Hey everyone! Here I am back again with another post for another week. I’m excited to once again be on time for a post. I know that most of you just come for the good advice or information, but I would just like to take a moment and pat myself on the back for being mentally stable, in University, having 2 jobs, and also keeping up with this blog. Anyway, today is one of my favorite things to do to develop as a writer so without further ado…
Develop As A Writer: Read Books On Writing
There are lots of different resources out there to improve your writing. This week and next week are going to be about specific resources you can read to improve your writing. For this week we’re going to talk about reading books on writing. No, this does not mean reading fiction novels to learn from them. This means actually reading books, written by professors, published authors, publishers, agents, and editors, on how to become a better writer.
Giving advice about writing or writing books about writing is not something totally unique. I first became interested in starting a writing blog 5 years ago when I was in High School and began looking into new things to read to become a good writer. I stumbled across several writing advice blogs and one of them suggested starting your own blog to become a writer. That same blog also suggested some books.
I realized after I began reading books on writing that I’d done this before. I had read a few books on writing back in Middle School and had totally forgotten about them. The two books that I had read where The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them) by Jack Bickham and Writing Magic by Gale Carson Levine. Before I had read these books in middle school I just kind of did writing for fun. It wasn’t until I read these books that I realized that writing was more than just having fun. You could create whole worlds, share stories, and bring people together. I also learned that writing was an actual craft that you needed to work on.
It was around this time in High School that I started to read books on writing. The first thing I did was look up Jack Bickham because I had liked his book the most when I was in middle school. That’s how I found the elements of fiction writing series. To this day it is one of my favorite series of writing advice books. I highly recommend it. It easily breaks down different writing skills into books that are interesting and easy to follow. The two I first read that were really helpful for me were Scene and Structure and Setting. These two books really helped me as a writer. Slowly, as I wanted to work on different aspects of my writing related to a different book, I bought the next one. I currently have almost all of the elements of fiction writing series and I refer back to them often on the best ways to improve my writing.
There are all sorts of different kind of books to help you improve your writing that aren’t necessarily part of a huge series like the Elements of Fiction Writing. I have a book I really like that I bought at a used book sale at my library. It’s kind of like a fiction writing workbook. Each chapter introduces ideas and concepts of writing (some advanced and some not so advanced) and then at the end give you a page of activities and prompts to try to work on that specific skill from the chapter. There are writing books that are like the first book I read by Jack Bickham that are more about the specific mistakes of writing to avoid.
There are even books that help develop writing skills by genre. Since I am a mainly Fantasy and Science Fiction novel writer, I read a book that was the best ways to develop High Fantasy novel character arcs and plot lines. I still have not attempted to write a High Fantasy genre novel, but it has helped me to create better character arcs in my longer book series that I have been writing for several years.
No matter what kind of book you read, or what skill you need to work on, I can almost guarantee that there is a book out there that has a chapter on it or even a whole book on it. No problem you might have writing has not been experienced by another writer before. And a lot of the time those writers have written some advice on it. If you can’t find a book on it then you can read next weeks post on what to do next!
That’s all I’ve got for this week. I hope it was helpful. I really enjoy reading books about writing and I hope that you are able to find some you like. If you have a few you enjoy and you would like to share them, become a blog page member and share it in the forum, or send me a message through the contact me page. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. Next week we’ll be talking about a second type of source you can read to become a more developed writer. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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