Books about Writing

[Patrick Murtha]

Pamela Frankau’s Pen to Paper: A Novelist’s Notebook, which my mother bought for me at age 12, remains the best book I have ever read about the writing process, informative, tartly funny, full of great anecdotes. There is a story late in the book about Frankau and three other writers, whom she labels A, B, and C (and she also alters some details of what happened). It took me YEARS to figure out this puzzle, but I can now report triumphantly:

A = Rebecca West
B = Humbert Wolfe
C = Anthony West

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life is also a very good, recommendable book.

 

[Liam]

This thread is very similar in subject matter to this one, but I suppose also different enough to let it stand on its own,

I have never heard of the book you mention, Patrick, but I'll look it up. The genre, so to call it, of "writers on writing" is probably my favorite, I must say.

One book I rarely see mentioned anywhere is by my former mentor at Hunter College (this would have been maybe 15 years ago?): Writing As a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo.

She later published another one, The Art of Slow Writing, which offered some invaluable tidbits on the actual business of sitting down to write (what it is that you sit down to write is not important for DeSalvo: it can be a novel or your own personal blog).

The one book on writing that I have read and reread more times than I can count is How Fiction Works by James Wood, and it never gets old!

 

[TrixRabbi]

Stephen King's On Writing is perhaps the best thing he's ever done and ever will do. I owe it a reread soon but his passion is infectious.

How Fiction Works was required reading for me in college and is likewise a classic for a reason. Maybe I should just jump back in with both of them to motivate me to do more of my own creative writing like I keep meaning to.

 

[kpjayan]

'Letters to a Young Novelist' by Mario Vargas Llosa, could also be one in this league...

 

[nagisa]

This thread is very similar in subject matter to this one, but I suppose also different enough to let it stand on its own,

I have never heard of the book you mention, Patrick, but I'll look it up. The genre, so to call it, of "writers on writing" is probably my favorite, I must say.

One book I rarely see mentioned anywhere is by my former mentor at Hunter College (this would have been maybe 15 years ago?): Writing As a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo.

She later published another one, The Art of Slow Writing, which offered some invaluable tidbits on the actual business of sitting down to write (what it is that you sit down to write is not important for DeSalvo: it can be a novel or your own personal blog).

The one book on writing that I have read and reread more times than I can count is How Fiction Works by James Wood, and it never gets old!

I'm surprised you didn't jump to bringing up Murnane! Whose metafictive fiction deserves a mention here, especially (from what I've read at least) A Million Windows.

Thanks for these references.

 

[wordeater]

Elizabeth George's Write Away has some useful chapters about narrators, point of view, location etc. She also describes the THAD or talking heads avoidance device.

 

[Benny Profane]

I'll read War Without Witnesses by Osman Lins, a book regarding the issues that writes face when they write a book, especially a novel.

It sounds very interesting.

 

[Liam]

^I checked out the name and it looks like this book is not available in English, ?

It sounds very interesting indeed!

 

[Benny Profane]

^I checked out the name and it looks like this book is not available in English, ?

It sounds very interesting indeed!

The original title in Portuguese is "Guerra Sem Testemunhas". It's his PhD thesis.

I don't whether this book was translated into English, but I know "Avalovara" and "Queen of the Prisions of Greece" were.

 

[MichaelHW]

No Robert Mckee? Syd Field?
Lajos Egri? Truby?
Then there are the jung/cambpell people

I saw a video with syd field online. He seems to have been a very sympathic person. McKee has transformed into a legend, an "in"-writer. They all ask if you have read hi. But I skimmed through his book Story. It is the opposite of pretentious. In fact, McKee is extremely down to earth in his philosophy, at least. But now he has groupies, and lots of them.
Egri was an early guru focusing play writing.

 

[Leseratte]

It´s not a book, just a beautiful chronic about writing in Portuguese by Julian Fuks. But I had to share it:

https://www.uol.com.br/ecoa/colunas...strelas-conselho-a-quem-comeca-a-escrever.htm (About children, words, stars -advice to those that are starting to write.)

 

[Stewart]

This is a topic that's recently interested me.

I pulled together a list of all the ones I had, be that a whole volume on the topic or just an essay or two inside a book of essays.
It's a mix of writing lessons and experiences in writing. The whole area interests me.

On Writing, Raymond Carver (essay in Fires)
Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury (this one really fired me up to write without thinking)
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, John Irving (title essay)
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith
Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami
On Writing, Stephen King
Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
On Writers and Writing, Margaret Atwood (originally Negotiating with the Dead)
Ramsey Campbell, Probably, Ramsey Campbell (has a section of essays on the writer and his work)
A Horse at Night: On Writing, Amina Cain
Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin
Mystery and Manners, Flannery O'Connor
Writing and Being, Nadine Gordimer
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard (this is great)

Others I'll be looking to get are:

On Writing, Jorge Luis Borges
On Writing, A.L. Kennedy
On Writing, Charles Bukowski
Henry Miller on Writing, Henry Miller
Draft No 4: On The Writing Process, John McPhee
Ernest Hemingway on Writing, Ernest Hemingway
Reading Life a Writer, Francine Prose

And I keep finding and learning about more.

 

[Stewart]

It´s not a book, just a beautiful chronic about writing in Portuguese by Julian Fuks. But I had to share it:

https://www.uol.com.br/ecoa/colunas...strelas-conselho-a-quem-comeca-a-escrever.htm (About children, words, stars -advice to those that are starting to write.)

Fuks has had two books translated and published recently with Charco Press in Edinburgh. I doubt we'll see that in English any time soon, though.

 

[Ben Jackson]

This is a topic that's recently interested me.

I pulled together a list of all the ones I had, be that a whole volume on the topic or just an essay or two inside a book of essays.
It's a mix of writing lessons and experiences in writing. The whole area interests me.

On Writing, Raymond Carver (essay in Fires)
Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury (this one really fired me up to write without thinking)
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, John Irving (title essay)
Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Patricia Highsmith
Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami
On Writing, Stephen King
Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
On Writers and Writing, Margaret Atwood (originally Negotiating with the Dead)
Ramsey Campbell, Probably, Ramsey Campbell (has a section of essays on the writer and his work)
A Horse at Night: On Writing, Amina Cain
Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin
Mystery and Manners, Flannery O'Connor
Writing and Being, Nadine Gordimer
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard (this is great)

Others I'll be looking to get are:

On Writing, Jorge Luis Borges
On Writing, A.L. Kennedy
On Writing, Charles Bukowski
Henry Miller on Writing, Henry Miller
Draft No 4: On The Writing Process, John McPhee
Ernest Hemingway on Writing, Ernest Hemingway
Reading Life a Writer, Francine Prose

And I keep finding and learning about more.

I did read Stephen King's On Writing. That book is superb. Will try and read Writing and Being and Aspects of the Novel.

 

[Leseratte]

Fuks has had two books translated and published recently with Charco Press in Edinburgh. I doubt we'll see that in English any time soon, though.

Is this editor so restricted, @Stewart ?

 

[Stewart]

Is this editor so restricted, @Stewart ?

It's more that they predominantly publish contemporary fiction from Latin America. Of all their releases to date, shown in the pic, only two have been non-fiction: one a translation diary by Daniel Hahn on the experience of translating Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire (Jamás el fuego nunca) and Microcosms, subtitled Latin American Writers in the British Museum. And one, as they grow and branch out a little, was an original English title, Homesick by Jennifer Croft.

 

[Leseratte]

It's more that they predominantly publish contemporary fiction from Latin America. Of all their releases to date, shown in the pic, only two have been non-fiction: one a translation diary by Daniel Hahn on the experience of translating Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire (Jamás el fuego nunca) and Microcosms, subtitled Latin American Writers in the British Museum. And one, as they grow and branch out a little, was an original English title, Homesick by Jennifer Croft.

Thanks, @Stewart. And here are the books:

Julián Fuks — Charco Press

Julián Fuks was born in São Paulo in 1981 and is the son of Argentinian parents. As an author whose work has garnered several top international literary prizes, Julián Fuks has gained recognition as one of Brazil’s most outstanding young writers. He has worked as a reporter for the newspaper Folha d

charcopress.com