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Recommended Reading (To Better My Craft)?
Professor Snugglesworth
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It has been suggested to me more than once that in order to get better at writing, I need to read more books. Fair enough, it's a solid idea.
So I'd like to ask for suggestions on any "essential" books, be they instructional, fiction, and maybe even a movie or two.
I just want to emphasize that I'm asking for literature that can potentially improve my writing prowess, not just stories that happen to have good plots. Instead of recommending Ice and Fire (which I've read), I'd like more books that are objectively regarded as well-written and provide a good idea of the guidelines I should follow.
I would also like an extra recommendation on short stories or short story anthologies. One of my major faults is that I always conceive big, novel length ideas, which is why I rarely put them down into paper. I believe if I read more short stories, I could form an idea on how to come up with a concept that's both short but also properly fleshed-out.
And if possible, I'd like recommendations that are fairly recent. I won't turn away Mark Twain or anything, but I'd like to have a good idea of what's "in" this century.
So I'd like to ask for suggestions on any "essential" books, be they instructional, fiction, and maybe even a movie or two.
I just want to emphasize that I'm asking for literature that can potentially improve my writing prowess, not just stories that happen to have good plots. Instead of recommending Ice and Fire (which I've read), I'd like more books that are objectively regarded as well-written and provide a good idea of the guidelines I should follow.
I would also like an extra recommendation on short stories or short story anthologies. One of my major faults is that I always conceive big, novel length ideas, which is why I rarely put them down into paper. I believe if I read more short stories, I could form an idea on how to come up with a concept that's both short but also properly fleshed-out.
And if possible, I'd like recommendations that are fairly recent. I won't turn away Mark Twain or anything, but I'd like to have a good idea of what's "in" this century.
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What genre are you writing and for that matter, what do you like to read? You should read broadly regardless, but you want to read a lot within the genre you plan to write in--as much to improve your writing as to see what's being done and what has been done. I think asking for specific books that are going to make you better is kind of going about this the wrong way. You should, instead, just focus on reading voraciously. Read anything and everything you can find that interests you. Think about what worked in the book and what didn't work. Don't be afraid to put down a book if you're X pages in and you're just not liking it.
Whatever the genre or subject is that you enjoy, you might want to find out whatever the "big" novels are in that genre and maybe start with reading those first. For instance, if you want to write fantasy and love fantasy, you should probably at least make sure you've read any books that are considered the sort of "foundation" like Tolkien. in addition to the currently popular authors like Gaiman, Rothfuss, Sanderson, Lynch, and Brent Weeks.
If you're looking for books that might help you in general, you could do a lot worse than reading Stephen King's "On Writing." It's recommended a lot, but that's because it's a fantastic book that approaches writing very broadly and gives advice that can mostly be applicable for any kind of writer.
As for short stories, some collections that I've enjoyed have been Gaiman's "Fragile Things" and "Smoke and MIrrors" -- I also really enjoyed the collection "Stories," edited by Gaiman. Stephen King's short story collections are usually excellent and his most recent one ("Full Dark, No Stars") was no exception.
You could also support the short story market and pick up some magazines that publish short fiction. Fantasy and Science Fiction, Weird Tales, and Apex are all good magazines you can look into. In addition, there are a lot of online magazines that publish short fiction for free, so maybe take a look for Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons... there are too many to list. If you go looking, you'll find a lot.
Really, I'll just take any recommendations that could improve my overall writing.
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Elmore Leonard books are awesome and a good thing to check out.
Christopher Moore is an interesting read for a really broad comedic sense of writing as well, but still has a plot and moves the story along.
If you do read stuff from the 100 best novels remember that people don't talk and act like they did in the olden days so that kind of language won't work. Reading Ulysses isn't going to make you a better writer. It's going to make you someone who doesn't enjoy Ulysses, or James Joyce period.
I must say the top 10 on the Reader's list that Tycho posted is goddamn insane. 7 of the 10 are either Ayn Rand or L Ron Hubbard. It's also very much old white guys. And yes I do realize everything I recommended was written by white guys.
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Which is the nice way of saying I don't want to feel dumb reading something.
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my short story and novel advice go-to author is Jack Bickham-- his instructions are a little bossy and you'll probably recoil at some of his advice, but none of it is untrue. I have his "37 common fiction writing mistakes and how to avoid them," and I like it.
I would say you should probably check the "what are you reading?" thread, it's a good resource.
GoodReads is another idea; I would suggest writing notes about things you have read and see what others are reading as well
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I think one of the biggest things I want to work on is characterization: I want to learn how to create good characters, not just people with interesting backstories or situations, but ways to properly flesh them out so they don't appear wooden or objectified. For example, I don't want to insert a female character just because the story calls for it, I want her to have a deeper purpose that goes beyond gender classification. Same goes for a protagonist that may perform morally dubious actions, but requires a hook that keeps the reader from despising said character.
So in other words, I want to learn not to create good characters, but good characterization.
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Best "ins" are
1) community and other "amateur" theatre groups, particularly if you can do a wide variety of things.
2) Any acting coach who offers Scene Study.
3) books that talk through Stanislavski, Hagen, the New School, and/or others working in the Method(++) tradition, and the exercises described therein, ideally performed with help from a coach.
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On Writing by Stephen King
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White
Stephen King's books tend to be very good for believable characters, especially when it comes to writing children and young. Try IT, and Eyes of the Dragon
Also try the works of C. J. Cherryh, particularly the Faded Sun Trilogy, which you can pick up in an omnibus collection
The short stories of Ernest Hemingway are required reading for anyone who wants to write.
Pick the genre you like best and just devour it. Stephen King gives a lot of good advice in On Writing, but the one that stuck with me most was "If you do not have time to read, you do not have time to write." You should be reading constantly, things you enjoy, and then writing those things you enjoy.
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First time I've ever heard that.
It's an interesting suggestion, but I wonder how effective it is if all you're doing is getting in the head of a per-established character, not one you created yourself. Unless it's a class where you're supposed to come up with your own character, how is it any different from role playing?
I guess I'll just ask the obvious, even though I know it'll irk some people: do comic books or text-heavy videogames count?
I'm a firm believer that you can find inspiration in anything that has a story to it, whether it be a best selling novel or a pre-school cartoon. If there's a good idea worth committing to memory, then the medium has some effectiveness to it.
Since I'm looking to improve my written qualities first (and hopefully the creative process naturally follows), I should obviously stick to actual book-books. But if it turns out something like comic books are effective as well, then at least I've got some literary experience there.
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Comic books are worth reading and video games are worth experiencing but you shoudl always always always experience the medium you intend to create first.
Games and comics are fine and all, but as the great sage NaR said
"Read a book, read a book, read a muhfuckin book"
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Incidentelly, I've had a paperback copy of It that was purchased many years ago by my mother in a garage sale, and has yet to be read by a single person in my family. I've been meaning to get to it, so now seems as good a point as any.
Though I also fear that I'll take up the wrong kind of inspiration from reading books like that. Basically, I'm worried once I finish a story like this, the only kinds of stories I'll want to write about involve evil clowns living in sewers.
Are there really no books that offer advice on the "planning" stage of writing? I believe I can follow the proper guidelines to writing something well, but I still doubt my ability to actually think up good story ideas.
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that said, there's a lot of "planning" info in the Bickham book I mentioned.
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Unless it's counterproductive to read someone's amateurish work. That's not a knock on anyone starting out like me, just that reading something without realizing its flaws format-wise could prove damaging instead of helpful, unless I was able to spot the flaws for myself.
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there's absolutely nothing wrong with reading other amateur writers and giving feedback.
it forces you to think critically. did you like it? ok, why? what did this author do that you liked or related with? by the same token, what part fucking sucked? How can they make it not suck?
don't worry about critiquing other writers for grammar or any of that, if you aren't confident in your abilities there, it comes with practice. A good story interests and engages you because it's a good story. Ultimately, the best stories are both well written (grammatically) *and* engaging because the story elements work.
It's hard to see the leaps and bounds of difference between good and bad in the craft without a lot of exposure to both. Bad writing is usually relatively self evident, but there are shades between good and mediocre, and mediocre and bad, so it's worth immersing yourself.
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Here's the deal: Absolutely people have been published who haven't dedicated a ton of time to reading, but they are few and far between. Playing a game with a good story or reading a comic are valuable ways to broaden your horizon and get new ideas, but when it comes to structure, dialogue, prose, the only place you're going to be able to see how OTHER people do it and how you want to do it is by reading books.
Quit trying to find ways around it. If you're looking for a quick solution by way of finding a guide book of some kind, there isn't one. Not really. You can read as many how-to books as you want, but none of it will replace the experience you'll get from just reading a TON of fiction and writing a TON of fiction.
Yes, when you're just getting into it your writing IS going to be inspired by what you're reading. I don't really think there's a way to help that, it's a way you grow and learn and actually find your voice by testing out different things and finding what feels right to you. Like Wyborn said, the more you read and write the less you'll be influenced by what you're currently reading.
Go pick up Strunk & White's The Elements of Style if you must have some kind of guide to writing, but then read some novels. Go to the library if it's an issue of cost, or if it's an issue of time get some audiobooks at least to start with, but as Wyborn said, if you can't make time to read I don't really see how you have time to write.
Supplementary at best, and should never make up an especially large part of your diet.
Now.
What kind of stories do you like to read. You can tell me. I'm a bookseller.
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I'm not: I'm just trying to narrow the list down to some good but also "essential" picks, since the goal here is to read so I can get better at writing, not just for pleasure. I've already done the latter (albeit not enough), so I'm trying to go for a "tactical" list.
For instance, I need to read more short stories, because I have to start writing short stories. I have a fairly good understanding in how to write for a novel (and since there's no real limit to how long you can make a novel, you can add all the intricate little details and backstory you want, even your own pacing), but I have to figure out how to condense that in a shorter format. Otherwise I'll just keep doing what I've been doing all these years: plan novel-length stories without ever actually writing any of them. Plus writing out short stories and having them critiqued will help me to get rid of any bad habits or mistakes before I carry them over to the longer project.
I enjoy Fantasy and Horror, as well as Sci-Fi. I also enjoy crime and mystery books, and even read a nonfiction fairly recently (Columbine). As long as it isn't boring, I'll check it out. But again, I'm going for a tactical list here.
I got a large amount of suggestions from the Steam chat, including Hero with a Thousand Faces, Call of Cthulu, Storm Front, American Gods, etc, which all allegedly can inspire me in different ways (short stories, world building, writing about depraved but sympathetic characters, etc).
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So yeah, I'm in a hurry to get better, because I'm eager to try again as soon as possible. Maybe I'm not as far behind as I think, but it doesn't hurt to put a priority in a list of essential books I'll be reading anyway.
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2. "The Corrections" Jonathan Franzen
3. "Snow Crash" Neal Stephenson
4. "Inherent Vice" Thomas Pynchon
5. "Maximum Bob" Elmore Leonard
6. "The New York Trilogy" Paul Auster
7. "American Gods" Neil Gaiman
8. "Slaughter House 5" Kurt Vonnegut
9. "1984" George Orwell
10. "Neuromancer" William Gibson
This list is endorsed by no one but myself. Still these are probably good choices to go with. You can really choose any Leonard novel to go in that place if you want.
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There is no magic formula, no combination of books that will make you a better writer in a hurry!
You will read the following works by Guy Gavriel Kay: Tigana, and Under Heaven, and The Sarantine Mosaic because they are among the best fantasy ever written
You will sink your eye teeth into Stephen King's IT, The Stand, Salem's Lot, Lisey's Story, and the Different Seasons collection! After that you should dip your toe into The Dark Tower!
You will read Lovecraft, and Machen, and Poe!
C. J. Cherryh, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, H. G. Wells, and William Gibson!
The Sisters Brothers, and The Old Man and the Sea, and Animal Farm!
Gird yourself, armored in the knowledge that with this new hardship comes new opportunity. You stand on the precipice of an incredible undertaking, but every step you take will be a step into new lands, new minds, new perspectives, whereby you will learn the way to build worlds and to consume them. You will read Gaiman and Grisham, Steinbeck and Steeles, on and on out into infinity - consume the wheat with the chaffe! With equal pleasure read The Malazan Book of the Fallen and Inheritance, because there is no guilty reading, there are only things you like, new things to be experienced, new worlds to be trod upon and conquered.
Walk at the side of Conan, and Geralt, and Elric, and D
And never stop writing. This isn't a part of a hiatus. You will write constantly as you read, and you will improve slowly, organically, over time, but by the end you will be rich, in experience and perspective, and you will be glad to have taken the time and tilled the soil of your own mind.
Writers are a different breed, Snugglesworth. We are not like visual artists, who can show their progress to the world, who can measure skill at a glance. Ours is a stony ground, lapping up hungrily every drop we pour into it, until we think there can be no growth - and then there is, one shoot of green amidst grey, that one flash of brilliance that will prove the arability of your thoughts.
You have your garden. Now tend it.
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I'd grab Atlast Shrugged by Ayn Rand as well; it's long and preachy at times, but it does show a lot about character development and how books can twist. It also shows how endings can get a bit out of hand.
As an example of what NOT to do, I'd read some Stephanie Meyer; personally, I hate her writing, but part of knowing what you want to do is reading things that you don't like... so you don't make the same mistakes.
Read the classics - dig into Shakespeare, Chaucer, any number of Renaissance poets - you can't know where you're going until you understand where writing has been.
While his religion... well, I leave you to make your own considerations of that... I suggest L. Ron Hubbard. Skip Dianetics and delve into the Mission Earth books. It's interesting material, and surprisingly not bad for science-fiction. Some other great novels in that genre are from Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time, and its sequels.
Another writing angle to get a feel for story pacing - Table-top role-playing games. Read their rulebooks, get some people together, and run some stories. I've always felt it's interactive writing; as the man in charge, you're writing an outline, developing characters, seeding plotlines, and often must come up with twists and direction on the fly.
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I would agree with reading all kinds of stuff even stuff that's considered pop fiction. Go check out Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Steve Berry, Dan Brown, James Patterson, and the ilk. Read the Dragonlance books revel in all the bad writing that's there. Find what you enjoy to read and keep reading it.
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Let me stress here that EVERYTHING Wyborn says is true, but I need to especially stress that right now I'm about a quarter of the way through Under Heaven and it is SO good.
Wyborn is also write about the writing advice. ALWAYS BE WRITING, ABW! You shouldn't be writing something once a week, you should be writing something every DAY. Even if you can only make time to write 400 words a day, guess what, in a few days you have a short story! You need to get in the habit of writing every single day. Later on you can take days off or write when you see fit, but right now you need to be building your skills by writing every day. You don't need to wait until you've read 50+ new novels to start writing. Start writing today, quit sitting there with your thumb up your ass waiting for the right time. If you wait for contests to motivate you then you don't have the motivation it takes to cut it.
I know that sounds harsh, but that's the way it is. Learn to motivate yourself or stop wasting your time.
A lot of your writing is going to be shitty as you get back into it. That's normal. Nothing in the world is going to fast-track you through this, though. A LOT of people think they want to be writers, they're impatient and want to get from A to Z as quickly as possible and you know what happens? A majority of those people burn out. Everyone wants to get from A to Z as quickly as possible, but it just doesn't work that way. Writing is a craft that you build over time. You're going to write a ton of shit that never sees the light of day beyond a critique room. You're going to write things that wither and die, but you're going to have to write anyway because somewhere in there you'll actually manage to produce something of quality.
Now, on the topic of BOOKS. There have been a lot of great suggestions here already, but try these on for size.
The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. I'd argue that you'll never see better characterization and development in a fantasy novel. Want to see how to write really REAL characters in a make believe world? Characters with huge faults who are still endearing? Read these.
The Gentleman Bastard Sequence by Scott Lynch. For my money, there's no one in the genre (fantasy) currently writing anything like Lynch. Read these and study the dialogue and the INTENSE pacing. There is always something happening and it's always important.
The King Must Die by Mary Renault. Historical fiction done right. Mary Renault will show you how to effortlessly build a world for the reader and make it feel REAL.
But as I and other people have said, I can't stress how important it is to read broadly. Don't just cherry-pick things in whatever way you think will give you a shortcut. Just as important as it is to read good books, you want to read a lot so you can see what doesn't work as well. Just like Magell said. Pick up a few trashy fantasy books from the library and see what you should AVOID. The most recent fantasy book I put down was The Dragon Wing by Weis & Hickman which included footnotes explaining what fakey fake words meant in this fantasy world. Dropped it before hitting page 100, but it sure as hell reinforced some things NOT to do in writing.
Seinfeld has a great method for productivity. http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret
I have been doing this for the past 5 weeks. 500 words a day. Haven't broken the chain yet. With a few binge writing sessions in between, I have managed over 25k words in those 5 weeks.
Write. Every. Single. Day.
Ha, clever. That was intentional, right?
Anyway, you're right, both of you. But I still want to stick to the community competitions as they happen, as they serve to help me in three ways.
1. Force me to think critically in regards to the story guidelines each contest establishes
2. Force me to write something on a schedule
3. Get feedback from the community
Yes, I should be able to do the first two steps on my own, but as you may have noticed I have a bit of low self esteem with my writing, so any outside bit would greatly help. Including the book suggestions.
I started reading IT today. Funny enough, it's been in my family before my two sisters were born, and yet not a single family member has actually opened it. Today, I broke that cycle.
Personally, I feel the way Stephen writes a six year old boy to be a bit on the corny side, but he certainly knows how to mix worlds and build settings.
Edit: 500 words a day certainly sounds doable, but does "planning for a story" count as "writing a story"? I've been jolting down random ideas/dreams/novel ideas so I don't forget them, but I wonder if that really "counts" as creative writing.
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Don't think too much about how to write the right way, just write. Take a story idea, start writing and see where it goes. If you struggle to come up with ideas that are suited for short fiction - google "writing prompts" or look for flash fiction prompts.
Writers Digest has one prompt each week. http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts Take prompt that interests you, start writing. And don't stop until you have 500 words! This is important - don't go "aww this is shit, I'll better stop" halfway through the story or scene. Write the whole 500 words. Then do it again the next day with another prompt.
http://www.flashfictionfriday.com/ has a prompt each friday, but usually have a word limit of around 1000-1500 words. Author Chuck Wendig runs one on fridays as well - http://www.terribleminds.com.
Here's a helpful hint regarding self-esteem:
You suck. I say this without having read any of your writing. You are a new writer, and thus your writing right now is crap. The key is to accept this and not feel bad about it. My writing when I first started was also crap. Ernest Hemingway's writing when he first started was crap. To paraphrase Jake the Dog, sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda good at something.
Here's the corollary, though - if you keep writing, eventually you will not suck. This is a promise I make to you. Not everyone has it in them to become Faulkner, but everyone has it in them to at least not be Stephanie Fucking Meyer. You write every day, you solicit honest criticism, and you will hit a point where you can write, at the least, decent stuff that at least some people will enjoy reading.
The fact that you're on here, humble about your skills and asking us how to get better? That's great. That puts you above probably 90% of the people out there who want to be writers. You know that you need hard work and outside help to become a good writer. And if you actually write every day, that probably puts you in the top 95%.
As to books to read, I'll ape the bits where you should read broadly and that you should not read stuff that you hate. I would recommend a mix of Serious Works and Casual Works. I try to alternate between Good Books (Hemingway, Vonnegut, McCarthy, Chabon) and Fun Books (King, Pratchett, occasional stabs at swill like Twilight or Da Vinci Code to see if I can make it through the whole work without wanting to curbstomp puppies). Note that Fun Books are not necessarily Not Good, they're just generally lighter in tone and theme. I generally read Good Books to inform my prose, execution of theme, use of symbolism, that sort of thing. I read Fun Books to inform my pacing, plotting, and general enjoyable-to-read-iness. (In addition to just reading them because I like to read.)
And as far as "What counts as writing?" I include anything that furthers my pursuit of writing. My schedule is busy. I try to write every day, but sometimes it can't happen. But I still try to do some plotting, or find homes for existing stories, or even just read bits of my current project and get a feel for where it might be going. Just something to keep me in the writing mood. Every bit helps, and when you have a career and family, you have to get creative with your time budget.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
In answer to your question the internal art of acting is fundamentally different from role playing. Read the actor-character section of this wiki article and then come back.
Roleplaying encourages broad notions of character that have very little to do with what your character actually has gone through. You don't simulate the three drinks that character just had, how the milk in the third was just a little bit curdled. You don't imagine your character being constipated, how that pain shoots through his body in waves, making him hot, then cold, then hot. Your motivations are broad - you have to establish yourself in a group and play some functional role.
Representational acting, sometimes called simply "acting", is a detailed act. Broad doesn't do it, not with a coach whose only criterion is "are you being truthful?" You have to know exactly what has happened to a character, and you have to know what is going to happen to a character and how they will react to those things, and then you have to somehow let go of that knowledge and let the character take over. An actor understands character on a level that is completely, utterly non-rational.
Done correctly, this is a spiritual experience that will let you understand who that character is, indeed to on some level become/channel that character for a moment, which will give you insight into what the writer is actually doing with that character. From there you should be able to understand some things about what actually works to make a character tick in a way that is believable.
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I wouldn't know how to find an adult class like the one you mentioned. Last time I checked, my college didn't have one.
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I really love Margaret Atwood. Reading Hemingway and Carver will teach you that less is more. Atwood teaches you that, sometimes, more is more.
The only thing I strongly suggest avoiding is "How-To" books. People who write these are making money exploiting learning writers; they are rarely good writers themselves.
A lot of people say this about writing programs and writing professors too, though perhaps there are exceptions. Ultimately it's incredibly difficult to formulate a how-to program of any kind - whether through exercises or reading lists or whatever. At the same time, I couldn't agree more about the importance of reading. However, writers (young writers especially) are inevitably going to emulate the authors they happen to be reading at the time. That's why I do think that certain books (and passages) are infinitely more useful than others for writers who are starting out. Jumping right into someone like Nabakov is like trying to learn the basics of architecture by walking into a cathedral. It may be an inspiring experience, but not necessarily a practical one. First, seek out simple and direct sentences. Figure out what makes them great. Spend time with Ernest and Raymond and the section called "An Approach to Style" in Strunk and White. Focus exclusively on the mysteries of nouns and verbs first. Those are the building blocks. The others can be added later.
Advice given to me by a great newspaper feature writer was "Don't expect an adjective to do the job of the right verb."
Or something like that. We'd had a lot to drink.