Every writer I know has a bookshelf full of books they’ve purchased to help inspire the writing process. In my case, I
have so many, I’ve pretty much lost track of them.
Except for those that I can’t write without. In my office, I have my computer table, an oak rolltop desk close enough my left elbow bumps it when I really get going on the keyboard and behind me, about two feet away, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf of reference books. Those books are constantly ibn motion. I pull them out by piles, stack them on my desk and riffle through them to augment partikcular parts of my stories. Sometimes, I’m looking for facts on nature, animals, buildings. Other times, I’m working through some prickly syntax. Either way, there are those books I can’t write without.
Here’s my list. Read through it. Tell me what your list looks like:
- Bill Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors, by Bill Bryson
- Blockbuster Plots: Pure and Simple, by Martha Alderson
- Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage, by Theodore Bernstein
- Creating Character Emotions: Writing compelling fresh approaches that express your characters’ true feelings, by Ann Hood
- Elements of Style by EB White
- First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman
- Garner’s Modern American Usage, by Bryon Garner
- How to Write A D*** Good Novel, by James Frey
- Lexicon, by William F. Buckley Jr.
- Marshall Plan for Novel Writing: A 16-step program guaranteed to take you from idea to completed manuscript, by Evan Marshall
- National Audubon Society Field Guide
- New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything
- New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge
- Novel Writer’s Toolkit: A guide to writing great fiction and getting it published, by Bob Mayer
- Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus
- Oxford Book of Aphorisms, by John Gross
- Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology
- Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words
- Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams, by MJ Cohen
- Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, by David Keirsey
- Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne
- Synonym Finder, by J. I. Rodale
- Webster Dictionary
- Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work, by Jack Hart
- Writer’s Guide to Character Traits, by Linda Edelstein
- Writing from A to Z, by Sally Ebest
- Writing the Blockbuster Novel, by Albert Zuckerman
- Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway
- Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider advice for taking your fiction to the next level, by Donald Maass
- Writing the Novel from Plot to Print, by Lawrence Block
The links are to book reviews I’ve done. It’ll be a while before I complete the entire list.
I’d love to hear your list.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and four ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
A good list here, and I definitely see some books here I need to take a look at. Thanks again.
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There are a lot of good ones. Part of it will be what works best for you.
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Hey, Connye, did I read that correctly: Does AP train you for 7 days to read the AP tests? That’s pretty cool.
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Reblogged this on The Writer's Bookstore and commented:
Great Article on Great Books for Writers!
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Thanks for the RB, guys!
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Thanks for the comprehensive list. Mine is much shorter: Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (several editions), Virginia Tufte’s The Artful Sentence, and Ken Macrorie’s Telling Writing. I’ve read the advice of several professionals, including that of John D. Macdonald, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King. If you haven’t read Tufte or the Macrorie (from 1979), I recommend them.
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Those are good. I like your choice of writers–love Macdonald.
BTW, it’s nice to meet you. I always wondered who the saints were who read through AP English tests. You must have some stories.
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I’m not sure “saint” describes me as an AP reader. I ignored the chance to read, thinking it must be like being hit on the head with a 2×4 over and over. One day, I realized that I must read for my students. I needed to know more about preparing them, and I needed to give back to all those readers who went before me. Reading became 7 days of professional development for which I was grateful each year.
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