From Stephen King to Anne Lamott: the 10 most inspiring, enjoyable books about how to write
“Most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one,” the great short story writer Flannery O’Connor once wrote. When it comes to good writing, we can tend towards a romantic vision of it being an unexplainable, inimitable act of divine intervention. It can be inspiring – and often unpalatable – to be reminded that the best writing is more often the result of of hard and constant work.
Even if the last thing you are planning on doing in lockdown is writing a novel, here are some of the best guides on writing: how to do it, how it works and how to be inspired to start. There were plenty of books that did not make this list that I would still recommend as entertaining, stirring and useful for would-be writers, such as The Writer’s Chapbook (a collection of advice given by authors in the Paris Review, which seems to be out of print now), Tillie Olsen’s Silences (important but not stuffed with practical advice) or Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life (ditto). And as any successful writer would say, the best thing you can do to learn how to write is read, read, read. But it couldn’t hurt to try a few of the following, too.
1. On Writing by Stephen King
Who better to learn from than a man who went from living in a trailer park to being one of the bestselling authors in the world? While some of King’s advice could be considered common sense (write every day, don’t presume to be smarter than your readers, read more), the details of King’s own life (alcoholism, car accident), his punishing schedule (2,000 words a day) and his no-nonsense humour (“The road to hell is paved with adverbs”) make this a very readable guide. So many authors credit On Writing as being instrumental in becoming a paid writer.
2. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Another classic of the genre. Lamott – an author and creative-writing teacher – focuses on the inherent value of writing, even if it is never shared with anyone, never published, or never makes money. The lessons she shares with her students, who “kind of want to write but really want to be published”, are refreshing – such as the maxim that all good writers write “shitty drafts”. There are good practical exercises, too.
3. Release the Bats by DBC Pierre
A relatively new addition to the genre by the Booker-winning author, who recalls anecdotes from his colourful life (“hellraiser” is an apt description for Pierre) to explain the intricacies of good storytelling. There are some real gems (his tale of finding children living in the attic of his family home is astounding) and there are some tips you won’t get elsewhere, such as: “Weed is a writerly drug … it is the drug of choice for staring at a blank page and watching stories grow out of tangents.”
4. Draft No 4 by John McPhee
Just as journalists such as Hunter S Thompson and Tom Wolfe pioneered the flashy, challenging and sometimes infuriating “new journalism”, McPhee was shaping an equally influential form of nonfiction while writing for the New Yorker: quieter, equally literary, blending fastidious accuracy with novelistic storytelling. This collection of essays is warmly reassuring and instructive, and worth buying for the essay called Structure alone, in which McPhee explains how he plans long and complex nonfiction works.
5. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Yes, there is more than a whiff of spiritual cheesiness in this guide to “recovering your creative self ” – Cameron uses “God” as a stand-in for creative energy, which might ruffle some atheists – but it has helped everyone from Elizabeth Gilbert to Martin Scorsese. Several authors I have spoken to swear by some of Cameron’s exercises, particularly “morning pages”: handwriting three pages of stream of consciousness before tackling any work, in order to get the day-to-day baggage out of your mind and focus on creative thinking instead.
6. Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann
Last year, I met the Let the Great World Spin author and he immediately began nudging me to write a novel. Whether it was the wine or sheer politeness, I was intrigued to meet an author who seemed so buoyed by the possibilities of other people’s writing – so when I heard about this book, I had to buy a copy. Broken up into 52 short pieces on everything from opening lines to procrastination, it is not so much a manual as a “word in the ear”, as McCann puts it. Crucially, as a creativewriting teacher, he dispels the notion that you have to have a qualification to become a novelist: “In the end nothing will matter but the words on the page: who cares if they came from an MFA or not?”
7. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
Having written screenplays including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and novels such as The Princess Bride and Marathon Man, Goldman could not be a better teacher. While this guide sometimes favours gossipy entertainment over practical advice, authors have said they appreciate its lessons in ruthlessness – and one of the last chapters, titled Before We Begin Writing, is brilliant for writers of all kinds.
8. Story Genius by Lisa Cron
Cron’s lengthy subtitle – How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere) – tell you everything you need to know. She uses neuroscience to explain why certain books keep us up reading into the early hours and why others bore us to tears. No matter how beautiful your writing is, if your protagonist doesn’t have an internal struggle, Cron argues, readers will not care. She then explains how you, a writer, can use that to hook and hold readers and get everything right by draft four or five, instead of 14 or 15.
9. Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin
“This is not a book for beginners,” the late, great queen of science-fiction writes at the start of this book and she isn’t one for hand-holding. There is no advice on rejection letters or finding “God” here, or even advice on plotting or characterisation. (If you are after that, you’d be better off with King.) Instead, Le Guin provides useful exercises to encourage writers to improve their work at the sentence level, including one called Chastity: write a page of descriptive narrative prose, without adverbs, adjectives or dialogue.
10. The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and EB White
Finally, the grandfather of writing books. Written by the Charlotte’s Web author (White) and his former English professor (Strunk), the duo don’t teach you to kill your darlings so much as massacre them with a big smile on your face. Omit needless words. Avoid a succession of loose sentences. (Read: too many commas.) While some writers would bridle at such concrete edicts on what makes “good writing”, others have credited the book with helping them gain clarity and shed affectation in their writing.