Letters to Kel: ON MY BOOKSHELF

Resources are wonderful -- books and online sites that provide information you need for authenticity, such as the species of birds in that particular geography, what time sunrise arrives in March as opposed to August, fashions in the big city in 1840 vs. the country, on and on.

But there are other resources that have nothing to do with the details of your books -- the ones that guide you in creating your style and voice and your approach to writing. I'm talking about the books that TEACH you how to write. Here is a short list of the books that are on my physical bookshelf.

The following are a set of books put together by Writer's Digest, "The Elements of Fiction Writing." My copies are old enough to be hardbacks and all white. The more recent editions are paperbacks.
Scene & Structure -- Bickham
Plot -- Dibell
Manuscript Submission -- Edelstein
Dialogue -- Turco
Characters & Viewpoint -- Card
Setting -- Bickham
Voice & Style -- Payne
Description -- Wood
Conflict, Action & Suspense -- Noble
Theme & Strategy -- Tobias
Beginnings, Middles & Ends -- Kress
Revision -- Reed

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And how to avoid them) -- Bickham
The 28 Biggest Writing Blunders (And how to avoid them) -- Noble
GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict -- Dixon
Writing the Fiction Synopsis -- McCutcheon
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers -- Browne & King
20 Master Plots (And how to build them) -- Tobias
The Idiots Guide to Writing Christian Fiction -- Benrey
Save the Cat! and Save the Cat! Strikes Back! -- Snyder
The Complete Book of Screenwriting -- Straczynski
On Writing -- King
Writing for the Soul -- Jenkins
Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones -- Goldberg
Bird by Bird -- Lamott
How I Write -- Evanovich
Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life --  Conrad and Schultz
The Artist's Way -- Cameron
The Writer's Journey -- Vogler

These are just my paper-printed books, the ones I have held on through the years. Believe me, I've bought other books, the "You absolutely have GOT to read this, at least once a year for the rest of your career, if you want to be a selling writer," type books everybody was pushing. And then went silent on a year later. I got rid of those. While I love books, if I'm not going to re-read it in a few years, if I'm not going to refer back to it, I take it to the used bookstore so someone else can get some benefit from it.

Next week, my electronic bookshelf of writing books. Maybe the week after that, my reference books, like the Cartoon Guide to Genetics. Yes, it's a real book!