Best Books for Writers

Madison Smartt Bell provides thorough and insightful analyses of twelve short stories—by former students and established writers including Percival Everett, Ernest J. Gaines, Mary Gaitskill, and William T. Vollmann—to demonstrate and model different techniques for crafting narrative to create powerful storytelling. For each story, Bell dissects basic elements such as plot, character, tone, point of view, and dialogue, and then offers endnotes on language, subject matter, and style for a complete take that will help writers develop their own voice.

Best-selling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes readers behind the scenes of the writing life in this blend of memoir and guidebook filled with practical advice, anecdotes, and the kind of insights readers might expect from the author of Fight Club, Choke, and Haunted. In a chapter titled “Establishing Your Authority,” for example, he writes: “To create a story in which the reader never thinks to criticize the characters, kill the mother or father before the first page.” At its heart Consider This is a tribute to those who taught Palahniuk himself, including novelist Tom Spanbauer, whose unconventional writing workshop in Portland, Oregon, the author credits with having provided an essential space to improve his writing.

Throughout this collection of twenty-seven essays, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates a critically incisive and feminist perspective on writers such as Mary Shelley, Herman Melville, Franz Kafka, and Emily Dickinson, and topics including Mike Tyson, Winslow Homer’s paintings, her travels in Budapest, creativity, and the politics of being a woman writer. Oates’s insights will motivate writers of all levels to seek inspiration in literature, art, and observations of contemporary culture.

This book collects over two dozen essays by author, professor, and former California poet laureate Dana Gioia which present wide-ranging reflections on the evolving position of poetry in contemporary culture, and the cultural significance of poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Kenneth Rexroth, Kay Ryan, Jack Spicer, and James Tate. Gioia arrives at insightful and inspiring conclusions—and questions—concerning the definition of poetry, its unwavering value amid changes in literary culture, and the impact of both innovation and traditionalism.

Nancy Willard’s renown as a lively and versatile poet, novelist, and children’s book author is showcased in this collection of thirteen essays, which incorporate elements of parable, fantasy and folk tales, and poetry to explore the craft of writing and the role of the imagination. Willard presents readers with the magic possibilities of drawing inspiration not only from personal experiences and memories but also from ancestors and spirits, and includes examples from her own work as well as writing by Marvin Bell, e. e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Tess Gallagher, and William Carlos Williams.

In No Plot? No Problem!, Chris Baty, founder of National Novel Writing Month, has created an engaging handbook to accompany writers through the process of writing a fifty-thousand-word novel in thirty days, from start to finish. The first half of the book is full of practical tips to prepare for the writing ahead—getting in the right mind-set, figuring out a way to schedule in writing time, advice for motivation and incentives, and planning characters and plot—while the second half provides an encouraging week-by-week guide through a month’s worth of inspired fiction writing.

Poet and professor Gregory Orr offers an in-depth analysis and meditation on the time-tested ways in which reading, writing, and listening to lyric poetry can be instrumental in processing, healing, and transcending trauma and suffering. Orr selects examples and anecdotes from ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Inuit, and Japanese cultures, and brings in the work of poets—such as Emily Dickinson, Stanley Kunitz, D. H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and Richard Wilbur—to demonstrate the transformative power of the form.

“Instinct alone isn’t enough. To produce a work of art, technique must also be brought to bear. When instinct and technique merge seamlessly, I call the result cunning,” writes Peter Selgin, author and professor at Georgia College & State University, in this craft book “for serious writers of all levels.” The comprehensive guide includes practical advice and exemplary passages that cover essential elements of the process from inspiration and ideas, to point of view and dialogue, to structure and revision.

“This is a workbook for the work of writing. Getting into a great space for creating, wringing out our imagination, deepening our understanding of people and therefore of characters, and having a stockpile of tools to move the work forward.” Writer and instructor Jorjeana Marie provides ten rules from the world of improvisational theater to free the imagination for the purposes of creative writing. The book includes dozens of helpful tips and is full of exercises inspired by improvisational techniques that can be performed and practiced right at the desk to jumpstart new ideas and reveal new perspectives on characterization, setting, dialogue, themes, structure, and plot.

In his previous writing guide, This Year You Write Your Novel (Little, Brown, 2007), the author of more than fifty critically acclaimed books offered the basic tools and practical advice needed to write a novel in a single year. In this conversational follow-up, Mosley breaks down the art of fiction to its essential ingredients: character and character development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description. Drawing on his own writing methods and supplying engaging examples from his own work, Mosley provides tips, tools, and advice for writers, from blank page to first draft to revision after revision.

“I am interested increasingly in poetry and the arts as a way of creating another life, of marking and embodying alternative ways of being and living,” writes Philip Metres in the introduction to this collection which gathers a decade of his writing on poetry. The book provides a historical context to poetry as resistance and explores subjects ranging from post-9/11 writing, to landscape and peace poetry, to personal examinations of poets such as Khalil Gibran, Adrienne Rich, and Lev Rubinstein. Writers will be inspired by Metres’s insightful questions and his expansive view of the different ways poetry has served as a tool for both challenging injustice and healing.

The Anatomy of Story, based on lessons taught in John Truby’s acclaimed screenwriting courses, is a comprehensive guide through the process of building and shaping narrative, using elements such as dialogue, symbolism, tone, and characterization to propel the story forward. The book is full of techniques and insightful anecdotes that can be applied to writers seeking to strengthen their own fiction and nonfiction storytelling skills.