Hi all!
It’s been a while! Apologies for the infrequent posts, but I’ve come to terms with the fact I cannot keep this blog in regular maintenance, on top of my other responsibilities. My focus starts with my books and thus ends with it.
That said, the preliminary draft for Book 2 is complete! For those who are excited to read the next one, well, things are going according to schedule for next year’s publication.
I always take the time to review the basics of the craft before I plot a new piece; just to make sure that mentally, things are aligned after months of redrafting and editing. The later phases of publishing are always about fine tuning, so to readjust to the big picture takes some time.
Everyone has their favorite resources on the subject, but I thought I’d take the time to post my curated collection, mostly free no less, that I’ve collected over the last few years. I’ve also read quite a few books on the matter, but honestly, I feel a lot of them repeat the same concepts but with different presentations.
The few books I think are worth buying, well, I’ve listed their link below.
The Collective Whole:
- Stephen King’s “On Writing”: The classic. Part memoir, part inspiration. King has great things to say.
- Deborah Chester’s “The Fantasy Fiction Formula”: My favorite “How to Write” book. Chester was Jim Butcher’s teacher and she definitely knows her stuff.
- William and Strunk’s “Elements of Style”: The classic little book of grammar. Yes, I bat for Team Oxford Comma.
- Brandon Sanderson’s Lectures Playlist by Camera Panda: Sanderson is a masterful storyteller and a few of his lectures are made available on YouTube. Much more recently, he’s been uploading a few of his newer lectures while people are home for quarantine!
- Habits and Traits Archive by /u/MNBrian (archive found here): I used to peruse r/writing a LOT and this gem of a series was full of gems.
A Look at the Macro:
- Dan Wells’ Seven Point Plot Structure: My favorite way to plot. Flexible and can be applied to almost everything.
- Ellen Brock’s Character Arcs: It cannot be stressed enough that character development is the heart and soul of a good story. This is a great primer.
A Look at the Micro:
- Sage Advice for Beginnings by Agent Dong Won
- Writing a Scene: A great article that leads into Jim Butcher’s rather infamous posts. . .
- About Scenes and…
- Sequels (I highly recommend Chester’s book above, it goes through it in much depth and talks about how to insert narrative in between!)
- Brandon Sanderson’s Laws of Magic: Not only just for fantasy, but as a general approach for rule-making for your universe.
Other Resources:
- Michael Sullivan’s AMAs on Reddit: All of his AMA’s are fantastic, but this one in particular, was great for Indies.
- Janet Reid’s Query Shark: The infamous Query Blog. I read this back and front, took notes, the whole nine yards. Great advice.
- Noah Lukeman’s “How to Write a Great Query Letter”
And that’s it!
If you have any other books, articles, blogs, or even just Twitter profiles you love following, comment below to share the love with others! We’re all here to write good fiction, after all.
