Author’s Note: One of my favorite films, The Dead Zone, is free to stream on Amazon Prime right now. I thought I would take the opportunity to repost my tribute to the film, which I originally published on my old blog, Bakhtin’s Cigarettes.
When I was a student at the University of Florida in the late 1980s, I took writing classes under the great novelist Harry Crews. Harry was almost as famous for being a wild man as he was for being a writer, but by the time I knew him he had quit drinking and was leading a simple, almost monastic life of writing and teaching. Like many recovering alcoholics, he had lost many of his old friends, and he was also divorced, so he was alone a lot.
I am a perpetual student of the writing craft and, as such, I am an avid consumer of books about writing. Here is a list of my favorites, from great to greatest…
10. Aspects of the Novel Kindle Edition — E. M. Forster
Forster is one of my all-time favorite novelists, a capital-G Great Writer who penned classics like Howard’s End and A Passage to India. So, he could write with some authority on both the broad and fine points of novel-writing. It’s also a very practical book. Best of all, it’s in the public domain, so you can get it for free/cheap.
9. Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer
J. Michael Straczynski is best known as the creator of the classic sci-fi TV show Babylon Five. But he’s also had a long, successful career in screenwriting and producing. He takes his title from a quote by his friend, the late Harlan Ellison: “The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.” Indeed. Straczynski has good, strategic advice for writers at every level, from novice to published (and wanting to stay published).
8. From Where You Dream – Robert Olen Butler
This is not a book on craft, but rather a high-level meditation on how to channel inspiration into the art of writing, and how writing itself can almost be a form of spiritual practice. Butler makes a strong case that this practice is what really separates “hack” writers from true artists.
7. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
An extremely witty and inspirational book about starting a novel, keeping momentum, and fighting off self-doubt. The title comes from an anecdote that Lamott tells about her father instructing her brother on how to write a big term-paper on local bird-life.
6. Stein on Writing – Sol Stein
This is one of my favorite books on the practical matter of writing fiction that doesn’t suck. From description, to pacing, to style and character motivation, Stein covers it all. His section on titles alone is worth the cost of the book.
5. Don’t Sabotage Your Submission: Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A. – Chris Roerden
This is the absolutely best craft manual that I’ve ever found. No joke—reading it changed the way I write. What this book teaches you is the fiction-writing equivalent of not picking your nose in public. Avoid tons of stupid, stupid shit (that I have done and many others have done) in your fiction—the kinds of things that make an agent or a publisher sock your manuscript straight into the circular file. If you can find this book, new or used, it’s worth the money.
4. The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface – Donald Maass
Maass is the only author on this list who is also a successful literary agent. The Emotional Craft of Fiction is a great book about how to make the reader feel something—which, to me, is the highest (and perhaps the only important) goal of fiction. How do you do it? Well, obviously, by making your characters feeling something—that is, complex, believable, and yet somehow ineffable emotions.
3. Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True – Elizabeth Berg
This has recently become one of my favorite books on the writing life. One great quote:
I believe that fiction feeds on itself, grows like a pregnancy. The more you write, the more there is to draw from; the more you say, the more there is to say. The deeper you go into your imagination, the richer that reservoir becomes. You do not run out of material by using all that’s in you; rather, when you take everything that is available one day, it only makes room for new things to appear the next.
2. Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
Gilbert is one of the best writers of her generation, so it makes perfect sense that she would write one of the best books ever on the creative process. While not limited to the literary arts specifically, Big Magic is a meditation on how any kind of creative art is a kind of inexplicable, real magic. It has to be nurtured, defended, shared, and—above all—respected.
1. On Writing – Stephen King
As one might expect, this is my favorite of all the books on this list, and the one I find myself re-reading. Stephen King is a master, and his is the most entertaining and trenchant book on this list. Part is devoted to practical matters like plot, description, dialog, etc., while the rest is a very compelling memoir.
Ash Clifton, Writer 