Study Time
Posted on October 22, 2009
Filed Under Writing Process |
I’ve been on this journey to become a writer for about nine months now. One has to do more than write. Practice makes perfect, but if you are practicing the wrong stuff the practice just prolongs the wrong behavior.
I’ve read a lot on the online writer’s groups and learned a lot through receiving critiques and giving critiques. I recently had a devastating rejection.
As a reader, I’m happy to accept the magic of the story, but not the obvious stupidity of the characters involved in it.
Pretty brutal, eh? Well I learned from it. The characters weren’t that stupid, but I didn’t make the circumstance sufficiently believable.
I’ve got a little collection of books on writing. I thought I’d share some of them with you.
Two grammar/editing books:
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Brooke & King
- The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier by Bonnie Trenga
A few books on specific writing issues
- Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
- Character & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
- Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress
And some books on selling your stuff
- The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
- Techniques of the $elling Writer by Dwight Swain
- Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas
It’s interesting that they all move a bit into each others’ territories as they talk about plotting, characters, viewpoints and the vagaries of writing.
Reading them will make me write better, but so does all the other things I’ve been doing. Writing, reading, critiquing and just immersing myself in this field.
I haven’t read them all. For some, just bits and pieces. They’ve all made their contribution and I will, most likely, read them again and again.
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3 Responses to “Study Time”
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So what do you think of the Scott Bell book? I just got it and am about 1/2 through it now and I like his exercises. I also like his character-driven process. It fits my view of the perfect story: it’s about someone who I would like to be (or pretend to be in one of my Mitty moments). Are you using it to prep for nano?
I love the Self-Editing book. I only wish I remembered it better between reads. LOL I didn’t find the Card or Kress books to be as useful. They seemed more common sense to me. I am now reading the Gotham Writer’s Workshop Practical Guide to Writing Fiction and I very much like that. I am also working through the exercises in the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. Some are pretty good and some are so-so.
this is a good idea, I should do a blog post on writing books…..
Leslie (lesliedow on LH and LAJD on hatrack)
About the rejection. Some people are crass idiots. I’ve read a lot of your stuff. It’s good.
Chin up.
Card is good as a reference, especially on MICE and POV. I haven’t read Kress or Scott Bell. I got four all at once (Amazon B-Day gift).
The Self-Editing book stands as the best of all of them at this point.