write what I am most afraid to write. It changed what I did every day for several years after I read that. Pat does week-long writing workshops around the country; don’t miss her if she comes within striking distance of where you live (http://www.patschneider.com/).

The Writing Life

by Annie Dillard

A gorgeous meandering classic. This is not writing as ecstasy as Ray Bradbury offers it. Or perhaps a darker, more spare and piercing ecstasy. Writing alone in the cold damp cave. There are paragraphs in here that take my breath away, layers of images that circle you deeper and deeper. Worth going back to every few years.

On Writing

by Stephen King

Confession: I am not a huge fan of Stephen King’s stories. But this was one engrossing read that made me like the guy and want to read his fiction (still not a huge fan even after reading more of it). Whether his books are your cup of tea or not, he’s a giant in the story-telling world so it’s an honor to get to look over his shoulder. He lays open his own writing life (and life, period) in a fairly unassuming, honest, tender way. An inside view of a writer growing into himself.

How Fiction Works

by James Wood

This book is painfully lucid and bright. It proceeds like an old-school-y philosophical treatise, or at least pretends to, his wandering-but-brilliant observations laid out in numerical order like postulates in a mathematical proof. I think that’s cover for just whatever genius thing he wanted to say about fiction that day. So much good stuff in here, but what stuck for me was the discussion about how third person narration can be curved like space-time around each character -- how a writer can work with the distance between the narrator’s voice and the characters’ voices to create a richer story. Tons of wonderful (and terrible) examples from great fiction through the ages.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

by Francine Prose

A similarly incisive analysis of what makes for good reading as the one by James Wood. Filled with wide-ranging examples. A chance to read through the eyes of a very very smart, extremely well-read writer and critic. You will read the next handful of books you pick up as a slightly different person. 

Circle of Quiet

by Madeleine L'engle

This is really a memoir, not a book about writing per se. But because I long considered her a master of fiction for young people, I was floored to read about her struggle to become a writer in the first place. If it weren’t for her strength of spirit and her perseverance in the face of endless rejection, the world would never have seen A Wrinkle in Time. If I feel whiny, I go back to this one.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is so deliciously neurotic and so honest in her failings, it’s worth reading for her voice alone. She helps us be our messy selves and still imagine doing something worthwhile with the blank page. And she helps us remember that forgiveness and compassion (or facing down the daily self-loathing) are skills as important as good grammar and soaring imagination.

Writing the Breakout Novel

by Donald Maass

An exhortation to think bigger and bolder, to ask ourselves what’s really at stake, to get our heroes up taller trees and throw bigger rocks at them. It’s much sharper and wiser than the hard-selling title would suggest.