I have been reading a few craft books on writing lately. I have had the Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card for a while, and can really recommend this. Published by the Writers Digest, it is one of a series of books on the art of writing called Elements of Writing Fiction, and it is full of techniques and examples, lots of easy to understand references and guides. I got this book a few years ago and read it at the time, but am still enjoying this reread.
I managed to pick up another one in the Elements of Writing Fiction Series at the end of last year, this one is on Conflict, Action and Suspense by William Noble. This looks specifically how to ramp up action and suspense in a story and examines the difference between story driven and character driven action and suspense. This is also an excellent and interesting technique book – while I know a lot of the information already, it is great to have it laid out in a visual way with examples from a range of novels by different authors.
The Writers’ Digest website looks quite interesting, there are online courses, other books, and all kinds of articles there (the one when I checked just now is on The Pros and Cons of Self Publishing – I know some people who might find this worthwhile.
Anyway, other books in this series, which I have not yet read include:
- Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress
- Description by Monica Wood
- Dialogue by Lewis Turco
- Manuscript Submission by Scott Edelstein
- Plot by Ansen Dibell
- Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham
- Setting by Jack M. Bickham
- Voice & Style by Johnny Payne
Given how good I have found the two I do have, I may try to find some of the others – perhaps the RWA conference in August will have some (that is where I got the other two previously anyway).