Top Ten books every fiction writer should read
Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. The blog hop features lists related to all things bookish–characters, authors, titles, and favorites. They’re an excellent way to find new interesting books on a variety of topics, and to connect with bloggers who love the books you do.
This week’s theme is top ten books every X should read, where bloggers get to choose what X stands for. I chose X=fiction writers, because I read a ton of books about writing craft.
In no particular order, here are some of the books I find useful:
Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight V. Swain
Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story, by James Scott Bell
Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting that You’ll ever Need, by Blake Snyder. Applicable to novel writing, too.
Believable Characters: Creating with Enneagrams, by Laurie Schnebly
45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Hooked: Write Fiction that Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go, by Les Edgerton
World-Building: A Writers’s Guide to Constructing Star Systems and Life-Supporting Planets, by Stephen L. Gillett. For science fiction writers.
Writing 21st Century Fiction: High-Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling, by Donald Maas. Or Writing the Breakout Novel. Or anything of his, really.
Writing Screenplays That Sell: The Complete Guide to Turning Story Concepts into Movie and Television Deals, by Michael Hauge. Applicable to novel writing, too. Hauge is my current guru for story structure–a great place to start if your talent is for crafting words, rather than telling stories.
The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
I could go on, but the rules say ten, so ten is all you get.
What about you? Have ever thought about writing books of your own? Tell us about it in a comment. And be sure to check out fascinating top tens by other bloggers.
And finally, since we’re talking about writing fiction … please ignore the following and forgive me for posting it.
The African Queen in Outer Space
Catt Sayer just wants to survive. The working-class fugitive delivers military supplies on her decrepit airship, but her hard-won livelihood vanishes when invaders overrun her harsh moon. And now an idealistic, upper-class officer wants her to risk her life on a hopeless voyage to attack enemy headquarters – manned by 10,000 soldiers.
Edward Hoornaert’s romantic space opera, Escapee, continues the saga of the Dukelsky family (begun in The Guardian Angel of Farflung Station). If you like The African Queen and the thrill of underdogs finding love while battling a hostile environment, you’ll love Escapee.
Don’t let this rousing tale escape from you.
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