For Reading About Writing
A List of Readings to Make You a Better Writer
Sometimes people ask me for recommendations on how to be a better writer or reader. My two biggest suggestions are to do just that: read and write. Both are muscles that need exercise to be at their best. Hell, that’s why I started this blog! I wanted to give myself a place to write when I wasn’t working on my next work of fiction. But, books on craft have helped me develop as a writer, so I wanted to provide a reading list for up-and-coming writers of texts that have helped me.
Below, I have three recommendations for each section. The first is on how to improve your creative prose writing. The second is on how to improve the mechanics of your writing. The next is a selection of art criticism. The final has recommended readings of short fiction and creative nonfiction.
On Creative Writing
These three books are to help you become a better creative writer. In other words, these aren’t books on grammar or writing well but on the mechanics of creative writing. These texts cover plot, dialogue, character, publishing, revision, structure, etc. Each book I picked covers a different or excels in a different topic, so none are replacements for another.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (1994): Probably the most ubiquitous book on creative writing in my life, Bird by Bird was my textbook for my first fiction workshop in undergrad. Before that, we read sections of it in my Introduction to Creative Writing class in high school. It’s become such a workshop classic that it’s been reverenced in every prose workshop I’ve been in since, either undergrad, graduate, or extracurricular.
Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers by Carolyn See (2002): This is probably the best book I’ve read on what to do outside of writing as a writer. It has sections akin to Bird by Bird on writing, and they’re good, but the true value of Making a Literary Life is its tips on how to feel like a writer outside of writing: how to ask for feedback from readers, networking, submitting your work, how to respond to rejections, etc.
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, Revised Edition by Syd Field (2005): I know it’s weird to recommend a book on a completely different genre than my expertise, but Screenplay really is the best book on structure I’ve ever read. And structure is what separates the architect from someone who can’t keep it up. Certain chapters may not be valuable to most prose writers, but the book’s sections on character, structure, dialogue, plotting, and pacing are easily applicable to prose, be it fiction or creative nonfiction. It and Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need are the two texts I return to the most when plotting a story.
On Writing Well
If you want to make your writing clearer, cleaner, effective, and efficient, these three books are for you. These texts go into the mechanics of writing itself, covering grammar, word choice, style, editing, clichés, metaphors, similies, hyperbole, etc. Again, I don’t think one of these is a replacement for another. The Practical Stylist is great for essay writing, organization, logic, and persuasion. The Elements of Style is a slim and concise volume on basic grammar. And Woe Is I is more expanded but also more casual.
The Practical Stylist with Readings and Handbook, Eighth Edition by Sheridan Baker (1998): This book defined my freshmen composition seminar during undergrad. It’s still the resource I turn to when I begin to feel my essay writing rust or become overwrought. The book itself is focused on clear and concise argumentative writing, so it’s a worthwhile read to improve your persuasive and polemic essays.
The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White (2000): This short read is a simple and easy outline of English grammar. Its size and ease of use make it the perfect volume to keep in arm’s reach when you’re editing, proofreading, and revising. I still flip through it before submitting important and professional work.
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, Fourth Edition by Patricia T. O’Conner (2019): I consider this an expansion of The Elements of Style. It is an easy-to-read resource on basic grammar but provides an encyclopedia of examples, clichés, common mistakes, old rules to ignore, and so much more. It also feels more American, casual, and modern than The Elements of Style. Both are worth it, however.
On Aesthetic, Art, and Literary Criticism
Poetics by Aristotle (c. 335 BCE): Probably the first book on literary criticism, Poetics is still worth a read today. I think it does have ancient wisdom in what we find important in storytelling. While its main concern is drama and poetry (which was performed live), Poetics gets at the atoms of storytelling and how it makes the audience respond to it. There is no single correct way to write a story, but there are proven methods that keep us coming back.
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin (1935): This is less literary criticism and is instead general art history and theory, but I think it’s a short and important read on understanding how art as a whole has changed from ancient times to today. It also sees the political character of art and the aesthetic character of politics, which helps us understand the interaction between the two. Written in Nazi Germany and anticipating the Second World War, Benjamin reminds us that as fascism aestheticizes politics, we must politicize art.
“Tragedy and the Common Man” by Arthur Miller (1949): Again, this is in regards to drama and not prose, but I think Miller’s thesis on character is a wonderful and easily understood synthesis of psychology and sociology that will help with writing characters who aren’t sheep nor talking heads. It also is a good bookend to these three readings; Poetics starts with the Ancient Greek tragedy, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” provides the history of art from the ancient cult era to the present-day industrial (or post-industrial, depending who you ask) age, and “Tragedy and the Common Man” relates the fundamentals of Greek tragedy (and thus storytelling) to the present.
On Prose
Short Fiction
Dubliners by James Joyce (1914): It’s the short story collection. Joyce consolidated the modern short story here, giving it its most famous element: the epiphany. That being said, it is a great collection. It’s not nearly as experimental or intentionally frustrating as his later work such as Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, so it’s easier to read. And it’s a great capital-C Collection. Each story feels like a song on a concept album and not a playlist or greatest hits compilation. It’s better to read it as a whole, but some of my favorite cuts are “An Encounter,” “Araby,” “Eveline,” “After the Race,” “A Little Cloud,” “Counterparts,” and especially “A Painful Case” and “The Dead.”
In Our Time by Ernest Hemmingway (1925): Hemmingway’s In Our Time is the United States’s answer to Dubliners. However, while Joyce made the short story modern, Hemmingway first employed his now-famous minimalism here, in which understatement and subtext are used to enhance the story. As such, Hemmingway may be one of the best authors to learn dialogue from since his characters talk like real people: avoiding or leaving out important or mutually understood information. Like Dubliners, In Our Time is best read as a collection, but my favorite stories are “The Battler,” “Big Two-Headed River: Part I & II,” “Soldier’s Home,” and “A Very Short Story.”
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, eds. & trans. Richard Peaver & Larissa Volokhonsky (2000): Chekhov didn’t have a definitive short story collection like Joyce and Hemmingway did, but his body of work is full of amazing stories. Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov—translated by the wonderful team of Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky, who’ve translated all your favorite Russian classics by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Gogol—is a fantastic collection of most of his best.1 It’s worth reading the entire collection for the variety and talent on display. Still, my favorites included are “The Death of a Clerk,” “The Huntsman,” “Panikhida,” “Easter Night,” “The Fidget,” “Peasant Women,” “Rothschild’s Fiddle,” “Anna on the Neck,” “Gooseberries,” “In the Ravine,” “The Fianceé,” and a special mention goes to “Sleepy,” “A Boring Story,” “Ward No. 6,” “The Student,” and “A Medical Case.”
Creative Nonfiction
I’m not as well versed in creative nonfiction as I am in fiction, so I asked a talented nonfiction writer friend of mine for some recommendations. Also, I limited the recommendations to a creative nonfiction book, a creative nonfiction collection, and an essay.
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (1974): Considered the blueprint for modern creative nonfiction, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was released before it was its own discipline. As such, it often has more in common with poetry and spiritual writing and their traditions than fiction or the novel.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace (1997): DFW had a few great essay collections to pick from, but this one is my favorite, despite Consider the Lobster and Other Essays having a higher user score on Goodreads. This has more of what people expect from a creative nonfiction essay collection; a solid mix of autobiographical essays, literary and aesthetic criticism, and personal opinions.
“Leap” by Brian Doyle (2002): This succinct read came highly recommended by my friend, and I can see why. Short is too big of a word to describe its length, which is great for learning as a reader trying to become a writer. I find shorter pieces more fun to teach and easier to learn from. That’s why I think “Hills Like White Elephants” is one of the best short stories to learn dialogue from or “In the Night” is one of the best short stories to study setting.
BONUS: References
Want to feel more like a writer? Get yourself a big, up-to-date, hardcover dictionary, thesaurus, manual of style, and usage dictionary. What’s a usage dictionary? To quote DFW: “A usage dictionary is one of the great bathroom books of all time. Because it has the appeal of trivia, the entries are for the most part brief, and you end up within 48 hours—due to that weird psychological effect—actually drawing on exactly what you learned in some weird, coincidental way.”2 Here’s what I recommend based on these requirements.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2019)
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus, Second Edition (2018)
It’s missing some highlights such as “Joy,” “Reading,” “An Educated Blockhead,” “Anguish,” “A Little Joke,” “The Siren,” “The Kiss,” “Boys,” “Kashtanka,” “The Name-Day Party,” “A Breakdown,” “Big Volodya and Little Volodya,” “In a Cart,” “About Love,” and “Ionych,” but all of these are all available in Fifty-Two Stories—also translated by Peaver and Volokhonsky—and I rather have the stories included in Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov over these missing ones anyway.
B. A. Garner & D. F. Wallace, Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing (Rosepen Books, 2013).