Now that I have my Kindle, most of the space on my shelves is filled with books about the process of writing fiction or ones by master writers. Those last books I read again and again for my own pleasure and for the insight they give into the process of writing fiction. I often say that I’ve learned more from reading the works of the master writers than I have from any class I’ve ever taken.
Art and Craft of Writing
JanetBurroway: Writing Fiction
Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way, Vein of Gold, Walking
in the World, The Right to Write, The Sound of Paper
Annie Dillard: The Writing Life
John Gardner; On Moral Fiction,On Writers and
Writing, On Becoming a Novelist, The Art of Fiction
Natalie Goldberg: Wild Mind, Thunder and Lighting
Francine Prose: Reading Like a Writer
Jerome Stern: Making Shapely Fiction
John Truby: The Anatomy of Story
Character Development
Joseph Campbell:The Power of Myth
James N Frey: The Key
Linda Goodman:Sun Signs
David Kearsey and Marilyn Bates:Please
Understand Me
Jean Shinoda: Goddesses in Everywoman
Victoria Schmidt: 45 Master Characters
Constantin Stanislavski:Building Character
Dwight Swaim: Creating Characters: How to Build Story
People
Roger J Woolger and Jennifer Barker Woolger: The
Goddess Within
Dialogue
William Noble: Shut Up! He Explained
Free Writing, Brainstorming and Writing Exercises
Chris Baty:No Plot? No problem
Anne Bernays:What If?
Natalie Goldberg:Writing Down the Bones
Donald Newlove:First Paragraphs
Gabriele Rico:Writing the Natural Way
Lou Willet Stanen:Story Starters
Robert Yehling: The Write Time
Marketing Guides
Robert Lee Brewer, Editor: 2011 Writer’s Market
Kristin Lamb: We Are Not Alone, Are You There Blog
David Mathison: Be the Media
Chuck Sambuchino, Editor: 2012 Guide to Literary Agents
Master Writers
Margaret Atwood
Jane Austin
Sara Addison Allen
Raymond Carver
Annie Dillard
William Faulkner
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Georgette Heyer
Alice Hoffman
John Irving
James Kavanaugh
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Sheryl Nelms
Robert Parker
J. D. Robb
Nora Roberts
John Sandford
Dylan Thomas
William Carlos Williams
Shakespeare
Virginia Woolf
Mechanics, Sentence and Paragraph Structure, Style.
Revising
Constance Hale: Sin and Syntax
Noah Lukeman:The First Five Pages, A Dash of Style
Rebecca McClanahan: Word Painting
David Madden:Revising Fiction
Raymond Obstfeld:Fiction First Aid
Patricia O’Connor:Woe is I
Novel Writing
Mary Buckham:Break into Fiction
Jerry Cleaver:Immediate Fiction
James N Frey:How to Write a Damn Good Novel, How to Write
a Damn Good Mystery
Gothan Writers’
Wordshop:Writing Fiction
Donald Maas:Writing the Breakout Novel
Eric Maisel: Fearless Creating
Evan Marshall: The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel
Published
Bob Mayer: The Novel Writer’s Tool Kit
Sol Stein:Stein on Writing
Christopher Vogler:The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for
Writers
Plot Development
Nancy Kress: Beginnings, Middles and Ends
Noah Lukeman:The Plot Thickens
Dwight Swaim: Techniques of a Selling Writer
Screenwriting
Blake Snyder: Save the Cat!
Short Story Writing
Paul Darcy Boles:Storycrafting
Tools of the Trade: Dictionaries and Other Invaluable
Reference Books
Word Menu
Flip Dictionary
Thesaurus
Dictionary
Language Dictionaries
Writing Books by Published Fiction Writers
Margaret Atwood: Negotiating with the Dead
Dorothea Brande: Becoming a Writer
Rita Mae Brown: Starting from Scratch
Janet Evanovich: How I Write: Secrets of a
Bestselling Author
Ellen Gischrist: Falling Through Space
Steven King:On Writing
Annie Lamott:Bird by Bird
Ursula K. Le Guin: Steering the Craft
Brenda Urland:If You Want to Write
Eudora Welty:One Writer’s Beginnings
Virginia Woolf:Room of One’s Own
