Anthony- For the writer’s in all of us
If you want to understand the writing process and a writer’s mind then here are five excellent books to get yourself into it. When reading books about writing, I would take what you want from them and leave the rest. There is no one way to go about the writing process, go with whatever way works for you.
Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is a brilliant part-memoir and part-writing instruction. She talks about how writing a novel is a little-by-little process and not to think of the novel as a whole daunting mountain to climb, more one step at a time. It is a very uplifting and moving book centred around her father, family, and how she became a writer.
Stephen King’s On Writing is a fascinating read on his life as a writer. He gives you some very good basic lessons on the rules he has for writing. He doesn’t worry too much on the details or elements of the craft but more about the advice that has stuck with him and his experiences with his craft. King is a master in his craft and this is a brilliant book.
Into the Woods: How stories work and why we tell them by John Yorke
John Yorke comes at writing from a scriptwriting point of view. He delves deep into the technical side of writing. He looks at structure, dialogue, and characterization. Through examples and his experience in script development, the author shows rather than tells the reader how to develop stories. A brilliant resource for a scriptwriter and very useful for any writer to help with having different ideas about their own processes.
A Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker looks to help writers write better by placing them in the minds of their readers. He brings his expertise in words and the mind, and he argues that ‘the curse of knowledge’ is the biggest curse of bad writing. Through funny examples, Steven shows how working memory stores syntactic constructions until they are complete to which the mind can feel overloaded. He makes you think about your approach, hence the title and how you can define every word you type.
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is a great little snippet of how to gain an understanding Orwell’s approach to his work. He proposes a six now-canonical rules in writing that still hold up today. The first five of these: are to use short, everyday words and the active voice, cut unnecessary words, and strive for fresh imagery. The sixth is dare to break all those rules at your peril and shows the difficulty of language.