Of course, judging by the sheer volume of writing guides available from publishers it would seem that the enthusiasm of this blog page is only a small sampling of the enthusiasm for the genre.

Here are my top ten books about writing: http://www.squidoo.com/writeguide

Well I’m off to take a look at The Triggering Town

Cheers,
April

- H. W. Leggett – The Idea in Fiction
- C. Gordon – How to Read a Novel
- Flannery O’Connor – Understanding Fiction
- Walker Percy – Signposts in a strange land
- Wayne C. Booth – The Rhetoric of Fiction
- Conrad’s prefaces to his works; with an introductory essay by Edward Garnett

This is it, the Bible, the text for poets. Yes.

Sincerely,
J. Roderick Clark
ROSEBUD

I wasn’t always a big fan of Bird by Bird, but there came a time in my life when it struck me as true and necessary education (at least the chapter I mentioned). Usually I’m not looking for instruction so much as encouragement and commiseration.

I think the idea that writers “don’t need to learn anything about craft – that they can simply absorb it by reading the right literature” is a legacy of Romanticism. Prior to its cult of the writer as devine vehicle of self-inspired genius, it was taken for granted that writers would be schooled by other writers. This is true of the East Asian tradition as well, where novices apprenticed by imitating the works of others.

I was ambivalent about Goldberg.

Seriously, why is it that people expect writers to be unschooled geniuses, but they don’t expect that of anyone else, not even other artists, such as dancers or musicians or painters? My professors in my MFA program had this expectation, more or less … so I left their program without knowing jack about how point of view or characterization really worked. My students at the time sure would’ve appreciated it if I’d known more about basic story mechanics, or even how to teach (another craft that people seem to think, not incidentally, is blighted if taught).

Yes, I learned by doing. But inspiration and imitation weren’t enough. Janet Burroway’s *Writing Fiction* filled in most of the gaps in my self-education, and another how-to writer helped me out with plot. True, most how-to books irritate me because their explanations of technique are facile, non-specific, or they make too much of the results of Lilliputian feats of creativity, but reading over these different lists (and non-lists) only underscores the main point: in the matter of how you learn and from whom, you have to go with what works for you.

If Howard’s not into how-to books, that’s fine; nor am I going to be turning to Natalie Goldberg for inspiration any time soon. But I won’t rule it out. After all, the book you despise may, when you pick it up again three years later, turn out to be something that transforms your work. The biggest barrier any of us faces is being unwilling to learn.

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Story by Robert McKee

Gardner is rigorous, tough, guilt-inducing. Lamott is also tough, but supportive and gentle too. They make a nice, complementary pair.

The McKee book is aimed at screenwriters, but it’s the only book about how story (in the abstract) works that has made total sense to me.

There are many, many other good books about writing, though. I like the Ezra Pound recommendation. And anything you can lay your hands on in the Paris Review Writers at Work series is gold. Gosh, Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Conner. Etc., etc.

I don’t think there’s too much pablum on my list, but I no longer care that much about making distinctions between true artists and duffers. I just write the best I can and try to read mostly good books.

I thank you for your comments, and it was good of you to post about this on your blog.

in real life i don’t have time for amateurs.

i want art not self-expression.

if you want to nurture the duffers of the litworld, godspeed. i’ll tune into the PGA, the Opens, and the Masters.

see you at the driving range.

While I largely agree with Howard about the place of “self-help” books for writers — in general the best way to write better is to read better — I also agree with Robin that labeling all such books “nonsense–pablum for neurotics” is a bit extreme. The reality is that people are going to read such books, and it makes sense to point them to useful examples rather than leave them to them slog at random through the genre.