Books on writing I like
Tilbake til [[Digital hage - Blogg]]
I am in the process of writing a book. Well, two books really. In the time consuming, but hopefully additive way, of writing a draft for one, then letting that story rest while I write the draft for the second one, then back to the first and so on. The thinking is to let time be a help in letting me se the stories with a clearer eye when I come back to them. So far it is working, I am making progress.
And while writing I have an ebb and flow of craving books about the craft. I have read a few of the more "prescriptive" writing books, like The Anatomy of Story and The Story Grid, but find that they feel to restrictive to me. I feel like I tell worse stories when i force the events to be of a specific kind, like the Dark hour of the soul. All my creative being is yelling out in protest. In some sense I might be a more intuitive writer. I prefer to feel the story. But I still crave reading all I can about this.
So, I want to compile a list of books I have read and like with some short notes on why I found them helpful and maybe you can find something in them too.
Good books on story
Story by Robert McKee This book is the very opposite of The Anatomy of Story. Instead of giving a list of story parts with limiting names, McKee starts with the very smallest building block of what a story is, how these built into scenes, scenes to sequences and sequences to acts. Plotting becomes thinking about the choices your characters make and how the world around them react in dramatically interesting ways to keep them from their goal.
I have also tried the method he describes in the later chapter on A Writers Method and find it to be very useful for early drafts. In essence he advices to write a draft where all action and character thought is plainly written so you construct your subtext out loud before burying it again in later drafts. For me this way of writing lets me focus on intent and action first, then sculpt it in dialog and description later, lightening the cognitive load of writing.
More focused on screenwriting, but has a few
Read it, its's great (I have his other books in the ever growing to-read pile, halfway through Character, that is great so far too).
Story Genius by Lisa Cron This book is great for its section on the work you do before starting to write your story. All the stuff about writing the formative moments of your main characters is a great well of inspiration while plotting or writing exploratory early drafts.
The Blueprint system for plotting is not fully my thing. I find plotting with sentences better than fully detailing what happens. I think that is because I like the exploration of unfolding more and more detail in every draft, but the Blueprint system is loose enough to enable you to write interesting character first stories (not that you can really separate character and plot).
The 5 Sentence Method by Rebecca Thorne This is more of a prescriptive book, but still very loose. More "first plot point" then "meeting the mentor". I essence it advocates for planning your big moments, then sitting down to write the stuff in between and as your story changes, redrafting the big moments you aim for. Quite in the spirit of Terry Pratchett's thoughts on planning: "Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree."
Her approach to drafting is also very useful, aiming to not overwrite a story, but fix one category at a time (structure, character, scene, sentence).
Also her fiction is great. Read that too.
Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell A good guide to a first draft and then two rounds of editing to get to a finished story. This is very much for the pantser type of writer, no scaffold needed.
I have just read the first two parts of this (have not made it to draft three of any of my books yet), so cannot say if the last part is good, but guessing it is.
Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham This book is more specific for novel writers, but just like Story is useful for novelists this one is useful for screenwriters (and others) as well.
For me this shares the same space as Story but with more focus on the characters. Bickham breaks story down to the moment by moment flow that make up the pattern of a well told story, expands it to the scene level and then into whole novels.
In addition he talks about the concept of a Sequel, not the second book, but what happens after a scene. The mental processing a character goes through as they deal with their emotions from the disaster that happened to them in the previous scene. This has really broadened my understanding of pacing and even though it is focused on novels, this structural component is crucial in other mediums too. The structural component where there isn't necessarily conflict, but emotions are high and your character decides on their next action.
There are probably others as well, but these are the ones that have impacted my thinking about story the most.
I also want to recommend a few that aren't really craft books, but more memoirs about writerly lives: We Need Your Art by Amie McNee Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russel T. Davies and Benjamin Cook
Books I'm excited to read
Playwriting by Stephen Jefferys (this is on my nightstand right now, so far it is Story and Scene and Structure but for theatre) The Crafty Art of Playmaking by Alan Ayckbourn Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ill add more as I read more.