good books to write essays about

Essay Papers Writing Online

The best books to improve your essay writing skills.

Are you looking to enhance your essay writing abilities? Whether you are a student, professional writer, or simply striving to improve your writing skills, investing in the best books on essay writing can make a significant difference.

Discover expert tips, strategies, and techniques to craft compelling and impactful essays in various genres and styles. From mastering the art of brainstorming to refining your thesis statements, these recommended books will inspire and guide you on your writing journey.

Unlock your full potential as a writer with the help of these invaluable resources.

Explore the Best Books

Ready to take your essay writing skills to the next level? Dive into our curated selection of the best books for essay writing. These invaluable resources cover a wide range of topics and techniques to help you become a masterful essay writer.

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White : A timeless classic that provides practical guidance on grammar, style, and composition.
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser : Learn how to craft compelling essays with clarity and precision.
• They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein : Master the art of engaging with academic sources and constructing persuasive arguments.
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott : Gain insights on the creative process and overcome writer’s block.
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg : Unleash your creativity and develop a daily writing practice to refine your skills.

Explore these essential books to enhance your essay writing abilities and stand out as a confident and articulate writer. Happy reading and happy writing!

Discover Top Writers

Looking to be inspired by some of the best writers in the world? Our collection of top writers includes renowned authors like J.K. Rowling, George Orwell, Jane Austen, and more. Dive into their works to explore different writing styles, techniques, and storytelling methods.

Find your favorite authors and study their essays to learn how they captivate readers with their words. Whether you’re a novice writer or seasoned professional, exploring the works of top writers can help enhance your own writing skills and ignite your creativity.

Discover the magic of storytelling through the eyes of these esteemed writers and unlock the secrets to crafting compelling essays. With the guidance of top writers, you’ll be able to elevate your writing to new heights and create essays that leave a lasting impact on your readers.

Enhance Your Skills

Are you looking to take your essay writing skills to the next level? Our selection of the best books for essay writing will help you enhance your writing techniques and improve your overall writing proficiency. Whether you are a student looking to boost your academic performance or a professional seeking to refine your communication skills, these books offer valuable insights and practical tips to help you become a more effective writer.

Develop Your Style: Discover how to develop a unique writing style that reflects your personality and engages your readers. Learn how to effectively use language, tone, and structure to make your writing stand out.

Master Essay Structures: Explore different essay structures and formats to enhance the organization and clarity of your writing. From persuasive essays to analytical pieces, these books provide guidelines to help you structure your arguments effectively.

Refine Your Research Skills: Improve your research skills and learn how to gather, analyze, and incorporate evidence into your essays. Enhance the credibility and depth of your writing by conducting thorough research and citing reputable sources.

Invest in your writing skills today with the best books for essay writing and see a significant improvement in your writing proficiency!

Master Your Techniques

Deep Dive into Essay Writing

Essay writing is an essential skill that can greatly enhance your academic and professional success. By mastering the art of essay writing, you can effectively communicate your ideas, opinions, and arguments in a clear and concise manner.

Here are some key tips to help you excel in essay writing:

By implementing these strategies and practicing regularly, you can enhance your essay writing skills and become a more effective communicator. Explore the best books for essay writing to further refine your techniques and unlock your full potential.

Unlock Your Creativity

Unleash your imagination and expand your creative horizons with the best books for essay writing. Dive into a world of inspiration and learn how to express your thoughts and ideas in new and innovative ways.

Discover the power of storytelling and the art of persuasion as you explore the depths of your creativity. With the guidance of expert writers and teachers, you will develop your unique voice and style that will set you apart from the rest.

• Explore different writing techniques to enhance your essays
• Learn how to structure your ideas effectively
• Find inspiration in classic and contemporary works
• Master the art of critical thinking and analysis

Whether you are a student looking to improve your academic writing or a professional seeking to enhance your communication skills, these books will help you unlock your creativity and become a more confident and persuasive writer.

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18 of the Best Books on Writing (Updated for 2023)

Table of contents

Ashley R. Cummings

The need for writers isn’t going away. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the employment of writers and authors will continue to grow by 4% from 2021 to 2031 . And it’s projected that there will be an average of 15,000 job openings for writers and authors each year.

While there’s a huge need for writers, it’s also projected future writers will invest anywhere from $7000 to $40,000 to learn the craft. Gasp!

But there’s good news. You don’t necessarily need to invest $40K into a degree to learn how to write. There are countless books that will help you become the writer you’ve always dreamed of becoming and will help you earn money straight out of the gate.

Here’s a list of the top eighteen books that will prepare you for your writing career. ‍

“Read, read, read. Read everything  —  trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” — William Faulkner

Best books on writing for business and marketing

Marketing is so important the U.S. spent more than $17 billion in 2021 on marketing data. A large part of marketing is knowing how to write marketing materials that engage audiences. Marketing is also one of the most lucrative freelance writing niches.

When marketing and selling anything, the words you choose to represent your products and brand are critical—these books will help you find the right ones.

1. Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin

Best for : Entrepreneurs and marketers in the SaaS space

In his book Lost and Founder, Fishkin walks readers through the process of creating a startup. He’s very transparent and doesn’t leave anything out—the roses and the warts are on full display. Lost and Founder is a wealth of first-hand experience that any new startup can learn from.

Most of this book is about all the steps involved in creating a startup, but he also goes through how to write pitches and marketing strategies that worked for him.

Furthermore, if you want to write for startups, it’s important to understand everything that goes into creating a startup. This will help you meet the writing needs of a startup, regardless of what stage it may be in.

2. Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi & Robert Rose

Best for : Modern marketing strategies/techniques

Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose are founders and partners who love content marketing. In their book Killing Marketing, they say content isn’t just marketing; it’s an essential business strategy. 

This book focuses mostly on modern digital marketing techniques. It addresses how marketing has gone from creating ‘sale’ posters to being an essential part of adding value to a brand or company. Pulizzi and Rose use anecdotes and data from their own experiences to illustrate content writing and marketing techniques.

3. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Best for : Experienced marketers looking to fine-tune writing/strategies

Predictably Irrational isn’t so much a book about writing as a book that can help writers understand what motivates us humans—which is essential for any great writer to understand.

Dan Ariely is an expert in behavioral economics, which studies how people behave when they perform any sort of action (e.g.,. shop, get married, apply for jobs, etc.).

Ariely and his team used experiments to see how suggestion, context, and even subliminal messaging can affect people’s behavior. To illustrate this point, Ariely uses an example where his team created a test that was easy to cheat on. 

Then, his team had respondents take the test again, but reminded them of any sort of moral code (like the ten commandments or even a fake ‘honor code’) right before taking the test to see if people cheated less after the reminder. You’ll have to read to find out the results, but I bet you can guess what happened.

This book is most beneficial for experienced writers and marketers looking to understand their audience on a deeper level.

Best books for copywriting

The biggest issue for copywriting (especially digital copywriting) is people don’t really read things all the way through anymore. 

According to a 20+ year study done by the Nielsen Norman Group , eye tracking research confirms that most internet users only skim and skip around a webpage for relevant info. That means copywriters must understand how to capture the attention of these skimmers and skippers. Here are books that will teach you the ins and outs of successful copywriting.

4. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Best for : Learning the fundamentals of advertising

Ogilvy on Advertising is admittedly an older book that was first published in 1983. But it’s still considered one of the foremost texts for beginner copywriters and even marketers. It goes over all the fundamentals of advertising and how to write compelling copy.

If you’re new to copywriting and marketing in general, this book uses real life examples to illustrate advertising concepts. And although some of the advice about getting jobs and how to market in foreign markets may be out of date, Ogilvy’s lessons on things like research and brand image are still relevant today.

5. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan

Best for : Creating visual stories

Luke Sullivan has been a successful advertiser for over 30 years. He’s worked at elite agencies, taught, consulted and trained. His book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This , uses real life examples like Charmin’s advertising campaign of the 1960s and 1970’s (the namesake of the book) to illustrate all aspects of advertising. 

Sullivan goes through everything from how to protect your work to how to write for social media. The book is snarky and witty and gives you a glimpse of what it feels like to work in the creative department at an ad agency. 

6. Finding the Right Message by Jennifer Havice

Best for : How to research your audience

Finding the Right Message is all about delving deeper into understanding what makes your customers tick. It offers step-by-step guides on things like:

• How to craft customer-centric messages
• The types of questions to ask when conducting interviews and surveys
• How to research your customers and the market

Havice offers insight into how to study your audience. She then goes through how you can create messages that will pique your audience’s interest. Using her expertise as a messaging strategist and copywriter, she goes over all the things a copywriter needs to reach their audience.

Best books for longform writing

The average time spent on any webpage is 54 seconds. So, it’s important for longform articles to really engage readers in order to keep them reading for more than 54 seconds. Learning how to write engaging longform articles and books may not come naturally, but here are some books to lead you in the right direction.

7. Writing Feature Stories by Matthew Ricketson & Caroline Graham

Best fo r: Comprehensive writing fundamentals

Matthew Ricketson and Caroline Graham go over the fundamentals of writing engaging and informative longform writing in their book, Writing Feature Stories . They help both journalists and blog writers go beyond the basic who, why, what, where, and when. 

This book will help you generate new ideas, teach you how to do research for your stories, how to edit your work, and how to find the best platform for your work. Using all the information Ricketson and Graham provide, it’ll also help you get over any fear of longform writing.

8. Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies by Sol Stein

Best for : Novelists

Sol Stein is a well known editor and teacher that uses practical and his own real-world experiences to help writers write better. Stein on Writing gives writers practical ways to improve their writing instead of relying on theory. 

A lot of this book is focused on helping novelists with creating more interesting characters, more realistic dialogue, and structure. But it also goes over things like how to trim the fat away from your writing and more efficient ways to edit and revise your drafts.

9. How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia

Best for : Motivation and practical strategies

The title says it all. Paul Silvia uses his book, How to Write a Lot to help you become a more efficient and effective longform writer. He uses practical strategies that even go through how to make a schedule, how to get over writer’s block, and ultimately how to write like a professional.

Best books for essay writing and academic writing

Whether you’re trying to write OpEds for the New Yorker or just finishing your term paper, you can use these books to learn how to write effective essays for the world of academia.

10. A Professor’s Guide to Writing Essays: The No-Nonsense Plan for Better Writing by Dr. Jacob Newman

Best for : Straightforward and practical writing

If you feel intimidated by academic writing, A Professor’s Guide to Writing Essays is a great book to help you overcome that. Dr. Jacob Newman has been a professor for a long time and uses his experiences to help writers navigate the world of academia. 

Giving useful tips and real world examples, Dr. Newman helps to dispel the idea that academic writing is any different from other kinds of writing. His book is straightforward and practical and focuses on helping students, professors, and anyone else looking to conquer writing academic papers.

11. Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword

Best for : Analysis of real articles and essays

Helen Sword believes that data deserves to be presented in an elegant way. Her book Stylish Academic Writing , presents her analyses of over a thousand peer-reviewed articles (on all subjects) that show how important it is for academic writers to know how to write well.

She shows readers the skills they can learn through the examples in her book. Sword will make you a believer that compelling data should be presented with compelling writing. Slapping data onto a page just isn’t good enough anymore. 

12. Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers by Jacques Barzun

Best for : Exercises that help readers learn concepts

Jacques Barzun was a noted teacher, historian and author. His book Simple & Direct, is just that. He uses a no-nonsense style to help writers improve their technique.

Simple & Direct may have been published in the 70s, but the writing exercises, model passages, and examples provided in the book are a treasure trove for any writer looking to better their craft.

Books that relate to writing in 2022

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Mad Men, you know that advertising must change with the times. Not only does the medium change (e.g., newspapers, radio, TV, internet, etc.) but so does your audience. 

For example, Baby Boomers were concerned with security, Gen Xers were concerned with buying things, millennials cared about buying experiences, and Gen Zers care about supporting companies that have the same beliefs as them. 

So while you can keep the same foundational concepts, there are things writers must learn as they write for the 21st century.

13. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker

Best for : Relating to all types of writing

Steven Pinker is a Harvard psychology professor who has used his own research and experience to write, The Sense of Style . In this book, writers will learn writing techniques to create compelling prose and Pinker gives real-world examples to help illustrate his points.

If you’re looking to infuse more style into your writing and interested in making your writing stand out in today’s day and age, then this is the book for you.

14. You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins

Best for : Bloggers, content creators, indie authors

“Dress for the job you want” and “fake it ‘till you make it.” The idea that you should start acting like the writer you want to be is exactly what Jeff Goins addresses in his book, You are a Writer .

This book is a guide that will help writers in their craft, work ethic, and in marketing their material. It’s perfect for bloggers, content creators, and anyone who has been waiting to fulfill their dream of becoming a full-time writer.

15. The End of Marketing : Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI by Carlos Gil

Best for : focus on engagement

Carlos Gil breaks down the science of modern marketing in his book The End of Marketing . He breaks down essential topics like:

• What modern audiences want
• Storytelling
• How to get attention on social media and how to use social media as feedback
• How to be genuine
• How to find your customers

The End of Marketing unravels the mysteries of influencers, social media algorithms, and staying on trend. It’s a must read for any writer today.

Books on writing for social media

There are over 4.7 billion active social media users worldwide. In a global survey done by Statista in 2022, 61% of marketers said they would increase their usage of Instagram and 37% said they’re increasing usage of TikTok advertising. Social media isn’t going away, and it always needs content, which means, it needs good writers.

16. Everybody Writes : Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

Best for : Bloggers and content creators

Everybody Writes teaches readers not only how to write, but also how to engage audiences with truthful storytelling. She offers practical how-tos for writing technique, publishing, and even how to find content ideas. 

Ann Handley’s Everybody Writes is one of the most highly rated overall writing books, and is especially helpful for those looking to write for social media. She also recently released an updated version with new examples.

17. Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story by: Miri Rodriguez

Best for : Step-by-step guide on how to build a brand story

Miri Rodriguez is an award winning storyteller and creative journalist at Microsoft. In her book Brand Storytelling she shows readers the importance of creating an emotional connection with your audience.

She uses case studies and interviews to show readers how, in this world of digital screens and AI, human connection will always win out. 

18. Faster, Smarter, Louder: Master Attention in a Noisy Digital Market by Aaron Agius and Gián Clancey

Best for : How to grow business from start to multimillion global company

Aaron Agius and Gián Clancey are the founders of the successful global marketing firm Louder.online. But they weren’t always successful, they actually first went into business together in 2008, but that business didn’t work out and forced them to move back home to Australia. But their experiences made them write Faster, Smarter, [and] Louder. 

This book gives writers technical and practical tips on how to gain credibility, increase online traffic, and engage with audiences. 

Read to become a better writer!

This list is just a start. If you want to be a writer, you don’t have to spend a lot of money, all you need is a library card or a connection to the internet.

In fact, even if you don't have time to learn how to write, that’s no longer an obstacle either. There are several AI and editing tools that will write content for you and help you fine-tune your sentences to stand out from other writers. There are also blogs that will give you all the resources and info you need to become a stellar writer. 

So stop sitting around thinking “one day” you’ll be a writer. As Stephen King said in On Writing , “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

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100 Must-Read, Best Books On Writing And The Writer’s Life

Nikki VanRy

Nikki VanRy is a proud resident of Arizona, where she gets to indulge her love of tacos, desert storms, and tank tops. She also writes for the Tucson Festival of Books, loves anything sci-fi/fantasy/historical, drinks too much chai, and will spend all day in bed reading thankyouverymuch. Follow her on Instagram @nikki.vanry .

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If you’re a working or aspiring writer, y ou already likely know about the classic best books on writing–King’s  On Writing,  Strunk and White’s Elements of Style– but for a craft as varied and personal as writing, you’ll always benefit from learning from more voices, with more techniques. 

That’s why this list is full of writers not only talking about the bare-bones craft of writing (and there’s plenty of fantastic advice there), but also how becoming a writer changed their lives and what role they believe writers play in an ever-changing world. From craft to writer’s lives, get ready to dig into 100 of the must-read, best books on writing for improving your own work. 

“Written with her trademark lyricism, in these signature pieces the acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street shares her transformative memories and reveals her artistic and intellectual influences. Poignant, honest, and deeply moving, A House of My Own is an exuberant celebration of a life lived to the fullest, from one of our most beloved writers.”

2.  A Little Book on Form    by Robert Hass

“Brilliantly synthesizes Hass’s formidable gifts as both a poet and a critic and reflects his profound education in the art of poetry. Starting with the exploration of a single line as the basic gesture of a poem, and moving into an examination of the essential expressive gestures that exist inside forms, Hass goes beyond approaching form as a set of traditional rules that precede composition, and instead offers penetrating insight into the true openness and instinctiveness of formal creation.”

3. A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges

“After almost a half a century of scrupulous devotion to his art, Jorge Luis Borges personally compiled this anthology of his work—short stories, essays, poems, and brief mordant ‘sketches,’ which, in Borges’s hands, take on the dimensions of a genre unique in modern letters. In this anthology, the author has put together those pieces on which he would like his reputation to rest; they are not arranged chronologically, but with an eye to their ‘sympathies and differences.'”

4.  A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

“Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister—a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. In this classic essay, she takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those who are without. Her message is a simple one: women must have a fixed income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create.”

“Taking up specifics (When do flashbacks work, and when should you avoid them? How do you make characters both vivid and sympathetic?) and generalities (How are novels structured? How do writers establish serious literary reputations today?), Delany also examines the condition of the contemporary creative writer and how it differs from that of the writer in the years of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the high Modernists. Like a private writing tutorial, About Writing treats each topic with clarity and insight.”

6. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby

“Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby’s own unique approach to building an effective, multifaceted narrative.”

7.  Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

“Explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn’t get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. The book’s co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is experienced by artmakers themselves.”

8.  The Art of Death by Edwidge Danticat

“At once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work.”

9. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner

“Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here.”

“Karr synthesizes her expertise as professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and ‘black belt sinner,’ providing a unique window into the mechanics and art of the form that is as irreverent, insightful, and entertaining as her own work in the genre.”

11. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

“The seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published twenty five years ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work.”

12. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

“With profound empathy and radiant generosity, Gilbert offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives.”

13. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

“Lamott’s miscellany of guidance and reflection should appeal to writers struggling with demons large and slight. Among the pearls she offers is to start small, as their father once advised her 10-year-old brother, who was agonizing over a book report on birds: ‘Just take it bird by bird.’ Lamott’s suggestion on the craft of fiction is down-to-earth: worry about the characters, not the plot. “

14. Black Milk: On the Conflicting Demands of Writing, Creativity, and Motherhood by Elif Shafak

“She intersperses her own experience with the lives of prominent authors such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand, and Zelda Fitzgerald, Shafak looks for a solution to the inherent conflict between artistic creation and responsible parenting. With searing emotional honesty and an incisive examination of cultural mores within patriarchal societies, Shafak has rendered an important work about literature, motherhood, and spiritual well-being.”

“Erdrich takes us on an illuminating tour through the terrain her ancestors have inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario. Summoning to life the Ojibwe’s sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, she considers the many ways in which her tribe—whose name derives from the word ozhibii’ige, ‘to write'”—have influenced her. Her journey links ancient stone paintings with a magical island where a bookish recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her.”

16. Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer’s Guide to Getting It Right by Bill Bryson

“An essential guide to the wonderfully disordered thing that is the English language. With some one thousand entries that feature real-world examples of questionable usage from an international array of publications, and with a helpful glossary and guide to pronunciation, this precise, prescriptive, and–because it is written by Bill Bryson–often witty book belongs on the desk of every person who cares enough about the language not to maul or misuse or distort it.”

17. Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction by Jessica Morrell 

“A truly memorable antagonist is not a one-dimensional super villain bent on world domination for no particular reason. Realistic, credible bad guys create essential story complications, personalize conflict, add immediacy to a story line, and force the protagonist to evolve.”

18. Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo

“In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.”

19. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

“Former editor Lynne Truss, gravely concerned about our current grammatical state, boldly defends proper punctuation. She proclaims, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are.”

“You know the authors’ names. You recognize the title. You’ve probably used this book yourself. This is The Elements of Style , the classic style manual. This book’s unique tone, wit and charm have conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. Use the fourth edition of ‘the little book’ to make a big impact with writing.”

21. The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass

“Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to use story to provoke a visceral and emotional experience in readers. Readers can simply read a novel…or they can experience it. The Emotional Craft of Fiction shows you how to make that happen.”

22. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

“A  go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is, in fact, a writer. If you have a web site, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.”

23. The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman

“With exercises at the end of each chapter, this invaluable reference will allow novelists, journalists, poets and screenwriters alike to improve their technique as they learn to eliminate even the most subtle mistakes that are cause for rejection. The First Five Pages will help writers at every stage take their art to a higher — and more successful — level.”

24. The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner

“From blank page to first glowing (or gutting) review, Betsy Lerner is a knowing and sympathetic coach who helps writers discover how they can be more productive in the creative process and how they can better their odds of not only getting published, but getting published well.”

“ Free Within Ourselves is is meant to be a song of encouragement for African-American artists and visionaries. A step-by-step introduction to fictional technique, exploring story ideas, and charting one’s progress, as well as a resource guide for publishing fiction.”

26. Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors by Brandilyn Collins 

“Want to bring characters to life on the page as vividly as fine actors do on the stage or screen? Getting Into Character will give you a whole new way of thinking about your writing. Drawing on the Method Acting theory that theater professionals have used for decades, this in-depth guide explains seven characterization techniques and adapts them for the novelist’s use.”

27. The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou

“In The Heart of a Woman , Maya Angelou leaves California with her son, Guy, to move to New York. There she enters the society and world of black artists and writers, reads her work at the Harlem Writers Guild, and begins to take part in the struggle of black Americans for their rightful place in the world.”

28. If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland

“In this book, Ueland shares her philosophies on writing and life in general. She stresses the idea that ‘Everyone is talented, original, and has something important to say.’ Drawing heavily on the work and influence of William Blake, she suggests that writers should ‘Try to discover your true, honest, un-theoretical self.’ She sums up her book with 12 points to keep in mind while writing. Carl Sandburg called If You Want to Write the best book ever written on how to write.”

29. Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep by Ted Conover

“Conover distills decades of knowledge into an accessible resource aimed at writers of all levels. He covers how to “get into” a community, how to conduct oneself once inside, and how to shape and structure the stories that emerge. Conover is also forthright about the ethics and consequences of immersion reporting, preparing writers for the surprises that often surface when their piece becomes public.”

“On a post-college visit to Florence, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri fell in love with the Italian language. Twenty years later, seeking total immersion, she and her family relocated to Rome, where she began to read and write solely in her adopted tongue. A startling act of self-reflection, In Other Words is Lahiri’s meditation on the process of learning to express herself in another language—and the stunning journey of a writer seeking a new voice.”

31. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker 

“Alice Walker speaks out as a black woman, writer, mother, and feminist, in thirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Here are essays about Walker’s own work and that of other writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the 1980s, and a vivid, courageous memoir of a scarring childhood injury.”

32. It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences by June Casagrande

“Great writing isn’t born, it’s built—sentence by sentence. But too many writers—and writing guides—overlook this most important unit. The result? Manuscripts that will never be published and writing careers that will never begin. So roll up your sleeves and prepare to craft one bold, effective sentence after another. Your readers will thank you.”

33. The Kick-Ass Writer: 1001 Ways to Write Great Fiction, Get Published, and Earn Your Audience by Chuck Wendig

“The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? Where do I start? The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a KICK-ASS writer.”

34. The Language of Fiction: A Writer’s Stylebook by Brian Shawver

“Grand themes and complex plots are just the beginning of a great piece of fiction. Mastering the nuts and bolts of grammar and prose mechanics is also an essential part of becoming a literary artist. This indispensable guide, created just for writers of fiction, will show you how to take your writing to the next level by exploring the finer points of language.”

“Finally, a truly creative―and hilarious―guide to creative writing, full of encouragement and sound advice. Provocative and reassuring, nurturing and wise, The Lie That Tells a Truth is essential to writers in general, fiction writers in particular, beginning writers, serious writers, and anyone facing a blank page.”

36. The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl Klein

“Editor Cheryl B. Klein guides writers on an enjoyable and practical-minded voyage of their own, from developing a saleable premise for a novel to finding a dream agent. She delves deep into the major elements of fiction―intention, character, plot, and voice―while addressing important topics like diversity, world-building, and the differences between middle-grade and YA novels.”

37. Making a Good Script Great by Linda Seger 

“Making a good script great is more than just a matter of putting a good idea on paper. It requires the working and reworking of that idea. This book takes you through the whole screenwriting process – from initial concept through final rewrite – providing specific methods that will help you craft tighter, stronger, and more saleable scripts.”

38. Memoirs   by Pablo Neruda

“In his uniquely expressive prose, Neruda not only explains his views on poetry and describes the circumstances that inspired many of his poems, but he creates a revealing record of his life as a poet, a patriot, and one of the twentieth century’s true men of conscience.”

39. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch

“Stephen Koch, former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program, presents a unique guide to the craft of fiction. Along with his own lucid observations and commonsense techniques, he weaves together wisdom, advice, and inspiring commentary from some of our greatest writers.”

“Packed with insights and advice both practical (‘writing workshops you pay for are the best–it’s too easy to quit when you’ve made no investment’) and irreverent (‘apply Part A [butt] to Part B [chair]’). Naked, Drunk, and Writing is a must-have if you are an aspiring columnist, essayist, or memoirist—or just a writer who needs a bit of help in getting your story told.”

41. Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing by Margaret Atwood

“In this wise and irresistibly quotable book, one of the most intelligent writers working in English addresses the riddle of her art: why people pursue it, how they view their calling, and what bargains they make with their audience, both real and imagined. To these fascinating issues Booker Prize-winner Margaret Atwood brings a candid appraisal of her own experience as well as a breadth of reading that encompasses everything from Dante to Elmore Leonard.”

42. On Writing by Eudora Welty 

“Eudora Welty was one of the twentieth century’s greatest literary figures. For as long as students have been studying her fiction as literature, writers have been looking to her to answer the profound questions of what makes a story good, a novel successful, a writer an artist.”

43. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

“Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have.”

44. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

“Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental principles as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher.”

“Based on the Zen philosophy that we learn more from our failures than from our successes, One Continuous Mistake teaches a refreshing new method for writing as spiritual practice. Here she introduces a method of discipline that applies specific Zen practices to enhance and clarify creative work. She also discusses bodily postures that support writing, how to set up the appropriate writing regimen, and how to discover one’s own ‘learning personality.'”

46. Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K.M. Weiland

“Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.”

47. The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1-4 by The Paris Review

“For more than half a century, The Paris Review has conducted in-depth interviews with our leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. These revealing, revelatory self-portraits have come to be recognized as themselves classic works of literature, and an essential and definitive record of the writing life.”

48. The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux

“Presents brief essays on the elements of poetry, technique, and suggested subjects for writing, each followed by distinctive writing exercises. The ups and downs of writing life―including self-doubt and writer’s block―are here, along with tips about getting published and writing in the electronic age.”

49. The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser

“Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts.”

“Have you always wanted to get an MFA, but couldn’t because of the cost, time commitment, or admission requirements? Well now you can fulfill that dream without having to devote tons of money or time. The Portable MFA gives you all of the essential information you would learn in the MFA program in one book.”

51. Paula: A Memoir by Isabel Allende

“Irony and marvelous flights of fantasy mix with the icy reality of Paula’s deathly illness as Allende sketches childhood scenes in Chile and Lebanon; her uncle Salvatore Allende’s reign and ruin as Chilean president; her struggles to shake off or find love; and her metamorphosis into a writer.”

52. Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

“In her fifteen years of teaching, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett has found that the biggest stumbling block for aspiring writers (especially women) is not fear of the blank page but frustration with the lack of time. What woman doesn’t have too much to do and too little time? Finding an hour free of work, children, or obligations can seem impossible.”

53. Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar’s Greatest Films   by Dean Movshovitz

“ Pixar Storytelling is about effective storytelling rules based on Pixar’s greatest films. The book consists of ten chapters, each of which explores an aspect of storytelling that Pixar excels at. Learn what Pixar’s core story ideas all have in common, how they create compelling, moving conflict and what makes their films’ resolutions so emotionally satisfying.”

54. Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish by James Scott Bell 

“How does plot influence story structure? What’s the difference between plotting for commercial and literary fiction? How do you revise a plot or structure that’s gone off course? With Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure , you’ll discover the answers to these questions and more. Award-winning author James Scott Bell offers clear, concise information that will help you create a believable and memorable plot.”

“In this essay of literary autobiography, V. S. Naipaul sifts through memories of his childhood in Trinidad, his university days in England, and his earliest attempts at writing, seeking the experiences of life and reading that shaped his imagination and his growth as a writer.”

56. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose

“Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In Reading Like a Writer , Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters.”

57. Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels (How to Write Kissing Books) by Gwen Hayes

“ Romancing the Beat is a recipe, not a rigid system. The beats don’t care if you plot or outline before you write, or if you pants your way through the drafts and do a ‘beat check’ when you’re revising. Pantsers and plotters are both welcome. So sit down, grab a cuppa, and let’s talk about kissing books.”

58. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder

“This ultimate insider’s guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who’s proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!”

59. Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living by Manjula Martin 

“In the literary world, the debate around writing and commerce often begs us to take sides: either writers should be paid for everything they do or writers should just pay their dues and count themselves lucky to be published. It’s an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch , Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money?”

“From concept to character, from opening scene to finished script, here are easily understood guidelines to help aspiring screenwriters—from novices to practiced writers—hone their craft.”

61. Singing School: Learning to Write (And Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters by Robert Pinsky

“Quick, joyful, and playfully astringent, with surprising comparisons and examples, this collection takes an unconventional approach to the art of poetry. Instead of rules, theories, or recipes, Singing School emphasizes ways to learn from great work: studying magnificent, monumentally enduring poems and how they are made— in terms borrowed from the ‘singing school’ of William Butler Yeats’s ‘Sailing to Byzantium.'”

62. The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick

“Taking us on a reading tour of some of the best memoirs and essays of the past hundred years, Gornick traces the changing idea of self that has dominated the century, and demonstrates the enduring truth-speaker to be found in the work of writers as diverse as Edmund Gosse, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, or Marguerite Duras.”

63. Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games by Robert Denton Bryant and Keith Giglio

“Writing for the multibillion-dollar video-game industry is unlike writing for any other medium. Slay the Dragon will help you understand the challenges and offer creative solutions to writing for a medium where the audience not only demands a great story, but to be a driving force within it.”

64. Something to Declare by Julia Alvarez

“From the internationally acclaimed author of the bestselling novels In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents comes a rich and revealing work of nonfiction capturing the life and mind of an artist as she knits together the dual themes of coming to America and becoming a writer.”

“This handbook is a short, deceptively simple guide to the craft of writing. Le Guin lays out ten chapters that address the most fundamental components of narrative, from the sound of language to sentence construction to point of view.”

66. Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies by Sol Stein 

“With examples from bestsellers as well as from students’ drafts, Stein offers detailed sections on characterization, dialogue, pacing, flashbacks, trimming away flabby wording, the so-called ‘triage’ method of revision, using the techniques of fiction to enliven nonfiction, and more.”

67. Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel by Lisa Cron

“Takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint—including fully realized scenes—that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft.”

68. Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules by Steven James

“All too often, following the ‘rules’ of writing can constrict rather than inspire you. With Story Trumps Structure , you can shed those rules – about three-act structure, rising action, outlining, and more – to craft your most powerful, emotional, and gripping stories.”

69. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall

“Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. Now Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems–just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.”

“When it comes to writing books, are you a ‘plotter’ or a ‘pantser’? Is one method really better than the other? In this instructional book, author Libbie Hawker explains the benefits and technique of planning a story before you begin to write.”

71. TED Talks Storytelling: 23 Storytelling Techniques from the Best TED Talks by Akash Karia

“Essentially, the best speakers on the TED stage were the ones who had mastered the art of storytelling. They had mastered how to craft and present their stories in a way that allowed them to share their message with the world without seeming like they were lecturing their audience.”

72. This Is The Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

“Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto , examines her deepest commitments—to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband—creating a resonant portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. “

73. This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley

“No more excuses. ‘Let the lawn get shaggy and the paint peel from the walls,’ bestselling novelist Walter Mosley advises. Anyone can write a novel now, and in this essential book of tips, practical advice, and wisdom, Walter Mosley promises that the writer-in-waiting can finish it in one year.”

74. Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction by Benjamin Percy

“In fifteen essays on the craft of fiction, Percy looks to disparate sources such as Jaws , Blood Meridian, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to discover how contemporary writers engage issues of plot, suspense, momentum, and the speculative, as well as character, setting, and dialogue. An urgent and entertaining missive on craft, Thrill Me brims with Percy’s distinctive blend of anecdotes, advice, and close reading, all in the service of one dictum: Thrill the reader.”

“Combining more than forty years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, Lopate brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone and immense gift for storytelling, To Show and To Tell reads like a long walk with a favorite professor—refreshing, insightful, and encouraging in often unexpected ways.”

76. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Essential Guide to Fantasy Travel by Diana Wynne Jones

“Imagine that all fantasy novels—the ones featuring dragons, knights, wizards, and magic—are set in the same place. That place is called Fantasyland. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is your travel guide, a handbook to everything you might find: Evil, the Dark Lord, Stew, Boots (but not Socks), and what passes for Economics and Ecology. Both a hilarious send-up of the cliches of the genre and an indispensable guide for writers.”

77. Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing by Roger Rosenblatt

“The revered novelist, essayist, playwright, and respected writing teacher offers a guidebook for aspiring authors, a memoir, and an impassioned argument for the necessity of writing in our world.”

78. Upstream by Mary Oliver

“Throughout this collection, Oliver positions not just herself upstream but us as well as she encourages us all to keep moving, to lose ourselves in the awe of the unknown, and to give power and time to the creative and whimsical urges that live within us.”

79. Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick 

“Game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process—by all members of the team.”

“In this classic book, Madeleine L’Engle addresses the questions, What makes art Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian artist? What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L’Engle’s beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one’s own art.”

81. The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling by Charles Johnson

“Johnson shares his lessons and exercises from the classroom, starting with word choice, sentence structure, and narrative voice, and delving into the mechanics of scene, dialogue, plot and storytelling before exploring the larger questions at stake for the serious writer. What separates literature from industrial fiction? What lies at the heart of the creative impulse? How does one navigate the literary world? And how are philosophy and fiction concomitant?”

82. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

“While simply training for New York City Marathon would be enough for most people, Haruki Murakami’s decided to write about it as well. The result is a beautiful memoir about his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid memories and insights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer.”

83. What Moves at the Margin by Toni Morrison

“Collects three decades of Toni Morrison’s writings about her work, her life, literature, and American society. The works included in this volume range from 1971, when Morrison was a new editor at Random House and a beginning novelist, to 2002 when she was a professor at Princeton University and Nobel Laureate. These works provide a unique glimpse into Morrison’s viewpoint as an observer of the world, the arts, and the changing landscape of American culture.”

84. Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir by Amy Tan 

“By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals, and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gives evidence to all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she would become a writer. Through spontaneous storytelling, she shows how a fluid fictional state of mind unleashed near-forgotten memories that became the emotional nucleus of her novels.”

“This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps, renderings, and exercises to create a spectacularly beautiful and inspiring object.”

86. Woolgathering by Patti Smith

“A great book about becoming an artist, Woolgathering tells of a youngster finding herself as she learns the noble vocation of woolgathering, ‘a worthy calling that seemed a good job for me.’ She discovers―often at night, often in nature―the pleasures of rescuing ‘a fleeting thought.’ Deeply moving, Woolgathering calls up our own memories, as the child ‘glimpses and gleans, piecing together a crazy quilt of truths.'”

87. Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels by Brian Michael Bendis

“One of the most popular writers in modern comics, Brian Michael Bendis reveals the tools and techniques he and other top creators use to create some of the most popular comic book and graphic novel stories of all time.”

88. Write Naked: A Bestseller’s Secrets to Writing Romance & Navigating the Path to Success by Jennifer Probst

“Learn how to transform your passion for writing into a career. New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Probst reveals her pathway to success, from struggling as a new writer to signing a seven-figure deal. Write Naked intermingles personal essays on craft with down-to-earth advice on writing romance in the digital age.”

89. Write Your Novel in a Month: How to Complete a First Draft in 30 Days and What to Do Next by Jeff Gerke

“Author and instructor Jeff Gerke has created the perfect tool to show you how to prepare yourself to write your first draft in as little as 30 days. With Jeff’s help, you will learn how to organize your ideas, create dynamic stories, develop believable characters, and flesh out the idea narrative for your novel–and not just for the rapid-fire first draft.”

“Explores the powerful relationship between mythology and storytelling in a clear, concise style that’s made it required reading for movie executives, screenwriters, playwrights, scholars, and fans of pop culture all over the world.”

91. Writer’s Market 2018: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published by Robert Lee Brewer

“Want to get published and paid for your writing? Let Writer’s Market guide you through the process with thousands of publishing opportunities for writers, including listings for book publishers, consumer and trade magazines, contests and awards, and literary agents. These listings feature contact and submission information to help writers get their work published.”

92. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

“For more than thirty years Natalie Goldberg has been challenging and cheering on writers with her books and workshops. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Writing practice, as she calls it, is no different from other forms of Zen practice—’it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind.'”

93. Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma by Melanie Brooks

“What does it take to write an honest memoir? And what happens to us when we embark on that journey? Melanie Brooks sought guidance from the memoirists who most moved her to answer these questions. Called an essential book for creative writers by Poets & Writers, Writing Hard Stories is a unique compilation of authentic stories about the death of a partner, parent, or child; about violence and shunning; and about the process of writing.”

94. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

“Slender though it is, The Writing Life richly conveys the torturous, tortuous, and in rare moments, transcendent existence of the writer. Amid moving accounts of her own writing (and life) experiences, Dillard also manages to impart wisdom to other writers, wisdom having to do with passion and commitment and taking the work seriously.”

“Culled from ten years of the distinguished Washington Post column of the same name, The Writing Life highlights an eclectic group of luminaries who have wildly varied stories to tell, but who share this singularly beguiling career. Here are their pleasures as well as their peeves; revelations of their deepest fears; dramas of triumphs and failures; insights into the demands and rewards.”

96. Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly by Gail Caron Levine

“Gail Carson Levine shows how you can get terrific ideas for stories, invent great beginnings and endings, write sparkling dialogue, develop memorable characters—and much, much more. She advises you about what to do when you feel stuck—and how to use helpful criticism. Best of all, she offers writing exercises that will set your imagination on fire.”

97. Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark 

“Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America’s most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost thirty years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of fifty short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the best loved books on writing available.”

98. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

“This poignant, intimate, and hilarious memoir explores Shonda’s life before her Year of Yes —from her nerdy, book-loving childhood to her devotion to creating television characters who reflected the world she saw around her. The book chronicles her life after her Year of Yes had begun—when Shonda forced herself out of the house and onto the stage; when she learned to explore, empower, applaud, and love her truest self. Yes.”

99. Your Creative Writing Masterclass by Jergen Wolff

“If you dream of being a writer, why not learn from the best? In Your Creative Writing Masterclass you’ll find ideas, techniques and encouragement from the most admired and respected contemporary and classic authors, including Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Anton Chekhov.”

“Part memoir, part philosophical guide, the essays in this book teach the joy of writing. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of putting words on paper, Bradbury’s zen is found in the celebration of storytelling that drove him to write every day. Imparting lessons he has learned over the course of his exuberant career, Bradbury inspires with his infectious enthusiasm.”

Writing is a big messy topic, so obviously I’ll have missed some of your favorite and best books on writing. Make sure to hit the comments to talk about your favorite books about the writing life and craft. Find more of our posts on the writing life here .

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A Professor's Guide to Writing Essays: The No-Nonsense Plan for Better Writing Paperback – November 3, 2016

• Print length 118 pages
• Language English
• Publication date November 3, 2016
• Dimensions 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 0692822526
• ISBN-13 978-0692822524
• See all details

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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jacob Neumann; Standard Edition (November 3, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 118 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0692822526
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0692822524
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches
• #146 in Study Skills (Books)
• #1,519 in Education Theory (Books)

About the author

Jacob neumann.

Jacob Neumann has been teaching since 1996. He has taught at all levels, from early childhood to the university. He currently works as an associate professor at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he teaches teacher education classes. He also publishes research on effective teaching methods, teacher knowledge, and educational theory. One of the main goals in his work is to help people become better writers and better teachers.

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The 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade

Ever tried. ever failed. no matter..

Friends, it’s true: the end of the decade approaches. It’s been a difficult, anxiety-provoking, morally compromised decade, but at least it’s been populated by some damn fine literature. We’ll take our silver linings where we can.

So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was. We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with the best debut novels , the best short story collections , the best poetry collections , and the best memoirs of the decade , and we have now reached the fifth list in our series: the best essay collections published in English between 2010 and 2019.

The following books were chosen after much debate (and several rounds of voting) by the Literary Hub staff. Tears were spilled, feelings were hurt, books were re-read. And as you’ll shortly see, we had a hard time choosing just ten—so we’ve also included a list of dissenting opinions, and an even longer list of also-rans. As ever, free to add any of your own favorites that we’ve missed in the comments below.

The Top Ten

Oliver sacks, the mind’s eye (2010).

Toward the end of his life, maybe suspecting or sensing that it was coming to a close, Dr. Oliver Sacks tended to focus his efforts on sweeping intellectual projects like On the Move (a memoir), The River of Consciousness (a hybrid intellectual history), and Hallucinations (a book-length meditation on, what else, hallucinations). But in 2010, he gave us one more classic in the style that first made him famous, a form he revolutionized and brought into the contemporary literary canon: the medical case study as essay. In The Mind’s Eye , Sacks focuses on vision, expanding the notion to embrace not only how we see the world, but also how we map that world onto our brains when our eyes are closed and we’re communing with the deeper recesses of consciousness. Relaying histories of patients and public figures, as well as his own history of ocular cancer (the condition that would eventually spread and contribute to his death), Sacks uses vision as a lens through which to see all of what makes us human, what binds us together, and what keeps us painfully apart. The essays that make up this collection are quintessential Sacks: sensitive, searching, with an expertise that conveys scientific information and experimentation in terms we can not only comprehend, but which also expand how we see life carrying on around us. The case studies of “Stereo Sue,” of the concert pianist Lillian Kalir, and of Howard, the mystery novelist who can no longer read, are highlights of the collection, but each essay is a kind of gem, mined and polished by one of the great storytellers of our era.  –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Managing Editor

John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (2011)

The American essay was having a moment at the beginning of the decade, and Pulphead was smack in the middle. Without any hard data, I can tell you that this collection of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s magazine features—published primarily in GQ , but also in The Paris Review , and Harper’s —was the only full book of essays most of my literary friends had read since Slouching Towards Bethlehem , and probably one of the only full books of essays they had even heard of.

Well, we all picked a good one. Every essay in Pulphead is brilliant and entertaining, and illuminates some small corner of the American experience—even if it’s just one house, with Sullivan and an aging writer inside (“Mr. Lytle” is in fact a standout in a collection with no filler; fittingly, it won a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize). But what are they about? Oh, Axl Rose, Christian Rock festivals, living around the filming of One Tree Hill , the Tea Party movement, Michael Jackson, Bunny Wailer, the influence of animals, and by god, the Miz (of Real World/Road Rules Challenge fame).

But as Dan Kois has pointed out , what connects these essays, apart from their general tone and excellence, is “their author’s essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects’ and his own foibles.” They are also extremely well written, drawing much from fictional techniques and sentence craft, their literary pleasures so acute and remarkable that James Wood began his review of the collection in The New Yorker with a quiz: “Are the following sentences the beginnings of essays or of short stories?” (It was not a hard quiz, considering the context.)

It’s hard not to feel, reading this collection, like someone reached into your brain, took out the half-baked stuff you talk about with your friends, researched it, lived it, and represented it to you smarter and better and more thoroughly than you ever could. So read it in awe if you must, but read it.  –Emily Temple, Senior Editor

Aleksandar Hemon, The Book of My Lives (2013)

Such is the sentence-level virtuosity of Aleksandar Hemon—the Bosnian-American writer, essayist, and critic—that throughout his career he has frequently been compared to the granddaddy of borrowed language prose stylists: Vladimir Nabokov. While it is, of course, objectively remarkable that anyone could write so beautifully in a language they learned in their twenties, what I admire most about Hemon’s work is the way in which he infuses every essay and story and novel with both a deep humanity and a controlled (but never subdued) fury. He can also be damn funny. Hemon grew up in Sarajevo and left in 1992 to study in Chicago, where he almost immediately found himself stranded, forced to watch from afar as his beloved home city was subjected to a relentless four-year bombardment, the longest siege of a capital in the history of modern warfare. This extraordinary memoir-in-essays is many things: it’s a love letter to both the family that raised him and the family he built in exile; it’s a rich, joyous, and complex portrait of a place the 90s made synonymous with war and devastation; and it’s an elegy for the wrenching loss of precious things. There’s an essay about coming of age in Sarajevo and another about why he can’t bring himself to leave Chicago. There are stories about relationships forged and maintained on the soccer pitch or over the chessboard, and stories about neighbors and mentors turned monstrous by ethnic prejudice. As a chorus they sing with insight, wry humor, and unimaginable sorrow. I am not exaggerating when I say that the collection’s devastating final piece, “The Aquarium”—which details his infant daughter’s brain tumor and the agonizing months which led up to her death—remains the most painful essay I have ever read.  –Dan Sheehan, Book Marks Editor

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

Of every essay in my relentlessly earmarked copy of Braiding Sweetgrass , Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s gorgeously rendered argument for why and how we should keep going, there’s one that especially hits home: her account of professor-turned-forester Franz Dolp. When Dolp, several decades ago, revisited the farm that he had once shared with his ex-wife, he found a scene of destruction: The farm’s new owners had razed the land where he had tried to build a life. “I sat among the stumps and the swirling red dust and I cried,” he wrote in his journal.

So many in my generation (and younger) feel this kind of helplessness–and considerable rage–at finding ourselves newly adult in a world where those in power seem determined to abandon or destroy everything that human bodies have always needed to survive: air, water, land. Asking any single book to speak to this helplessness feels unfair, somehow; yet, Braiding Sweetgrass does, by weaving descriptions of indigenous tradition with the environmental sciences in order to show what survival has looked like over the course of many millennia. Kimmerer’s essays describe her personal experience as a Potawotami woman, plant ecologist, and teacher alongside stories of the many ways that humans have lived in relationship to other species. Whether describing Dolp’s work–he left the stumps for a life of forest restoration on the Oregon coast–or the work of others in maple sugar harvesting, creating black ash baskets, or planting a Three Sisters garden of corn, beans, and squash, she brings hope. “In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship,” she writes of the Three Sisters, which all sustain one another as they grow. “This is how the world keeps going.”  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Hilton Als, White Girls (2013)

In a world where we are so often reduced to one essential self, Hilton Als’ breathtaking book of critical essays, White Girls , which meditates on the ways he and other subjects read, project and absorb parts of white femininity, is a radically liberating book. It’s one of the only works of critical thinking that doesn’t ask the reader, its author or anyone he writes about to stoop before the doorframe of complete legibility before entering. Something he also permitted the subjects and readers of his first book, the glorious book-length essay, The Women , a series of riffs and psychological portraits of Dorothy Dean, Owen Dodson, and the author’s own mother, among others. One of the shifts of that book, uncommon at the time, was how it acknowledges the way we inhabit bodies made up of variously gendered influences. To read White Girls now is to experience the utter freedom of this gift and to marvel at Als’ tremendous versatility and intelligence.

He is easily the most diversely talented American critic alive. He can write into genres like pop music and film where being part of an audience is a fantasy happening in the dark. He’s also wired enough to know how the art world builds reputations on the nod of rich white patrons, a significant collision in a time when Jean-Michel Basquiat is America’s most expensive modern artist. Als’ swerving and always moving grip on performance means he’s especially good on describing the effect of art which is volatile and unstable and built on the mingling of made-up concepts and the hard fact of their effect on behavior, such as race. Writing on Flannery O’Connor for instance he alone puts a finger on her “uneasy and unavoidable union between black and white, the sacred and the profane, the shit and the stars.” From Eminem to Richard Pryor, André Leon Talley to Michael Jackson, Als enters the life and work of numerous artists here who turn the fascinations of race and with whiteness into fury and song and describes the complexity of their beauty like his life depended upon it. There are also brief memoirs here that will stop your heart. This is an essential work to understanding American culture.  –John Freeman, Executive Editor

Eula Biss, On Immunity (2014)

We move through the world as if we can protect ourselves from its myriad dangers, exercising what little agency we have in an effort to keep at bay those fears that gather at the edges of any given life: of loss, illness, disaster, death. It is these fears—amplified by the birth of her first child—that Eula Biss confronts in her essential 2014 essay collection, On Immunity . As any great essayist does, Biss moves outward in concentric circles from her own very private view of the world to reveal wider truths, discovering as she does a culture consumed by anxiety at the pervasive toxicity of contemporary life. As Biss interrogates this culture—of privilege, of whiteness—she interrogates herself, questioning the flimsy ways in which we arm ourselves with science or superstition against the impurities of daily existence.

Five years on from its publication, it is dismaying that On Immunity feels as urgent (and necessary) a defense of basic science as ever. Vaccination, we learn, is derived from vacca —for cow—after the 17th-century discovery that a small application of cowpox was often enough to inoculate against the scourge of smallpox, an etymological digression that belies modern conspiratorial fears of Big Pharma and its vaccination agenda. But Biss never scolds or belittles the fears of others, and in her generosity and openness pulls off a neat (and important) trick: insofar as we are of the very world we fear, she seems to be suggesting, we ourselves are impure, have always been so, permeable, vulnerable, yet so much stronger than we think.  –Jonny Diamond, Editor-in-Chief 

Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions (2016)

When Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “Men Explain Things to Me,” was published in 2008, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon unlike almost any other in recent memory, assigning language to a behavior that almost every woman has witnessed—mansplaining—and, in the course of identifying that behavior, spurring a movement, online and offline, to share the ways in which patriarchal arrogance has intersected all our lives. (It would also come to be the titular essay in her collection published in 2014.) The Mother of All Questions follows up on that work and takes it further in order to examine the nature of self-expression—who is afforded it and denied it, what institutions have been put in place to limit it, and what happens when it is employed by women. Solnit has a singular gift for describing and decoding the misogynistic dynamics that govern the world so universally that they can seem invisible and the gendered violence that is so common as to seem unremarkable; this naming is powerful, and it opens space for sharing the stories that shape our lives.

The Mother of All Questions, comprised of essays written between 2014 and 2016, in many ways armed us with some of the tools necessary to survive the gaslighting of the Trump years, in which many of us—and especially women—have continued to hear from those in power that the things we see and hear do not exist and never existed. Solnit also acknowledges that labels like “woman,” and other gendered labels, are identities that are fluid in reality; in reviewing the book for The New Yorker , Moira Donegan suggested that, “One useful working definition of a woman might be ‘someone who experiences misogyny.'” Whichever words we use, Solnit writes in the introduction to the book that “when words break through unspeakability, what was tolerated by a society sometimes becomes intolerable.” This storytelling work has always been vital; it continues to be vital, and in this book, it is brilliantly done.  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends (2017)

The newly minted MacArthur fellow Valeria Luiselli’s four-part (but really six-part) essay  Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions  was inspired by her time spent volunteering at the federal immigration court in New York City, working as an interpreter for undocumented, unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Written concurrently with her novel  Lost Children Archive  (a fictional exploration of the same topic), Luiselli’s essay offers a fascinating conceit, the fashioning of an argument from the questions on the government intake form given to these children to process their arrivals. (Aside from the fact that this essay is a heartbreaking masterpiece, this is such a  good  conceit—transforming a cold, reproducible administrative document into highly personal literature.) Luiselli interweaves a grounded discussion of the questionnaire with a narrative of the road trip Luiselli takes with her husband and family, across America, while they (both Mexican citizens) wait for their own Green Card applications to be processed. It is on this trip when Luiselli reflects on the thousands of migrant children mysteriously traveling across the border by themselves. But the real point of the essay is to actually delve into the real stories of some of these children, which are agonizing, as well as to gravely, clearly expose what literally happens, procedural, when they do arrive—from forms to courts, as they’re swallowed by a bureaucratic vortex. Amid all of this, Luiselli also takes on more, exploring the larger contextual relationship between the United States of America and Mexico (as well as other countries in Central America, more broadly) as it has evolved to our current, adverse moment.  Tell Me How It Ends  is so small, but it is so passionate and vigorous: it desperately accomplishes in its less-than-100-pages-of-prose what centuries and miles and endless records of federal bureaucracy have never been able, and have never cared, to do: reverse the dehumanization of Latin American immigrants that occurs once they set foot in this country.  –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Editorial Fellow

Zadie Smith, Feel Free (2018)

In the essay “Meet Justin Bieber!” in Feel Free , Zadie Smith writes that her interest in Justin Bieber is not an interest in the interiority of the singer himself, but in “the idea of the love object”. This essay—in which Smith imagines a meeting between Bieber and the late philosopher Martin Buber (“Bieber and Buber are alternative spellings of the same German surname,” she explains in one of many winning footnotes. “Who am I to ignore these hints from the universe?”). Smith allows that this premise is a bit premise -y: “I know, I know.” Still, the resulting essay is a very funny, very smart, and un-tricky exploration of individuality and true “meeting,” with a dash of late capitalism thrown in for good measure. The melding of high and low culture is the bread and butter of pretty much every prestige publication on the internet these days (and certainly of the Twitter feeds of all “public intellectuals”), but the essays in Smith’s collection don’t feel familiar—perhaps because hers is, as we’ve long known, an uncommon skill. Though I believe Smith could probably write compellingly about anything, she chooses her subjects wisely. She writes with as much electricity about Brexit as the aforementioned Beliebers—and each essay is utterly engrossing. “She contains multitudes, but her point is we all do,” writes Hermione Hoby in her review of the collection in The New Republic . “At the same time, we are, in our endless difference, nobody but ourselves.”  –Jessie Gaynor, Social Media Editor

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays (2019)

Tressie McMillan Cottom is an academic who has transcended the ivory tower to become the sort of public intellectual who can easily appear on radio or television talk shows to discuss race, gender, and capitalism. Her collection of essays reflects this duality, blending scholarly work with memoir to create a collection on the black female experience in postmodern America that’s “intersectional analysis with a side of pop culture.” The essays range from an analysis of sexual violence, to populist politics, to social media, but in centering her own experiences throughout, the collection becomes something unlike other pieces of criticism of contemporary culture. In explaining the title, she reflects on what an editor had said about her work: “I was too readable to be academic, too deep to be popular, too country black to be literary, and too naïve to show the rigor of my thinking in the complexity of my prose. I had wanted to create something meaningful that sounded not only like me, but like all of me. It was too thick.” One of the most powerful essays in the book is “Dying to be Competent” which begins with her unpacking the idiocy of LinkedIn (and the myth of meritocracy) and ends with a description of her miscarriage, the mishandling of black woman’s pain, and a condemnation of healthcare bureaucracy. A finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction, Thick confirms McMillan Cottom as one of our most fearless public intellectuals and one of the most vital.  –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Dissenting Opinions

The following books were just barely nudged out of the top ten, but we (or at least one of us) couldn’t let them pass without comment.

Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2010)

In The Possessed Elif Batuman indulges her love of Russian literature and the result is hilarious and remarkable. Each essay of the collection chronicles some adventure or other that she had while in graduate school for Comparative Literature and each is more unpredictable than the next. There’s the time a “well-known 20th-centuryist” gave a graduate student the finger; and the time when Batuman ended up living in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for a summer; and the time that she convinced herself Tolstoy was murdered and spent the length of the Tolstoy Conference in Yasnaya Polyana considering clues and motives. Rich in historic detail about Russian authors and literature and thoughtfully constructed, each essay is an amalgam of critical analysis, cultural criticism, and serious contemplation of big ideas like that of identity, intellectual legacy, and authorship. With wit and a serpentine-like shape to her narratives, Batuman adopts a form reminiscent of a Socratic discourse, setting up questions at the beginning of her essays and then following digressions that more or less entreat the reader to synthesize the answer for herself. The digressions are always amusing and arguably the backbone of the collection, relaying absurd anecdotes with foreign scholars or awkward, surreal encounters with Eastern European strangers. Central also to the collection are Batuman’s intellectual asides where she entertains a theory—like the “problem of the person”: the inability to ever wholly capture one’s character—that ultimately layer the book’s themes. “You are certainly my most entertaining student,” a professor said to Batuman. But she is also curious and enthusiastic and reflective and so knowledgeable that she might even convince you (she has me!) that you too love Russian literature as much as she does. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist (2014)

Roxane Gay’s now-classic essay collection is a book that will make you laugh, think, cry, and then wonder, how can cultural criticism be this fun? My favorite essays in the book include Gay’s musings on competitive Scrabble, her stranded-in-academia dispatches, and her joyous film and television criticism, but given the breadth of topics Roxane Gay can discuss in an entertaining manner, there’s something for everyone in this one. This book is accessible because feminism itself should be accessible – Roxane Gay is as likely to draw inspiration from YA novels, or middle-brow shows about friendship, as she is to introduce concepts from the academic world, and if there’s anyone I trust to bridge the gap between high culture, low culture, and pop culture, it’s the Goddess of Twitter. I used to host a book club dedicated to radical reads, and this was one of the first picks for the club; a week after the book club met, I spied a few of the attendees meeting in the café of the bookstore, and found out that they had bonded so much over discussing  Bad Feminist  that they couldn’t wait for the next meeting of the book club to keep discussing politics and intersectionality, and that, in a nutshell, is the power of Roxane. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Associate Editor

Rivka Galchen, Little Labors (2016)

Generally, I find stories about the trials and tribulations of child-having to be of limited appeal—useful, maybe, insofar as they offer validation that other people have also endured the bizarre realities of living with a tiny human, but otherwise liable to drift into the musings of parents thrilled at the simple fact of their own fecundity, as if they were the first ones to figure the process out (or not). But Little Labors is not simply an essay collection about motherhood, perhaps because Galchen initially “didn’t want to write about” her new baby—mostly, she writes, “because I had never been interested in babies, or mothers; in fact, those subjects had seemed perfectly not interesting to me.” Like many new mothers, though, Galchen soon discovered her baby—which she refers to sometimes as “the puma”—to be a preoccupying thought, demanding to be written about. Galchen’s interest isn’t just in her own progeny, but in babies in literature (“Literature has more dogs than babies, and also more abortions”), The Pillow Book , the eleventh-century collection of musings by Sei Shōnagon, and writers who are mothers. There are sections that made me laugh out loud, like when Galchen continually finds herself in an elevator with a neighbor who never fails to remark on the puma’s size. There are also deeper, darker musings, like the realization that the baby means “that it’s not permissible to die. There are days when this does not feel good.” It is a slim collection that I happened to read at the perfect time, and it remains one of my favorites of the decade. –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Charlie Fox, This Young Monster (2017)

On social media as in his writing, British art critic Charlie Fox rejects lucidity for allusion and doesn’t quite answer the Twitter textbox’s persistent question: “What’s happening?” These days, it’s hard to tell.  This Young Monster  (2017), Fox’s first book,was published a few months after Donald Trump’s election, and at one point Fox takes a swipe at a man he judges “direct from a nightmare and just a repulsive fucking goon.” Fox doesn’t linger on politics, though, since most of the monsters he looks at “embody otherness and make it into art, ripping any conventional idea of beauty to shreds and replacing it with something weird and troubling of their own invention.”

If clichés are loathed because they conform to what philosopher Georges Bataille called “the common measure,” then monsters are rebellious non-sequiturs, comedic or horrific derailments from a classical ideal. Perverts in the most literal sense, monsters have gone astray from some “proper” course. The book’s nine chapters, which are about a specific monster or type of monster, are full of callbacks to familiar and lesser-known media. Fox cites visual art, film, songs, and books with the screwy buoyancy of a savant. Take one of his essays, “Spook House,” framed as a stage play with two principal characters, Klaus (“an intoxicated young skinhead vampire”) and Hermione (“a teen sorceress with green skin and jet-black hair” who looks more like The Wicked Witch than her namesake). The chorus is a troupe of trick-or-treaters. Using the filmmaker Cameron Jamie as a starting point, the rest is free association on gothic decadence and Detroit and L.A. as cities of the dead. All the while, Klaus quotes from  Artforum ,  Dazed & Confused , and  Time Out. It’s a technical feat that makes fictionalized dialogue a conveyor belt for cultural criticism.

In Fox’s imagination, David Bowie and the Hydra coexist alongside Peter Pan, Dennis Hopper, and the maenads. Fox’s book reaches for the monster’s mask, not really to peel it off but to feel and smell the rubber schnoz, to know how it’s made before making sure it’s still snugly set. With a stylistic blend of arthouse suavity and B-movie chic,  This Young Monster considers how monsters in culture are made. Aren’t the scariest things made in post-production? Isn’t the creature just duplicity, like a looping choir or a dubbed scream? –Aaron Robertson, Assistant Editor

Elena Passarello, Animals Strike Curious Poses (2017)

Elena Passarello’s collection of essays Animals Strike Curious Poses picks out infamous animals and grants them the voice, narrative, and history they deserve. Not only is a collection like this relevant during the sixth extinction but it is an ambitious historical and anthropological undertaking, which Passarello has tackled with thorough research and a playful tone that rather than compromise her subject, complicates and humanizes it. Passarello’s intention is to investigate the role of animals across the span of human civilization and in doing so, to construct a timeline of humanity as told through people’s interactions with said animals. “Of all the images that make our world, animal images are particularly buried inside us,” Passarello writes in her first essay, to introduce us to the object of the book and also to the oldest of her chosen characters: Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2010. It was an occasion so remarkable and so unfathomable given the span of human civilization that Passarello says of Yuka: “Since language is epically younger than both thought and experience, ‘woolly mammoth’ means, to a human brain, something more like time.” The essay ends with a character placing a hand on a cave drawing of a woolly mammoth, accompanied by a phrase which encapsulates the author’s vision for the book: “And he becomes the mammoth so he can envision the mammoth.” In Passarello’s hands the imagined boundaries between the animal, natural, and human world disintegrate and what emerges is a cohesive if baffling integrated history of life. With the accuracy and tenacity of a journalist and the spirit of a storyteller, Elena Passarello has assembled a modern bestiary worthy of contemplation and awe. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019)

Esmé Weijun Wang’s collection of essays is a kaleidoscopic look at mental health and the lives affected by the schizophrenias. Each essay takes on a different aspect of the topic, but you’ll want to read them together for a holistic perspective. Esmé Weijun Wang generously begins The Collected Schizophrenias by acknowledging the stereotype, “Schizophrenia terrifies. It is the archetypal disorder of lunacy.” From there, she walks us through the technical language, breaks down the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ( DSM-5 )’s clinical definition. And then she gets very personal, telling us about how she came to her own diagnosis and the way it’s touched her daily life (her relationships, her ideas about motherhood). Esmé Weijun Wang is uniquely situated to write about this topic. As a former lab researcher at Stanford, she turns a precise, analytical eye to her experience while simultaneously unfolding everything with great patience for her reader. Throughout, she brilliantly dissects the language around mental health. (On saying “a person living with bipolar disorder” instead of using “bipolar” as the sole subject: “…we are not our diseases. We are instead individuals with disorders and malfunctions. Our conditions lie over us like smallpox blankets; we are one thing and the illness is another.”) She pinpoints the ways she arms herself against anticipated reactions to the schizophrenias: high fashion, having attended an Ivy League institution. In a particularly piercing essay, she traces mental illness back through her family tree. She also places her story within more mainstream cultural contexts, calling on groundbreaking exposés about the dangerous of institutionalization and depictions of mental illness in television and film (like the infamous Slender Man case, in which two young girls stab their best friend because an invented Internet figure told them to). At once intimate and far-reaching, The Collected Schizophrenias is an informative and important (and let’s not forget artful) work. I’ve never read a collection quite so beautifully-written and laid-bare as this. –Katie Yee, Book Marks Assistant Editor

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights (2019)

When Ross Gay began writing what would become The Book of Delights, he envisioned it as a project of daily essays, each focused on a moment or point of delight in his day. This plan quickly disintegrated; on day four, he skipped his self-imposed assignment and decided to “in honor and love, delight in blowing it off.” (Clearly, “blowing it off” is a relative term here, as he still produced the book.) Ross Gay is a generous teacher of how to live, and this moment of reveling in self-compassion is one lesson among many in The Book of Delights , which wanders from moments of connection with strangers to a shade of “red I don’t think I actually have words for,” a text from a friend reading “I love you breadfruit,” and “the sun like a guiding hand on my back, saying everything is possible. Everything .”

Gay does not linger on any one subject for long, creating the sense that delight is a product not of extenuating circumstances, but of our attention; his attunement to the possibilities of a single day, and awareness of all the small moments that produce delight, are a model for life amid the warring factions of the attention economy. These small moments range from the physical–hugging a stranger, transplanting fig cuttings–to the spiritual and philosophical, giving the impression of sitting beside Gay in his garden as he thinks out loud in real time. It’s a privilege to listen. –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Honorable Mentions

A selection of other books that we seriously considered for both lists—just to be extra about it (and because decisions are hard).

Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings (2010) · Joyce Carol Oates, In Rough Country (2010) · Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (2011) · Christopher Hitchens, Arguably (2011) ·  Roberto Bolaño, tr. Natasha Wimmer, Between Parentheses (2011) · Dubravka Ugresic, tr. David Williams, Karaoke Culture (2011) · Tom Bissell, Magic Hours (2012)  · Kevin Young, The Grey Album (2012) · William H. Gass, Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts (2012) · Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012) · Herta Müller, tr. Geoffrey Mulligan, Cristina and Her Double (2013) · Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams (2014)  · Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable (2014)  · Daphne Merkin, The Fame Lunches (2014)  · Charles D’Ambrosio, Loitering (2015) · Wendy Walters, Multiply/Divide (2015) · Colm Tóibín, On Elizabeth Bishop (2015) ·  Renee Gladman, Calamities (2016)  · Jesmyn Ward, ed. The Fire This Time (2016)  · Lindy West, Shrill (2016)  · Mary Oliver, Upstream (2016)  · Emily Witt, Future Sex (2016)  · Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (2016)  · Mark Greif, Against Everything (2016)  · Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood (2017)  · Sarah Gerard, Sunshine State (2017)  · Jim Harrison, A Really Big Lunch (2017)  · J.M. Coetzee, Late Essays: 2006-2017 (2017) · Melissa Febos, Abandon Me (2017)  · Louise Glück, American Originality (2017)  · Joan Didion, South and West (2017)  · Tom McCarthy, Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish (2017)  · Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can’t Kill Us Until they Kill Us (2017)  · Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power (2017)  ·  Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (2017)  · Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (2018)  · Alice Bolin, Dead Girls (2018)  · Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here? (2018)  · Lorrie Moore, See What Can Be Done (2018)  · Maggie O’Farrell, I Am I Am I Am (2018)  · Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race (2018)  · Rachel Cusk, Coventry (2019)  · Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror (2019)  · Emily Bernard, Black is the Body (2019)  · Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard (2019)  · Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations (2019)  ·  Rachel Munroe, Savage Appetites (2019)  · Robert A. Caro,  Working  (2019) · Arundhati Roy, My Seditious Heart (2019).

Emily Temple

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10 Best Books on Essay Writing (You Should Read Today)

“I hate writing, I love having written.” – Dorothy Parker

Here are 10 Books That Will Help You With Essay Writing:

1. a professor’s guide to writing essays: the no-nonsense plan for better writing by dr. jacob neumann.

This is the highest-rated book on the subject available on the market right now. It’s written for students at any level of education. The author uses an unorthodox approach, claiming that breaking essays down into different formats is unnecessary. It doesn’t matter if it’s a persuasive or a narrative essay – the difference is not in how you write, but rather in how you build your case . Length: 118 pages Published: 2016

2. College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay – by Ethan Sawyer

3. the only grammar book you’ll ever need: a one-stop source for every writing assignment by susan thurman.

The institution of a grammar school is defunct, but it doesn’t mean you can ignore the basic rules that govern your language. If you’re writing an essay or a college paper , you better keep your grammar tight. Otherwise, your grades will drop dramatically because professors abhor simple grammar mistakes. By reading this little book , you’ll make sure your writing is pristine. Length: 192 pages Published: 2003

4. Escape Essay Hell!: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Narrative College Application Essays by Janine W. Robinson

A well-written essay has immense power. Not only that, it is the prerequisite to getting admitted to colleges and universities, but you also have to tackle a few essay questions in most, if not all exams you will ever take for career or academic advancement. For instance, when taking the LSAT to qualify for law school , the MCAT to get into med school , the DAT to pursue a degree in dentistry, or even the GRE or GMAT as the first step in earning a master’s degree. That is why this book is highly recommended to anyone navigating through the sea of higher learning. In this amusing book, Janine Robinson focuses mostly on writing narrative essays . She’s been helping college-bound students to tell unique stories for over a decade and you’ll benefit from her expert advice. The book contains 10 easy steps that you can follow as a blueprint for writing the best “slice of life” story ever told. Length: 76 pages Published: 2013

5. The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present by Phillip Lopate

This large volume is a necessary diversion from the subject of formal, highly constrained types of writing. It focuses only on the genre of the personal essay which is much more free-spirited, creative, and tongue-and-cheek-like. Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, gathers seventy of the best essays of this type and lets you draw timeless lessons from them. Length: 777 pages Published: 1995

6. The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates

7. on writing well: the classic guide to writing nonfiction by william zinsser.

On Writing Well is a classic writing guide that will open your eyes to the art of producing clear-cut copy. Zinsser approached the subject of writing with a warm, cheerful attitude that seeps through the pages of his masterpiece. Whether you want to describe places, communicate with editors, self-edit your copy, or avoid verbosity, this book will have the right answer for you. Length: 336 pages Published: 2016 (reprint edition)

8. How To Write Any High School Essay: The Essential Guide by Jesse Liebman

The previous titles I mentioned were mostly for “grown-up” writers, but the list wouldn’t be complete without a book for ambitious high-school students. Its length is appropriate, making it possible even for the most ADHD among us to get through it. It contains expert advice, easy-to-implement essay outlines , and tips on finding the best topics and supporting them with strong arguments. Length: 124 pages Published: 2017

9. Essential Writing Skills for College and Beyond by C.M. Gill

On average, after finishing high school or college, Americans read only around twelve books per year. This is a pity because books contain a wealth of information. People at the top of the socio-economic ladder read between forty and sixty books per year – and you should too! But reading is just one skill that gets neglected after college. Writing is the other one. By reading the “Essential Writing Skills” you’ll be able to crush all of your college writing assignments and use them throughout your life to sharpen your prose. Length: 250 Published: 2014

10. The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing by Margot Livesey

Rafal reyzer.

Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

Essential Books for Writers

The Center for Fiction

Maybe calling our list "Essential Books for Writers" is a bit of a stretch. We know that there are many opinions on what makes great writing, and what works for one person may not work for the next. Can you imagine Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, and Charles Dickens debating about the right way to write? But we wanted to give you some options and inspiration on your path to whatever a successful life as a writer looks like to you. We hope you'll find your essential guide in our list. Happy reading and writing!

By Stephen King

Published by Scribner

Leave it to the literary rock star to compose a craft book that’s as entertaining as a good novel. “This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit,” King writes. What follows is a witty, practical, and sometimes poignant guide that is refreshingly devoid of the aforementioned BS. King relates his personal story of becoming a writer, then offers a “toolkit” of clear advice about everything from dialogue and descriptive passages to revisions and the head game. And there’s more: tips for beginning writers on submitting work for publication, a mark-up of one of King’s own manuscripts, and a reading list. You might not be awake at 3 a.m. turning these pages, but we promise  On Writing  will open your eyes to essential tricks of the trade.

Still Writing

By Dani Shapiro

Published by Grove/Atlantic

Dani Shapiro’s book,  Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life , is a perfect walk through an imperfect process. She shares the tried and true rules that some aspiring writers may want to hear, like using the five senses, sticking to a work schedule, and avoiding clichéd characters; but it is the places where Shapiro acknowledges the ambiguity of the process that stand out. Peppered with personal history and insight into how and where she created novels like  Black and White  as well as acclaimed memoirs  Devotion  and  Slow Motion , Shapiro gives us a road map to writing with one simple direction at its heart: Keep writing. The rules she lays out are meant to be broken; no life-story is more worthy of being written than any other; no process (unless it involves surfing the Web instead of actually writing) is wrong. Yes, Dani Shapiro is still writing, and because she possesses that all-important need to create, it seems she will be doing so for quite some time.

On Moral Fiction

By John Gardner

Published by HarperCollins

John Gardner’s  On Moral Fiction , by now a well-known classic, is as relevant in its exploration of the obligations of literature as when it was first published in 1979. Gardner discusses art and criticism, concluding that the artist has a responsibility to produce “moral” works for the sake of society. “Art discovers, generation after generation, what is necessary to humanness,” says Gardner. By linking literature to such elemental ideas as immortality and death, entropy and truth, Gardner dramatizes the act of writing itself, coloring literature and criticism with such vitality and excitement that it is hard not to become exhilarated. “Art gropes,” Gardner says. “It stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure of itself, waiting to pounce.” You might say that some of his ideas are outrageous or unconventional, but none of them lack the ability to provoke us.

First You Write

By Joni Rodgers

It’s fitting that Joni Rodgers’s  First You Write: The Worst Way to Become an Almost Famous Author and the Best Advice I Got While Doing It  is available only as an e-book. Rodgers’s writes with wit and candor not only about her circuitous route to becoming a  New York Times bestselling memoirist ( Bald in the Land of Big Hair , a searingly funny account of her journey through cancer) and a critically acclaimed small-press novelist ( Crazy for Trying ;  Sugar Land ), but also about her pioneering adventures in self-publishing on Kindle. Rodgers’s willingness to experiment (isn’t that what artists do?) and to turn preconceived publishing notions on their ear is wonderfully refreshing, and her whip-smart observations will keep you turning (virtual) pages.

The Forest for the Trees

By Betsy Lerner

Published by Penguin

Betsy Lerner’s  The Forest for The Trees  begins as a psychological compendium of the writer’s life; written to the writer, with love. Lerner diagnoses writers: the ambivalent, the natural, the neurotic, and as we relate to aspects of each, we are delivered through an embarrassing adolescence of our own writerly growth, discovering who we were, are, and might better be. Through humorous and often moving anecdotes and a wealth of quotable quotes, we sweep through the personal and into the political landscape of the literary industry. Like all good books, Lerner’s reflects the reader (as writer) back to herself at every moment. She morphs between midwife and editor, weaving stories that teach us how best to birth our own.

The Writing Life

By Annie Dillard

In the years since its original publication, Annie Dillard’s  The Writing Life  has become a must-read for aspiring writers of all walks. Perhaps this is because her approach to the creative process manages a kind of golden ratio, a balance of magic and pragmatism that continues to reveal its depths to writers of the 21st century. Plainly, this is not a field guide. Dillard does not draw a tidy map. She does the opposite, acknowledging the unknown and unknowable wilderness that every writer must face. “The line of words is a miner’s pick, a wood carver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next  year.” A master in the art of illumination, she focuses on the edges of big ideas. The resulting work is as mystifying as it is enduring.

Writing Past Dark

By Bonnie Friedman

In  Writing Past Dark , Bonnie Friedman shines a light on the hidden ways we mess ourselves up—with envy, fear, distraction, and other self-defeating habits of mind. “Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing,” she says. “They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties.” With warmth and candor, Friedman offers insights into surmounting those tricky obstacles.

The Elements of Style

By William Strunk & E.B. White

Of the hundreds of volumes written about the art and craft of writing,  The Elements of Style  by William Strunk and E.B. White is the elegant granddad. This slim volume offers no touchy-feely solutions for writer’s block, no inspirational exercises, and no musings on the writing life. Instead, it contains clear, concise rules for writing well, delivered with panache. Whether you strive for formal excellence or stylistic innovation, whether you’re a first-time author or have a string of publications to your name, there’s something here to learn—or gladly rediscover.

By Robert McKee

Robert McKee (the renowned screenwriting guru whose real-life teaching persona was portrayed by Brian Cox in the film  Adaptation ) is required reading, but not just for screenwriters. He illustrates good plotting and structure that can make your novels or short stories as gripping as your favorite film. In Story , McKee structures his advice by first broadly stating a principle of writing, then expounding on different ways it can be applied, with examples from all kinds of scripts. His pearls of wisdom have been legendary in the Hollywood world, and they’ll certainly stick in your head after you’re through this book. Whether you’re writing for the screen or the page, this fantastic book will help you break your work down to the core of why we write fiction in the first place: the story.

Making Shapely Fiction

By Jerome Stern

Published by W. W. Norton

It’s easy, when one is far enough along in the “writing life,” to assume that a manual won’t have much to offer beyond technical guidance and fluffy prompts. But Stern’s wise and thorough little book should be as indispensable to the master of the form as the student. Like Stern himself, who was the head of the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University for many years, it takes a brass tacks approach to fiction, one that can be read straight through if you want to bone up on the basics or in bits and pieces as inspiration is needed. The “shapes” in question are sixteen storytelling archetypes which Stern breaks down in the book’s first section, followed by a tongue-in-cheek section on whether or not to write what you know, and finally a glossary of terms “from Accuracy to Zig-Zag.” This may all sound like stuff you already know, but to read them again in Stern’s irreverent voice is like revisiting fairy tales from your childhood and discovering all the dirty parts that went over your head. You’ll want to dig back into your own discarded ideas box and sculpt something new.

Steering the Craft

By Ursula K. Le Guin

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Le Guin has published two books about writing. The more recent of these,  Steering the Craft  (1998), is intended for experienced writers, the ones, she says, who “blow all Rules of Writing to bits.” It offers exercises and advice on storytelling, point of view, and grammar. For the younger author, there is her 1979 volume,  The Language of the Night , filled with inspirational essays on science fiction and fantasy, that are no less rigorous than the later book. “In art,” she observes, “‘good enough’ is not good enough.”

Discover Our Fiction, Essays & More

Building Characters is a Piece of (Layer) Cake

Writing and Madness

Think Outside the Book

When Working on Your Writing Doesn't Look Like Writing

From Scratch

Interviewing for Fiction

The Writer's Trove

Something to Do with Work as Play: David Foster Wallace and “The Nature of the Fun”

Keeping Up the Pace

Scenes & Summary

An Unfunny Essay About Humor

Say Yes to Obsession

How to Steal Stuff

Writing to the Tension

How Walter White Can Make You a Better Writer

Inventing Time

Three-Dimensional Writing

How to Get Out of the Slush Pile

Playing With Status

The 12 Best Books on Writing I’ve Ever Read

Regardless how many books I’ve written (over 200) and sold (over 70 million), I fear if I’m not learning, I’m stagnating.

My late mother was a convincing example of one who never believed she had arrived. Mom was not only a piano teacher well into her eighties, but she was also a piano student.

So it’s the memory of my mother that spurs me also to keep reading everything there is to read—especially about writing.

The books below (in alpha order by author) represent a fraction of those available. You could read one per day for the rest of your life and not exhaust the resources . But, in my opinion, these are the best books on writing available.

Some require wearing your big kid pants due to language, which I have noted.

• 12 Books Every Aspiring Author Should Read

1. The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work

By Marie Arana

This book came from ten years of Ms. Arana’s  Washington Post Book World  column. More than fifty fiction and nonfiction authors share how they discovered they were writers and how they work. I was fascinated by what pleases and annoys them. Arana also profiles each writer.

Click here to get the book .

2. Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot that Grips Readers from Start to Finish

By James Scott Bell (friend and colleague)

Anything but a dry textbook, this breezy guide is from a former trial lawyer who keeps you entertained while covering basics like how plot impacts structure, the difference between popular and literary fiction, and how to serve as your own book doctor.

3. Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors

By Brandilyn Collins (friend and colleague)

Calling on her theater training, Collins teaches bringing characters to life the way actors do on stage. She draws on the Method Acting approach to explain and adapt characterization techniques for novelists.

4. The Writing Life

By Annie Dillard

Dillard’s hauntingly ethereal prose soars even when she’s writing about writing. That’s rare. I resonate with her honesty about how grueling the craft can be. This is one of the best books on writing available.

5. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft [language]

By Stephen King (acquaintance)

At the risk of hyperbole, there’s so much to recommend here that I hardly know where to begin. Besides all the practical advice, you get King’s own rags-to-riches story in his inimitable voice. You  learn a ton  while being wildly entertained.

6. How to Write Bestselling Fiction   [mild language]

By Dean Koontz

I’m not overstating it that this book changed my life. It informed the way I wrote the Left Behind series, which has sold more than 60 million copies and still sells six figures every year, nearly a decade since the last title was released. I use this as a textbook when I teach writing.

7. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life   [language]

By Anne Lamott

Lamott has you howling with laughter one minute and weeping the next as she recounts, with brutal honesty, the joys and travails of the writing life, single parenting, overcoming addiction, and coming to faith.

8. Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level

By Donald Maass

An agent challenges you to do more than just spin a yarn, but to also think “big concept,” tackle major themes, and write life-changing works.

9. Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

By Sol Stein (acquaintance)

Novelist, editor, publisher (Stein & Day), and writing teacher, Stein is one of the deans of the American literary scene. His career spans decades, and he shares insider stories of famous novelists and their work, as well as everything he learned along the way. I sat under his teaching years ago and still follow his advice.

10. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

By William Zinsser

Zinsser’s background  should not be missed. He was a graceful classicist as a writer, and this million-seller has been lauded for its warmth and clarity. Zinsser offers sound tips on the fundamentals of writing any kind of nonfiction you can think of.

Now, don’t read  any  of those books for writers, until…

…you’ve read the bible of writing books:

11. The Elements of Style

By William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Failing to start your reading on writing with anything other than this undisputed classic would be akin to reading the top ten Christian classics while ignoring the Bible. This short paperback is recommended by every writing teacher I know. I’ve read it at least once a year for more than 40 years. Its simple truths cover everything from style and grammar and usage. Make them second nature.

12. Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go

By Les Edgerton

Les is one of the most powerfully edgy writers in the business, and you must have your big kid pants on to read his novels. But any writer will benefit from this great resource.

Packed with helpful, practical advice, it carries his blunt tone (but nothing offensive). I refer to it regularly.

If you’ve read none of the other books on this list, start with Stephen King’s  On Writing . A short course in mistakes to avoid while writing, it will remind you why you wanted to be an author. Then, especially if you want to be a novelist, read Dean Koontz’s  How to Write Bestselling Fiction .

You could learn more in just those two books than in an entire college writing course.

BONUS:   Before investing in one of these, download my free guide:  How to Write a Book: Everything You Need to Know in 20 Steps . 

Are You Making This #1 Amateur Writing Mistake?

Faith-Based Words and Phrases

What You and I Can Learn From Patricia Raybon

Before you go, be sure to grab my FREE guide:

How to Write a Book: Everything You Need to Know in 20 Steps

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Writing Advice & Epic Fiction

The 7.5 Best Books to Become a Great Writer

What are the best books on writing?

There are three things that make a book a must-read for authors:

• The advice must be timeless, like how to craft a good story
• Or the ideas must be hyper-relevant , like how to sell books through specific platforms
• Last, the best writing books will grow your mindset , like how to fall in love with the process of writing

Every book on this list contains at least two of these elements, and each one has fundamentally changed my writing life for the better.

Whether you’re scared to start, aspiring to grow, or trying to become a master of your craft… these are the best 7.5 books for anyone who wants to become a truly great writer.

And yes, I’ll explain that “.5” at the end. Let’s dive in:

#1 – On Writing by Stephen King

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

“…you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” 

Who Should Read This?

Every writer out there. Even if you’ve never read anything by Stephen King.

This book will show you what a writer’s life is really like – and how to make yours fit you better.

Why Should You Read This?

King covers everything about the writer’s process, setting healthy expectations, all with a dash of fantastically dry advice made to inspire new writers… and to discourage those who are in it for the wrong reasons. 

He will talk to you about:

• How much should you write?
• How do you get more writing done?
• What kinds of stories should you be writing?
• How do you deal with failure and criticism? 
• How do you improve and edit your writing? 

He also gives a hefty dose of hard-earned life advice, in the salty way that only Stephen King can. Mostly, that means how to keep your sanity while writing – because it is both a miraculous and a lonely practice.

Buy “On Writing” on Amazon

#2 – Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.” 

Bird by Bird is wonderful for writers who suffer from perfectionism , but I recommend it to anyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a writer. 

Especially if you’re looking for inspiration.

If On Writing is the perfect introduction for writers, then this should be the main textbook of the craft. 

Stuck? Too “perfectionist” to move forward?

Bird by Bird is a step-by-step guide to become an author, and to building your writing life. 

Lamott talks about growing a healthy creative process that fuels your passion – instead of draining it. Once you read through this book, you’ll have a much easier time battling with your inner editor, and you’ll find a way to enter that blissful state where the words just flow.

She also delves into plot, dialogue, and the core reasons why we read, which is critical for figuring out how to write words that people actually want to read . 

Every time I read a chapter, my thoughts would hum and my fingers would burn with the urge to go write. I am halfway convinced this is not actually guide to writing, but a magic spellbook filled with inspiration. 

Get “Bird by Bird” on Amazon

#3 – The Dip by Seth Godin

I’ve never seen this on anyone else’s “Best Books for Writers” list, and it drives me wild, because The Dip is all about the scariest question every single writer will ever face:  

How do you know when to quit, and how do you know when to keep going?

Here’s a quote: 

“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.” 

• People who think they are “too busy” to write
• Writers who can’t seem to FINISH a writing project
• Authors who feel like they are losing their passion for their work

If you have shiny object syndrome, and you can’t stop jumping to “the next great writing idea,” this book is a must-read for you.

The hardest part about writing, and the best part about writing, are the same thing.

Putting words on the page is a struggle, and it will always be a struggle. 

But if you feel like you’re lost at sea where the stars are hidden by clouds and the crashing waves are as tall as mountains, please read this book.

If you’re about to start a new big project, please read this book. 

It’s short and sweet; The Dip will only take you a few hours to get through. But every word is important, and Godin’s writing style is both soothing and stark at the same time. So easy to get lost in. 

This book will teach you how to:

• Narrow your focus
• Embrace the struggle of writing
• And become the boss of the things that actually matter to you

Get “The Dip” on Amazon

#4 – Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”

New writers and writers who want fresh inspiration for dealing with writer’s block.

If you’re a new writer, I highly recommend reading this right after you read Stephen King’s On Writing.

This book is two things:

• A love letter to all writing
• A practical guidebook for new writers

It can get a little preachy at time… but that’s only because the author is so passionate about the practice of writing (and not the fool’s gold of “becoming a famous author”).

Writing Down the Bones is an excellent first read for new writers, and for anyone seeking an invigorating dose of inspiration. 

In a word, this book is infectious.

Get “Writing Down the Bones” on Amazon

#5 – Deep Work by Cal Newport

“Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.”

Writers who want to write more, faster, and actually get projects finished. Especially if you find yourself getting distracted.

If you want to become an ultra-productive writer, and to see lots of your books get published, read this book next.

I am not exaggerating when I say, this book will give you superpowers. 

Thanks to ever-present technology, our culture is riddled with people seeking instant gratification.

For a writer, instant gratification is a death trap . 

The good news: you can avoid it. And then, you can start becoming more productive than everyone else. 

Deep Work outlines a method of distraction-free work will let you create the best writing you’ve ever done. The kind of writing that makes people stop, and focus, and feel … 

Read this, and you will get more done, your ideas will flow more easily, and you will start to smash through your writing goals . 

I cannot overstate the value of this book.

Get “Deep Work” on Amazon

#6 – 2,000 to 10,000 by Rachel Aaron

“If you want to write faster, the first step is to know what you’re writing before you write it.” 

Also, I love this one: “ I’m not a temperamental artist enslaved to the whims of her muse.”

Authors who want to write more and, paradoxically, write better. 

2,000 to 10,000 is an intermediate-level writing book, because you really need to understand the general concepts of storytelling before reaching these break-neck writing speeds.

Thanks to ebooks, the internet, and mega-gargantuan book distributors, the writing world has changed for good.

To grow an audience as a writer, you need to write. The more high-quality prose you can craft, the better your chances of reaching your wildest writing dreams.

This is the most practical guide for boosting your word counts. Personally, I use the ideas in this book every single time I sit down to write. I’m nowhere near 10,000 words a day, and I probably never will be, but I doubled my writing output after reading this book, and then some.

It only took a couple weeks of practice, and surprisingly, the quality of my prose didn’t decrease. Instead, it’s been getting so much better because I’m writing more, learning more, and practicing more. 

That’s because this book isn’t just about “writing faster.” It’s about falling in love with what you write, so that you can’t bear to write it any slower. And that’s a huge distinction. 

If you’ve ever said “I wish I could write more,” do yourself a favor and read this book next.

Get “2,000 to 10,000” on Amazon

#7 – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”

All creators of all content, and all art. 

If you struggle to START writing, if you struggle to actually put words on the page, this is the best book on writing for you.

This book is off-beat, a bit aggressive, and militantly inspiring. 

The problem with most inspiring books on writing is when you finish them, the inspiration evaporates.

Not here. 

For me, getting started is the hardest part of writing, and until I read this book, I had no idea why. The answer? 

A vague but too-real concept the author dubs “resistance.” Everyone feels it. Everyone struggles with doubt, with questions, and with the fear of wading into the unknown. 

This book did NOT fix my problem, but it did shine a stadium-sized beacon on it, and it gave me a set of incredible tools to fight back.

Since I read this book, putting words on the page has never been easier. 

At the very least, read the first chapter, because it gets to the heart of the book. 

Get “The War of Art” on Amazon

#7.5 – Your Favorite Novel of All Time

Do you remember that book you read when you were young?

The one that sparked something inside you…

The book that made you say, “I NEED more books like this.” 

…the book that made you want to become a writer in the first place. Go read it again.

The best book on writing is your all-time favorite book, the one you would rate 11/10, if you could. Of course, I can only give it half a point because you’ve already read it…

…but that’s not enough. Go read it again. I’m giving you permission to quit whatever mediocre book you’re reading right now, and dig through your old library, and find the book that first ignited your writing spark. 

Because nothing is better fuel for a writer than the perfect book written for the perfect reader: you.

It’s time to fall in love all over again…

I’ve read each one of these books. Some I’ve read multiple times, because they’re so useful. The inspiration and ideas in these pages are what make these books the best education for writers.

Each one changed my approach to writing for good.

I hope that you will read these 7 (and a half) books too, because I guarantee they will fundamentally improve your craft.

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive. Here’s a few more great books for writers that I didn’t have time to talk about:

Honorable Mentions

• The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman: a detailed, financial look at what it means to be a professional writer.
• Successful Self-Publishing by Joanna Penn: a fantastic overview of the best publishing options for indie authors today. 
• Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin: a gorgeous guidebook for the more nuanced and technical aspects of writing prose. This is very ground-level advice from one of the best Science Fiction authors.
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White: If you want to improve the clarity of your language, this is your book. It’s a classic for a reason.
• Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman: Feel like there’s never enough time? This book will change your mind, and help you grow the tools to create a more meaningful life.

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Must Read List: Top 25 Best Books for Aspiring Writers

Written By Garry   |   Writing   |   0 Comments

Looking to excel as writer or an editor or self-publisher?

There is one essential practice that you must follow: immerse yourself in good books!

Reading widely and deeply is crucial to understanding what makes a "good book" and how to create one.

Whether you're drawn to fiction or nonfiction, history or humor, it's important to read widely within your chosen genre, as well as outside of it.

This will help you develop a keen sense of what works and what doesn't...

...and how to apply those lessons to your own work.

In addition to reading, it's also important to learn from the experts, about the craft of "building a book"... 

There are many books that offer guidance on the craft of writing, from the basics of grammar and style to the nuances of character development and plot construction.

And for those looking to make a career out of writing, there are books on how to find work, how to pitch your ideas, and how to make a living as a writer.

Below are some of the best books on writing and publishing.

No matter if you're just starting out...

...or you're a seasoned pro, these books will help you take your writing and publishing to the next level.

List of the Top 25 Best Books for Aspiring Writers to Read

The Chicago Manual of Style

by The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff

This comprehensive guide to writing and publishing is considered the industry standard. It covers everything from grammar and punctuation to manuscript preparation and citation style.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

by Stephen King

Stephen King's memoir on writing is a must-read for any aspiring writer. In it, he shares his personal experiences and practical advice on everything from character development to plotting.

The Elements of Style

by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

This classic guide to English grammar and style is a quick and easy reference for anyone looking to improve their writing.

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

by John Gardner

John Gardner's book on the art of fiction is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their storytelling abilities. It covers everything from character development to narrative structure.

The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers

by Betsy Lerner

This book provides valuable insights into the editorial process and offers practical advice on how to work with editors and agents to get your work published.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

by Anne Lamott 

Anne Lamott's guide to writing is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their craft. It covers everything from the importance of first drafts to the value of perseverance.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

by Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield's book is a great resource for anyone struggling with writer's block or other creative challenges. It offers practical advice and encouragement for overcoming creative obstacles.

Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's book on the art of writing is a great resource for anyone looking to tap into their creative potential. It offers practical advice and inspiration for cultivating creativity.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

by Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp's book on the creative habit is a great resource for anyone looking to develop a sustainable creative practice. It offers practical advice and exercises for cultivating creativity and staying inspired.

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

by Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker's guide to writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. It covers everything from grammar and style to the use of language in the digital age.

The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

by John Truby

John Truby's book on storytelling is a great resource for anyone looking to craft compelling narratives. It covers everything from character development to the use of theme and symbolism.

Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

by Blake Snyder

Blake Snyder's book on screenwriting is a must-read for anyone looking to write for film or television. It covers everything from structure and pacing to character development and dialogue.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg's book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking to tap into their creativity. It offers practical advice and exercises for overcoming self-doubt and finding your voice.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

by Robert McKee

Robert McKee's book on screenwriting is a great resource for anyone looking to learn the principles of storytelling. It covers everything from character development to the use of dialogue and conflict.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell's classic book on mythology and storytelling is a great resource for anyone looking to understand the archetypal patterns that underlie many of our most enduring stories.

The Writing Life

by Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard's book on the writing life is a great resource for anyone looking to understand the creative process. It offers insights and reflections on the joys and challenges of writing.

The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase

by Mark Forsyth

Mark Forsyth's book on the art of rhetoric is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing style. It covers everything from metaphor and alliteration to hyperbole and puns.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

by Francine Prose

Francine Prose's book on reading and writing is a great resource for anyone looking to understand the craft of writing. It offers practical advice and exercises for improving your writing skills.

The Art of Memoir

by Mary Karr

Mary Karr's book on memoir writing is a great resource for anyone looking to write about their own life experiences. It covers everything from structure and pacing to the use of dialogue and description.

Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

Roy Peter Clark's book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. It offers practical advice and exercises for everything from sentence structure to story structure.

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

by Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron's book on creativity is a great resource for anyone looking to tap into their creative potential. It offers practical advice and exercises for overcoming creative blocks and staying inspired.

Becoming a Writer

by Dorothea Brande

Dorothea Brande's book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. It covers everything from the importance of practice to the value of discipline and dedication.

The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 1- 4

edited by The Paris Review

This features a collection of interviews with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century, including Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner. It offers valuable insights into the creative process and the craft of writing.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

by Renni Browne and Dave King

Renni Browne and Dave King's book on self-editing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their editing skills. It covers everything from dialogue and point of view to pacing and plot.

The Business of Being a Writer

by Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman's book on the business of writing is a great resource for anyone looking to make a living as a writer. It covers everything from finding work to negotiating contracts to building a platform.

Whether you're an aspiring writer, editor, or self-publisher, these books offer valuable insights and practical advice for taking your craft to the next level.

From grammar and style to storytelling and creativity, these books cover everything you need to know to succeed in the competitive world of writing and publishing.

But now let's break it down into categories:

List of the Top 10-15 Books for Aspiring Writers

As an aspiring writer, reading is an essential part of developing your writing skills and style.

Exposure to a variety of writing styles and genres can inspire and inform your own writing, and reading can also help you to understand the publishing industry and market trends.

This post has the list of the best books for aspiring writers, including memoirs of the craft, books on story structure and character development, guides to the elements of style, and books on practical advice and overcoming writer's block.

Each book will be briefly described and its importance to a writer's development will be discussed.

• "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" by Stephen King - This classic guide to the craft of writing is part memoir, part how-to manual, and is essential reading for aspiring writers. King shares his personal story of how he became a writer, as well as his advice on the craft, including tips on plot, character, and dialogue. This book is a go-to guide for any writer, whether you're just starting out or have been writing for years.
• "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White - This short book is a comprehensive guide to the rules of grammar and style in the English language. It covers everything from punctuation to usage, and is an essential resource for any writer looking to improve their writing skills.
• "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield - This short, punchy book is a must-read for anyone struggling with writer's block or inner creative battles. Pressfield offers practical advice on how to overcome resistance and get to work, and his no-nonsense approach is both inspiring and motivating.
• "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott - Lamott's witty tone and personal anecdotes make this book an enjoyable read, but it's also packed with practical advice for aspiring writers. Lamott offers tips on everything from character development to finding your voice, and her focus on the writing process rather than the end result is refreshing.
• "The Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp - Tharp's book on creativity is a great resource for anyone looking to tap into their creative potential. It offers practical advice and exercises for overcoming creative blocks and staying inspired, and Tharp's emphasis on the importance of routine and discipline is especially useful for aspiring writers.
• "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker - Pinker's book on the art of writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing style. It covers everything from the use of metaphor and alliteration to the value of clarity and simplicity, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to write with style and flair.
• "The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby - Truby's comprehensive guide to story structure and character development is a great resource for anyone looking to write a good novel or screenplay. It covers everything from the importance of creating a strong protagonist to the role of conflict and theme in storytelling.
• "Save the Cat!" by Blake Snyder - Snyder's book on screenwriting is a must-read for anyone looking to write for film or television. It covers everything from structure and pacing to character development and dialogue, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to break into the world of screenwriting.
• "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell - This classic book on mythology and storytelling is a great resource for anyone looking to understand the archetypal patterns that underlie many of our most enduring stories. Campbell's exploration of the hero's journey is especially useful for writers looking to create memorable characters and compelling plots.
• "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard - Dillard's book on the writing life offers a unique perspective on what it means to be a professional writer. She covers everything from the inner creative battles writers face to the practical aspects of writing, such as finding a quiet place to work and managing your time effectively. This book is a great resource for anyone looking to turn their writing into a career.

Each of these books is a great resource for aspiring writers, offering practical advice and insights into the creative process.

By reading and learning from these books, aspiring writers can take the first step towards becoming successful authors.

Memoirs of the Craft

Memoirs about writing can be incredibly useful for aspiring writers, providing valuable insights into the creative process and the writer's life.

Let's explore some of the best memoirs of the craft, including classic works by Stephen King and Annie Dillard, as well as newer books by emerging writers.

• "Lit" by Mary Karr - Karr's memoir about her own writing journey is both honest and inspiring. She shares her struggles with alcoholism and depression, as well as the challenges of writing a memoir. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to write about their own life experiences.
• " The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls - Walls' memoir about growing up in poverty is a great example of how personal narrative can be turned into compelling storytelling. This book is a great resource for anyone looking to write memoir or personal essays.
• "The Art of Memoir" by Mary Karr - Karr's guide to writing memoir is a great resource for anyone looking to tell their own life story. She covers everything from the ethics of writing about real people to the importance of structure and voice.
• "Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do" edited by Meredith Maran - This collection of essays by some of today's best writers offers a unique perspective on the creative process. Each author shares their own story of why they became a writer and how they approach the craft, providing valuable insights for aspiring writers.
• "Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir" by Lisa Dale Norton - Norton's guide to writing memoir is a practical and inspiring resource for anyone looking to tell their own life story. She offers step-by-step guidance on everything from finding your voice to structuring your story.

Memoirs about writing offer a unique perspective on the creative process and the writer's life, and can be incredibly inspiring for aspiring writers.

Story Structure and Character Development

Understanding story structure and character development is essential for aspiring writers.

A well-crafted story with fully developed characters is much more likely to engage readers and leave a lasting impression.

We've covered a lot already, but let's continue and explore some of the best books on story structure and character development, including classic works by John Truby and Joseph Campbell, as well as newer books by emerging writers.

• "The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby - Truby's comprehensive guide to story structure and character development is a great resource for anyone looking to write a good novel or screenplay. It covers everything from the importance of creating a strong protagonist to the role of conflict and theme in storytelling. The book is a step-by-step guide that includes practical exercises to help writers apply the lessons to their own work.
• "Save the Cat!" by Blake Snyder - Snyder's book on screenwriting is a must-read for anyone looking to write for film or television. It covers everything from structure and pacing to character development and dialogue, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to break into the world of screenwriting. The book is based on Snyder's own experience as a Hollywood screenwriter and includes practical advice on how to create a successful screenplay.
• "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell - This classic book on mythology and storytelling is a great resource for anyone looking to understand the archetypal patterns that underlie many of our most enduring stories. Campbell's exploration of the hero's journey is especially useful for writers looking to create memorable characters and compelling plots. The book is a comprehensive guide to the elements of storytelling, and is essential reading for anyone looking to write great fiction.
• "Story Genius" by Lisa Cron - Cron's book on story structure and character development is a great resource for anyone looking to write a novel. She emphasizes the importance of creating fully developed characters with their own unique perspectives and motivations. The book includes practical exercises to help writers apply the lessons to their own work, and is a great resource for anyone looking to take their writing to the next level.
• "The Art of Character" by David Corbett - Corbett's book on character development is a great resource for anyone looking to create compelling and complex characters. He emphasizes the importance of creating characters with depth and complexity, and provides practical advice on how to achieve this. The book includes exercises to help writers create more nuanced and realistic characters, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills.
• "Creating Character Arcs" by K.M. Weiland - Weiland's book on character development focuses on the importance of creating believable and engaging character arcs. She emphasizes the importance of creating characters that change and grow throughout the story, and provides practical advice on how to achieve this. The book includes examples from popular novels and movies to illustrate the lessons, and is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills.

By reading and learning from these books, writers can take the first step towards creating compelling and engaging stories with fully developed characters.

As an aspiring writer, understanding the rules of grammar and style is essential for creating clear, concise, and effective writing.

Some of the best books are listed below on the elements of style, including the classic "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, as well as newer books by emerging writers.

• "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White - This short book is a comprehensive guide to the rules of grammar and style in the English language. It covers everything from punctuation to usage, and is an essential resource for any writer looking to improve their writing skills. The book is concise and easy to follow, and is an excellent reference guide for writers of all levels.
• "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker - Pinker's book on the art of writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing style. It covers everything from the use of metaphor and alliteration to the value of clarity and simplicity, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to write with style and flair. The book is also a great resource for anyone looking to write for a popular audience.
• "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace" by Joseph M. Williams - Williams' book on style is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. He emphasizes the importance of clarity and simplicity in writing, and provides practical advice on how to achieve this. The book includes examples from popular writers to illustrate the lessons, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to take their writing to the next level.
• "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth - Forsyth's book on the art of rhetoric is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing style. He explores the various literary techniques that writers can use to create memorable and effective writing, and provides practical advice on how to apply these techniques to your own writing. The book is both informative and entertaining, and is a great resource for writers looking to add a bit of flair to their writing.
• "The Glamour of Grammar" by Roy Peter Clark - Clark's book on grammar and style is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the rules of grammar and style in order to create effective writing, and provides practical advice on how to apply these rules to your own writing. The book is both informative and entertaining, and is a great resource for writers looking to improve their writing skills.

Understanding the rules of grammar and style is essential for aspiring writers.

By reading and learning from these books, writers can take the first step towards creating clear, concise, and effective writing.

Practical Advice and Overcoming Writer's Block

Writing can be a difficult and frustrating process, and every writer experiences periods of writer's block at some point.

Now it's time to cover some of the best books on practical advice for writers...

...as well as strategies for overcoming writer's block.

These books offer valuable insights into the creative process, as well as practical tips for staying motivated and inspired.

• "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield - This short book is a great resource for anyone struggling with writer's block or a lack of motivation. Pressfield explores the inner battles that writers face when trying to create, and provides practical advice on how to overcome these obstacles. The book is both informative and inspiring, and is a great resource for anyone looking to take their writing to the next level.
• "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron - Cameron's book on creativity is a great resource for anyone looking to overcome writer's block and unleash their inner creative spirit. She provides practical exercises and strategies for staying motivated and inspired, and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be a writer. The book is both informative and inspiring, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to develop their creativity.
• "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott - Lamott's book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking for practical advice on the creative process. She offers tips on everything from character development to finding your voice, and provides strategies for overcoming writer's block and staying motivated. The book is both informative and entertaining, and is a valuable resource for writers of all levels.
• "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg - Goldberg's book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking to overcome writer's block and tap into their inner creative spirit. She provides practical exercises and strategies for staying motivated and inspired, and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be a writer. The book is both informative and inspiring, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to develop their creativity.
• "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert - Gilbert's book on creativity is a great resource for anyone looking to overcome writer's block and unleash their inner creative spirit. She provides practical advice and strategies for staying motivated and inspired, and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be a writer. The book is both informative and inspiring, and is a valuable resource for anyone looking to develop their creativity.
• "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass - Maass' book on writing is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their writing skills and overcome writer's block. He offers practical advice on everything from plot development to character arc, and provides strategies for staying motivated and inspired. The book is both informative and entertaining, and is a valuable resource for writers of all levels.
• "The Emotional Craft of Fiction" by Donald Maass - Maass' book on the emotional aspects of writing is a great resource for anyone looking to develop deeper and more nuanced characters. He offers practical advice on how to create fully-realized characters with depth and complexity, and provides strategies for overcoming writer's block and staying motivated. The book is both informative and inspiring, and is a valuable resource for writers looking to take their writing to the next level.

Understanding the creative process and developing strategies for overcoming writer's block is essential for aspiring writers.

By reading and learning from these books, writers can take the first step towards developing their creativity and creating compelling and engaging writing.

As an aspiring writer, editor or self-publisher, the journey to becoming successful can be a challenging one.

However, with the right tools and resources, it is possible to develop the skills needed to understand what makes compelling and engaging stories.

In this post, we have explored some of the best books for aspiring writers, editors or self-publishers, including memoirs of the craft, story structure and character development, the elements of style, and practical advice for overcoming writer's block.

Reading the books on this list can help you develop the craft needed to take writing, editing and self-publishing to the next level.

By learning from the greats who have come before us, we can gain valuable insights into the creative process and develop the skills needed to write engaging and memorable stories.

From Stephen King's classic "On Writing" to Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," each book offers valuable insights into the creative process and provides practical advice for aspiring writers.

Whether you're looking to develop your writing style, create fully-realized characters, or overcome writer's block, there is a book on this list that can help you achieve your goals.

Ultimately, the key to becoming a successful writer, editor, or self-publisher is to read widely, write consistently, and never give up on your dreams.

With the right tools and resources, anyone can develop the skills needed to create engaging and memorable stories, edit and refine the work of others, or self-publish their own book.

So, pick up a book, sit down at your desk, and start writing, editing, and prepare your new masterpieces to be self-published. 

The world is waiting to hear your story!

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Last updated on Feb 07, 2023

How to Write a Book (with Tactics from Bestsellers)

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Martin Cavannagh

Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.

What’s the secret formula to tapping into your creativity and writing a book? Some authors would tell you there is no single path to authorship , as every writer’s journey is unique. However, almost every bestselling author will have highly effective writing patterns and habits that help them attain their writing dreams . In this post, we'll share some of their most commonly used tactics for starting and finishing a book.

How to write a book:

1. Start with a book idea you love

2. research by reading genre-prominent books, 3. outline the story, 4. write the opening sentence , 5. write the first draft, 6. set a schedule with achievable goals, 7. find a good writing space, 8. pick a "distraction-free" writing software, 9. finish your draft, 10. edit the manuscript, 11. publish your book for readers to buy.

There's a long, exciting road ahead. So let's get started.

The one thing you absolutely  need  to write a book is, of course, an idea. If you don't have that, you'll never get past the first page of your draft.

You may already know what you want to write about, or you may be at a total loss. Either way, you can settle on a “big book idea” by asking yourself a few simple questions:

• What do I  want  to write about?
• What do I feel is  important  to write about?
• Who will want to read about this story/subject?
• Will I be able to carry out this idea effectively?

Your answers to these questions will help you narrow it down to your best options. For example, if you have several different ideas for a book, but only one that you're truly passionate about and feel you can pull off, then voilà — there's your premise!

On the other hand, if you  lack  ideas, these questions should steer you in a firmer direction. Think about the kinds of books you love to read, as well as books that have made a significant impact on you. In all likelihood, you'll want to write a book in a similar vein.

Tools to help you find an idea

If you're grasping at straws, consider free-writing based on a writing prompt or generating a story via a plot generator to get the ball rolling! You might stumble upon an interesting concept or story element that sparks a “big idea” for your book. (And if you're still uninspired even after trying these tools, you may want to reconsider whether you really want to write a book after all.)

Once you've found your big idea, the next step is to research your genre. Again, if you're writing the book you like to read , you already have a leg up! Reading books in your genre is by far the best way to learn how to write in that genre yourself.

But if not, you'll want to select a couple of representative titles and analyze them.  How long are the novels  and  how many chapters do they have ? What does the  shape of the story look like? What themes and ideas pull the book together? Perhaps most importantly, do you think you can produce a book with similar elements?

Find out what people are reading

You should also conduct market research on Amazon to determine the most  popular  books in your genre. If you want your book to succeed, you'll have to contend with these bestsellers. Go to the  Amazon Best Sellers page  and find your genre in the lefthand sidebar:

Then read those books' blurbs to figure out what really sells. What do they all have in common, and why might readers find them appealing? Does your book hold up to these standards?

Finally, think about how your book can offer something NEW. For example, if you're writing a psychological thriller, will there be a particularly sneaky narrator who's unreliable, or maybe a  series of twists and turns that the reader never sees coming? If your book is nonfiction , do you have a unique take on the subject, or a particularly deep well of knowledge? And so on.

Going above and beyond is the only way to give your book a chance in today's hyper-competitive market. So don't skimp on the genre research, because this will tell you where the bar is and how you can surpass it.

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Many great stories begin with a great outline. This is especially important if it's your first book, since you need a solid blueprint to rely on when you get stuck! (Because believe us, you will get stuck.)

So how do you go about creating that outline for your book? We actually have a  whole other post on the subject , but here are the essentials:

• Pick a format that works for you.  There are so many different types of outlines: the free-flowing mind map, the rigorous chapter-and-scene outline, the character-based outline, and so on. If one approach doesn't work for you, try another! Any kind of plan is better than none.
• Have a beginning, middle, and end.  Way too many authors go into writing a book with a strong notion of how their story should start... yet their middle is murky and their ending, nonexistent. Take this time to flesh them out and connect them to one another.  Remember:  the best books have endings that feel “earned,” so you should try to be building toward it from the start!
• Consider your conflict points.   Conflict is at the heart of any good book  — it draws in the reader, conjures tension and emotion, and ultimately reflects the themes and/or message you want to convey. You don't have to know  exactly  where your conflict will manifest, but you should have a pretty good grasp of how it works throughout your book.
• Get to know your characters. If you haven't spent much time shaping your characters  yet, your outline is the perfect opportunity to do so. How will your characters interact in the story, and how will these interactions demonstrate who they are and what matters to them?

If you'd like to outline your story directly in a writing app, we recommend using the pre-made templates in the free Reedsy Studio. Simply create your account with one click below and start creating the building blocks of your story — right away.  

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Let's get into the actual writing and make a dent in your first draft . One of the most important parts of writing a book is starting it ! It's no exaggeration to say your first few pages can make or break your book — if these pages aren't good enough, many readers will lose interest, possibly never returning to your book again.

First off, you need an opening hook that grabs the reader's attention and makes it impossible for them to look away. Take a look at the first lines of these hit bestsellers:

“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.” — The Da Vinci Code

“If all the Saturdays of 1982 can be thought of as one day, I met Tracey at 10 a.m. on that Saturday, walking through the sandy gravel of a churchyard, each holding our mother's hand.” — Swing Time

All of these books fall into different genres, yet all their opening lines do the same thing: capture the reader's attention. You can imitate them by making a similarly strong, slightly furtive statement in  your  opener!

From there, your job is to maintain the reader's interest by heightening the stakes and  kicking off the plot . You should also make the reader care about the main characters by giving them distinct personalities, as well as  character goals  and motivations. (Note that “main” is a key descriptor here; never introduce more than a couple of characters at a time!)

Of course, there are infinite ways to write your first chapter. You might have to experiment with lots of different opening lines, even opening scenes, to find the right balance — but it's worth the effort to set the stage perfectly.

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Many writers believe that the key to writing an amazing book is style: impressive vocabulary, elaborate sentences,  figurative language  that would make Shakespeare swoon.

We're here to dissuade you of that notion. While style is great (as long as your prose doesn't  start to become purple ),  substance  is far more important when writing a book — hence why you should focus primarily on your plot, characters, conflict(s), and themes.

Make sure your book is all killer, no filler

Of course, that's easier said than done, especially once you've already started working on your book . When you get to a patchily outlined section, it's tempting to  keep  writing and fill out the page with literary gymnastics. But that's exactly what this content is: filler. And if you have too much of it, readers will become frustrated and start to think you're pretentious.

This is another reason why outlining is so important. You need to KNOW your story in order to stay on track with it! But besides outlining, here are a few more tips for making substance a priority:

• Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.  This advice comes straight from Kurt Vonnegut, and it's 100% true: if a sentence doesn't accomplish one or both of those things, try removing it. If the passage still makes sense, leave it out.
• Be conscious of your pacing.  Slow pacing is a symptom of excess description. If the events of your book seem to move like molasses, you're probably using too much style and not enough substance.
• Use a writing tool to reduce flowery language.  Speaking of great American novelists, Hemingway is a fantastic tool to help you write like the man himself! Simply paste your writing into the app and Hemingway will suggest ways to make your prose more concise and effective.

Keep readers in mind while writing

Do you want to be the author of a novel that people will really  enjoy (and buy)? Well, this is pretty much the cardinal rule: you should always be thinking about your audience and trying to write “reader-first.”

For example, sometimes you'll have to write scenes that aren't very exciting, but that  serve the overall story arc . Don't rush through these scenes just to get them over with! Even if they don't seem interesting to  you,  they contribute to the reader's experience by building tension and preserving the pacing — and the reader deserves to relish those things.

Create 'fake' people who will want to read your book

When considering your readership, you should also  keep a proto-persona in mind  for marketing purposes. These are constructed personalities that marketers use to better understand their target customers. The more your book can cater to this hypothetical reader, the easier it will be to sell!

Maybe you're writing a true-crime account for zealous true crime readers . Such readers will have pored over countless criminal cases before, so you need to include unique details to make  your  case stand out, and craft an extra-compelling narrative to engage them.

Let's move on to practical ways that you can improve your writing habits. Word count goals play a huge part in creating an effective writing process, especially if you're trying to finish your book  in a certain amount of time .

You should create word count goals for both your individual sessions and per week — or per month, if that's how you prefer to think about your writing output. For relatively novice writers, we'd recommend the following word count goals:

• 500-750 words per day
• 1,500-2,500 words per week
• 6,000-10,000 words per month

These goals are based on a pattern of 3-4 sessions per week, which is reasonable for a beginner, but still enough to make commendable progress. Even if you only follow our  minimum  recommendations — 500 words per session at 3 sessions per week — you can still easily finish your book in less than a year!

Speeding up the writing process

If you're looking for how to write a book  as fast as possible , your word count goals should look a little more like this:

• 1,500-2,000 words per session
• 9,000-15,000 words per week
• 35,000-50,000 words per month

The figures above adhere roughly to NaNoWriMo, the event in which participants write an average of 1,667 words/day to complete a 50,000-word book in  one month . It's hard work, but it's definitely possible to write a book that quickly; hundreds of thousands of people do so every year!

But as any author who's done NaNo can attest, it's also a pretty grueling experience. Most authors find it exhausting to write such great quantities for so many days in a row — and they still have to  revise copiously once they're done .

If this is your first book, make sure you take your time, set manageable word goals, and gradually build to bigger goals.

Use writing sessions to establish a schedule

Having a healthy writing routine is the only way you'll actually hit those word count goals — not to mention it fosters a better relationship with writing overall! To establish a healthy routine, ask yourself these baseline questions first:

• When do I have the most free time in the day/week?
• What time of the day do I tend to be most productive?
• How can I space out my writing sessions effectively?
• Will I realistically be able to balance my writing goals with other responsibilities?

The best way to set up your routine is to take advantage of your pre-existing schedule and natural patterns. So for example, if you already go to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps the best time to write would be on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or if you find yourself most creative late at night ( many of us do! ), you can plan late-night sessions over the weekend/before your day off, so you can sleep in the next day.

Ultimately, you just want a well-balanced writing routine that facilitates productivity, yet keeps you from burning out. If you find that writing for several days in a row is too much for you, space out your sessions more or try to shake things up by moving to a new writing space. If you can't keep up with your goals, it's okay to reduce them a little.

Yes, writing a lot is important, but it's not more important than your mental health! Remember that writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint, and that a consistent, healthy approach is absolutely vital. Here are some tips for making the most of your writing routine.

Don't skip more than one session in a row

Life happens, and sometimes you won't be able to make a planned writing session. However, unless it's a serious emergency, you should try to get back in the saddle for your next session. Otherwise, you'll lose too much progress and feel discouraged, which typically leads to skipping even  more  writing sessions, and eventually giving up.

Track your progress

With our free writing app , Reedsy Studio, you'll see the numbers update automatically depending on your activity: you'll see how many words you added  and deleted on any given day. Depending on the overall goal you set for your manuscript, you'll also see your daily targets adjust depending on how much you've written so far.

Use a site blocker to stay focused

Distraction is the enemy of routine, and the biggest distraction in our modern world is the Internet. To that end, download a site-and-app blocker to use during your writing sessions so you won't be enticed by social media or adorable cat memes. We'd recommend  Freedom , as you can schedule block sessions in advance and even keep track of your productivity   within  the app.

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How to Build a Solid Writing Routine

In 10 days, learn to change your habits to support your writing.

Another major component of how to write a book is  where  you write, hence why it gets a separate section. If you want to complete an entire book, you absolutely must find a calm, focused space for your writing.

This may be in your house, a coffee shop, a library, a co-working space — wherever you can work productively and without interruptions. It should also be a place that you can access easily and go often. Working from home is the most convenient option in this sense, but it may be difficult if you have family around, or if you don't have a designated “room of one's own” (i.e. an actual office, or at least a desk).

What does a good writing space look like?

Try out different locations to see what works for you. Indeed, you may find that you like to rotate writing spaces because it keeps you energetic and your writing fresh! But wherever you go, do your best to make the space:

• Quiet  (noise-canceling headphones can be very helpful)
• Clean  (no clutter, especially if you do chores to procrastinate)
• Non-distracting  (nothing too fun around to tempt you away from writing; turn off your phone so other people won't bother you)
• Your own  (cultivate a nice atmosphere in your home office with posters and plants, or simply take the same seat at your local café every time — truly carve out a “dedicated writing space”)

We've already talked about a few different pieces of software to help you with writing a book. But if you haven't found the right app or program yet, never fear — there's plenty more where those came from!

Book writing software is a topic we've actually  written an entire post about , but it's worth touching on a few of our favorite writing tools here:

Scrivener 🖋️

Scrivener is  the  downloadable writing software of choice for many writers, and for good reason: it has an exceptional interface and tons of useful features. You can outline chapters with its drag-and-drop system, create labels for elements you want to track, and use various templates to plan AND format your book. If you want to feel like a true professional, you can't go wrong with Scrivener — and it's even free to try for 30 days.

Or if you're not much for outlines because your thoughts are all over the place, Milanote can help. The super-flexible interface allows you to “mind map” just as you would longhand, and rearrange different sections as you please. When writing, you can see all your notes at once, so you don't have to stress about forgetting things. It's a very refreshing, intuitive way approach that's worth a try for all disorganized authors.

FocusWriter ✍️

Speaking of intuitive, what's more intuitive than simply writing on a piece of paper, no distractions — just like the old days? Meet FocusWriter, which allows you to do exactly that. The full-screen default interface is a sheet of paper on a wooden desk: no bells, no whistles, no distractions whatsoever. Seriously, this one will get you in the zone.

Reedsy Studio 📖

We couldn't leave out one of the coolest word processing, editing, and formatting tools on the market! All jokes aside, Reedsy Studio lets you cleanly format your book as you go,  so you can watch it take shape in real-time. You can also add sections for front matter and back matter and invite collaborators to edit your text. Plus you can toggle on goal reminders to make sure that you're on track with your writing schedule. Once you finish writing, you can export the files of your book. But don't take our word for it: you can try Reedsy Studio for free right here .

FREE WRITING APP

Set goals, track progress, and establish your writing routine in our free app.

Getting into the groove of writing a book can be difficult. When there are a million different things to distract and discourage you, how can you keep going with your writing routine and finish your book?

Based on ours and other writers' experience, here are a few motivational strategies for you to try:

• Make a list of reasons  why  you want to write a book.  Having a tangible reminder of your true purpose is one of the best ways to motivate yourself, so think hard: Do you want to send an important message? Reach a certain group of people? Or do you simply yearn to tell this particular story? Write down all your reasons and keep them as an ace in the hole for when your motivation dwindles.
• Find someone else to write with you.  Getting a writing buddy is another great way to stay motivated! For one thing, you get some camaraderie during this process; for another, it means you can't slack off too much. So ask your writer friends if they'd like to meet up regularly, or join a community of authors online . With the latter, just make sure you exchange progress updates and proof that you're actually writing!
• Reward yourself at important milestones.  Sometimes the best motivation is the prospect of treating yourself. If you respond well to this kind of motivation, set a goal, a deadline, and a reward for meeting it: “If I can write 10,000 more words by the end of the month, I'll go out for an amazing, fancy dinner with all my friends.” This kind of goal is also helpful because you can  tell  your friends about it, and that very act will hold you accountable.

For even more advice on how to staying motivated through the writing process, check out this Reedsy Live from author and writing coach Kevin Johns!

Don't give up

Remember how we said you'd inevitably get stuck? Well, that's what this step is all about: what to do when you hit a wall. Whether it's a tricky plot hole, an onslaught of insecurity, or a simple lack of desire to write, all writers experience setbacks from time to time .

There are countless ways to overcome writer's block, from freewriting to working on your characters to taking a shower (yes, that's a legitimate tip!). However, here are some of the most effective techniques we've found:

• Revisit your outline.  This will jog your memory as to planned story elements you've forgotten — which may help you find the missing piece.
• Try writing exercises.  It's possible you just need to get the words flowing, and then you can jump get right back into your book. Luckily for you, we have a whole host of great writing exercises  right here!
• Share your experience with friends.  This is another great role for your writing buddy to fill, but you can easily talk about writer's block with your non-writing friends, too. If you're struggling, it always helps to vent and bounce ideas off other people.
• Take a  short  break to do something else.  Yes, sometimes you need to step away from the keyboard and clear your head. But don't take more than a day or so, or else you'll lose momentum and motivation.

Most of all, remember to take setbacks in stride and not let them get you down. As platitudinous as that might sound, it's true: the only thing that can stop you from writing a book is if you, well,  stop writing . So keep calm and carry on — every day brings new opportunities and you'll get through this.

Your aim at this point is not to emerge with an instant masterpiece. The quality almost always emerges in the edit.

You can write all day, all night, to your heart's content... but if no one else likes what you've written, you might end up heart broken  instead. That's why it's crucial to request feedback on your book, starting early and from as many sources as possible.

Begin by asking your friends and fellow writers to read just a few chapters at a time. However, apply their suggestions not only to those chapters, but wherever relevant. For example, if one of your friends says, “[Character A] is acting weird in this scene,” pay extra attention to that character to ensure you haven't misrepresented them anywhere else.

Once your book is finished, you're ready for some more intensive feedback. Consider getting a beta reader to review your entire book and provide their thoughts . You may want to hire an editor to give you professional feedback as well. (Find out about the different types of editing, and which type your book might need,  in this post .)

Finally, it might sound obvious, but we'll say it anyway for all you stubborn writers out there: feedback is useless if you don't actually listen to it. Separate yourself from your ego and don't take anything personally, because no one wants to offend you — they're just trying to help.

You’ve persevered to the end at last: brainstormed, outlined, and written a draft that you've edited extensively (based on feedback, of course). Your book has taken its final form, and you couldn’t be prouder. So what comes next?

Well, if you’ve taken our advice about catering to your target readers, you may as well give publishing a shot! We have a  full guide to publishing right here  — and if you’re thinking about traditional publishing,  read this article  to decide which is right for you.

Get help from publishing professionals

Publishing is another rigorous process, of course. But if you’ve come this far to find out how to write a book, you can pretty much do anything! Invest in  stellar cover design for your book , study up on  marketing for your book , or start writing an  irresistible query letter that will get you an offer .

Whichever route you take, one thing will remain true: you’ve written a book, and that’s an incredible achievement. Welcome to the 0.1% — and may the next book you write be even greater than the first. 📖

13/12/2019 – 15:33

thank you for helping me find a new way to write my book

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14 Must-Read Books for Writing a Novel

by Lewis / December 15, 2020 / Other

If you want to be a writer, you need to read…

This is pretty common advice in the writing world, and for good reason. Reading is how we learn to craft better stories, the same way singers learn by listening to music and painters learn by studying the masters. However, you shouldn’t limit your reading time to just fiction—you need a healthy dose of nonfiction too!

Fortunately, there are hundreds of excellent nonfiction books out there, all dedicated to helping writers hone their writing craft, edit their novels, and find their muse. So, whether you’re looking for advice on brainstorming or are ready to hit publish, here are fourteen must-read books for writing a novel!

Learning to Write a Novel

• 1 Learning to Write a Novel
• 2.1 Books for Outlining a Novel:
• 2.2 Books for Writing a Novel:
• 2.3 Books for Editing a Novel:
• 2.4 Books for Publishing a Novel:
• 2.5 Books for Inspiration:
• 3 The Best Books for Writing a Novel!

In reality, though, that’s simply not true.

Anyone can write a novel if they set their mind to it, and a good novel too. The key is to take the time to learn, both through practice, but also by absorbing every bit of knowledge you can. Blogs like this one are great for that, along with writing podcasts , “ author-tubers ,” and more. However, in the world of fiction writing, by far the best resources available are nonfiction books on the writing craft.

Books like these are actually where I started my personal writing journey all the way back in the summer of 2015.

This was when I first decided to take my writing seriously and—looking back on it—I read well over twenty books on writing before that year’s NaNoWriMo. Those books eventually formed the foundation of my fiction writing skills, taking what I already knew subconsciously and helping me put it into a more concrete writing practice.

Fast forward to now and I’ve written a few writing craft books of my own as I’ve continued to grow as a writer. Yet, I can’t help but circle back to those early books that meant so much to my writing journey. They still hold up all these years later, and as a result they’ve earned themselves a permanent place on my bookshelf.

Today, I’d like to share them with you!

No matter where you are in your writing process, there’s something for you here—from outlining to editing and beyond. Of course, because everyone is at a different point in their writing journey, I’ve made sure to organize these books by category. This should make them easier to reference, so feel free to jump to the section that fits you best.

Let’s get started!

My 14 Favorite Books for Writing a Novel

Books for outlining a novel:, structuring your novel – k.m. weiland.

This book is a classic for a reason, as it’s by far one of the best introductions to story structure around. Not only is it a vital book to read before outlining a novel, but it’s also just an excellent tool for developing a better understanding of storytelling as an art form. After all, story structure is a key part of creating a strong novel, meaning having a solid structure from the start will make the whole writing process much easier!

Plot Versus Character – Jeff Gerke

This is a super intuitive book that would be a huge help for anyone struggling to balance both their novel’s plot and characters—as the title suggests! Best of all, Gerke doesn’t stop at explaining this balance in theory. He also shows you how to strengthen whichever side you struggle with, so you can achieve that balance too. Overall, this is a great book to read early in the outlining process.

Take Off Your Pants – Libbie Hawker

Amusing title aside, this book has a unique take on outlining, specifically geared towards getting pantsers to come over to the Dark Side and embrace plotting.

However, that’s actually not my favorite aspect of Hawker’s book. You see, this is one of the few books I’ve found that really gets into the weeds on chapter structure . Personally, I’ve grown to believe that chapters are best handled during the editing phase, but that doesn’t mean Hawker doesn’t have some great wisdom to share on the topic. If you read this book for nothing else, read it for that!

The Ten Day Outline – Lewis Jorstad

While the other books in this category (other than perhaps Take Off Your Pants ) are more focused on the craft behind storytelling, The Ten Day Outline is all about the process of outlining a novel itself. Basically, over the span of ten days, this book will help you take a single idea and turn it into a fully fledged story through a series of prompts, questions, and guides.

By the end, you’ll have everything you need to write your novel with confidence—which is pretty cool, at least in my (biased) opinion! 🙂

Books for Writing a Novel:

The ten day draft – lewis jorstad.

Again, this is one of my own books, but that’s for a reason. There simply aren’t a ton of books that guide you through the process of writing a novel itself, because really, you just need to write!

Still, I think this book is worth your time for one key reason—first drafts are difficult. Having someone to guide you can be invaluable, especially if this is your first attempt at writing a novel. From managing your mindset to overcoming common story blocks, The Ten Day Draft is about the act of writing more than anything else. Basically, if you’re looking for a writing coach in book form, then this is the book for you!

The Emotion Thesaurus – Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman

While there are tons of tips and tricks out there for avoiding writer’s block, sometimes you will get stuck—it’s just part of the writing experience. Fortunately, The Emotion Thesaurus (along with all of Becca and Angela’s books) can be a huge help.

These books are similar to a database of writing information, making them a great thing to reference when you need to come up with different situations, character reactions, emotions, and more. The Emotion Thesaurus is the first book in the series, and my personal favorite—but all of them are definitely worth checking out.

Books for Editing a Novel:

Writing tools – roy peter clark.

Of course, there is a caveat here—this book is best saved for the editing process. While it’s filled with awesome advice, it also goes in depth on proper punctuation, writing style, grammar, and more. These are all important to master, but they’re easy to feel overwhelmed by if you’re still working on your first draft. However, once you have a solid manuscript under your belt, Writing Tools is definitely a book to pick up.

The Ten Day Edit – Lewis Jorstad

Much like the rest of the series, The Ten Day Edit is all about process. This book is designed to take the often confusing, jumbled mess that is editing, and turn it into a structured, painless experience. It’ll guide you as you take stock of your current draft, help you formulate fixes through targeted prompts, and finally motivate you to put your new plan into action.

Even though I published this book less than a year ago, I still find myself reaching for it whenever I turn my attention to editing, which I guess makes sense—all the prompts and techniques in this book are ones I use myself. 🙂

Books for Publishing a Novel:

Successful self-publishing – joanna penn.

Self-publishing is one of those topics that can be incredibly intimidating and confusing your first time around—which is why I so frequently recommend this book. Not only is this is a great introduction to the basics of self-publishing, but Joanna’s writing style is also approachable and easy-going. Really, this is the perfect book to pick up if you’re just getting started. Plus, it’s free on Amazon Kindle too!

The Business of Being a Writer – Jane Friedman

This book is essentially the big-brother to Successful Self-Publishing , and goes way more in depth on the business behind being a writer. As a result, this is definitely a book for more advanced authors—likely those who already have a book or two under their belt. Still, if you genuinely want to make writing your career, Friedman is an absolute wealth of knowledge. I highly recommend this one!

The Ten Day Author – Lewis Jorstad

As you might be able to guess, The Ten Day Author is the fourth and final book (at least currently) in my Ten Day Novelist series. Just like its predecessors, it’ll walk you through every stage of self-publishing a novel, from writing your blurb to eventually hitting “publish.”

Unfortunately, the book won’t be out until Spring 2021, but this roundup seemed like the perfect place to drop an early hint. I hope you’re as excited about it as I am!

The Ten Day Author has officially gone live! You can check it out on Amazon here. 🙂

Books for Inspiration:

The emotional craft of fiction – donald maass.

At first glance, this may seem like an odd book to put in the Inspiration category. However, this is actually one of my favorite books to read whenever I’m suffering from writer’s block .

You see, writer’s block is frequently the result of hitting a dead end in your story—and often the best remedy is shaking things up in the lives of your characters. So, while this may be an unconventional choice for this category, I recommend giving it try—you might be surprised just how much it changes your perspective on your story!

The Writer’s Journey – Christopher Vogler

This is a book I’ve talked about a lot on this blog, and with good reason—if I had to choose only one book on writing to read for the rest of my life, this would be the one.

Basically, if you haven’t read any of my posts on the Hero’s Journey , Vogler’s writing is all about the innate cycles we all go through in life—as well as how those translate to our storytelling. Overall, this book just makes me excited to be a writer, while also reminding me of a lot of important aspects of the writing craft as I go!

The Writer’s Process – Anne Janzer

It seemed fitting to wrap up this post with a book all about crafting your unique writing process. After all, good habits and a positive mindset are two of the most important tools you can have as a writer—more so than any amount of talent or luck.

Fortunately , w hether you need help capturing your muse or structuring your writing routine, Janzer has a lot of great advice to share. Ultimately, while you’ll certainly develop your writing process in your own personal way, this book is a great place to start.

The Best Books for Writing a Novel!

While creating this roundup, I couldn’t help but look back on my own writing journey. Funnily enough, I can distinctly remember a time where I was reading almost exclusively nonfiction, and nearly all of those were books on writing. As much as I missed having some dedicated “fiction time,” I can’t say I regret this phase in the slightest—these books created the foundation of my skills as a writer.

Of course, you don’t need to be nearly as extreme as I was!

Whether you just read one book from this list or all fourteen, I’m confident they’ll all serve you well. After all, the idea that you learn to write by reading is 100% true—and that includes nonfiction just as much as fiction.

In the end, there are a lot of authors out there excited to share their wisdom with you, and I hope this list introduced you to a few that might eventually become your favorite. 🙂

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” – Steven King

What’s your favorite book on writing? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on 14 must-read books for writing a novel.

Hey Lewis 🙂

You already know my must-reads including all four of your published writing books as well as Katie’s books on Structure, Character Arc, and Outlining. In my travels through the world of books on writing books I have yet to find any that are pacing specific. What would you say your favorite, must have book, on pacing is?

That’s a great question, and to be honest, I can’t think of any writing craft books I’ve read that are specifically focused on pacing. There is Fiction Pacing by Rayne Hall , which I’ve heard good things about, but I haven’t checked out myself. Maybe that would be a decent starting place?

If you do end up checking out Rayne’s book, definitely let me know what you think!

Hi Lewis, I totally agree that one’s ability to write is not wholly determined by innate talent. I’m a big proponent of deliberate practice, which is why I’m excited to go through your list. Also, I love the premise for your 10-day series!

I’m glad to hear that Mason! Let me know which book from this list is your favorite. 🙂

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The 15 Most Influential Books to Make You Wiser

Get your thinking cap on and dive into these tomes..

Certain books are justifiably lauded for offering profound insights and wisdom that help expand our understanding of life—this includes themes of science, morality, philosophy, and more. The following books are not only fascinating but very relevant today, offering perspectives that really make you think about what you’ve been taught, and how to challenge your own views. Here are 15 thought-provoking books that will inspire you and help make you wiser.

RELATED: The 20 Most Famous Historical Fiction Books Worth Reading .

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

A series of personal writings from the Roman emperor, considered a cornerstone of Stoic philosophy with reflections on virtue, duty, and the nature of human existence.

2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Harper Perennial

This thought-provoking book explores the history of our species and the impact cultural, economic, and technological changes have had on our societies.

3. The Republic by Plato

Penguin Classics

One of the most important texts in Western philosophy, this Socratic dialogue explores justice, political theory, and the role of the individual in society.

4. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Beacon Press

Frankl’s reflections on the human psyche, and finding purpose through suffering, is based on his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. A riveting read.

RELATED: 30 Quotes to Sound Like a Genius .

5. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

A fascinating science book exploring how the brain works, specifically the two systems of thought that drive our decision making.

6. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Fingerprint! Publishing

This Chinese military treatise about conflict and war is still relevant in many aspects of life today.

7. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

A must-read philosophical work exploring the nature of morality. It expands on his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra .

8. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

New World Library

This exploration of how people interact with themselves and others is the ultimate guide to living in the moment.

RELATED: 10 Scientific Facts That Blow Your Mind .

9. The Tao Te Ching by Laozi

This classical Chinese text is all about how to live harmoniously with the universe. Ancient wisdom for modern times.

10. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

W. W. Norton & Company

A fascinating look at the impact environmental and geographical factors had on the development of civilizations. A groundbreaking narrative of human history and lessons to be learned from the past.

11. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Pocket Books

Over 30 million copies of this self-help book have been sold worldwide which is no surprise—this guide contains timeless advice on communication and relationships.

12. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

University of Chicago Press

This book about the history of science and nature of scientific progress is a must-read for anyone interested in the psychology of belief. Kuhn shows that science is not linear.

RELATED: 4 Emily Henry books to Hit Big Screen Soon!

13. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

A fascinating read about the impact introverts have on society and how they are dramatically undervalued. It’s about time introverts got their due.

14. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Simon & Schuster

This guide to personal and professional success explores themes such as self-leadership and effective collaboration. Covey emphasizes how character, not personality, makes an impact.

15. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Faith, doubt, and free will are all explored in this last classic book from the famed Russian author. A passionate philosophical exploration of morality.

Ranking of 'Alien' Movies: From Worst to Best!

Netflix just got 13 of the best amc shows, 18 best background noise tv shows, steve harvey hilariously stumped on 'family feud'.

31 Great Content Writing Examples, Tips, and Tools

• by Ann Gynn
• | Published: August 21, 2024
• | Content Creation

Great content writing must be powerful and effective to captivate your audience.

But accomplishing that with your content writing isn’t an easy task. Whether you craft words for B2B or B2C audiences, the challenges can be many.

To help, I’ve compiled web writing examples, tips, tools, and resources. The goal is to give you some insights and new tools to help address or minimize the creation stumbling blocks web and content writers face.

Let’s get to it.

1. Go for the surprise

When you write something that’s unexpected, your audience will likely stop scrolling and take a moment to learn more. In the worst cases, this approach to content writing falls under the nefarious clickbait category. But in the best cases, it can delight and engage the viewer.

Nike is always a go-to source for the best content examples. The summer of 2024 didn’t disappoint with its Winning Isn’t for Everyone campaign.

With a debut in time for the global games, Nike featured the world’s greatest athletes (well, all the great Nike-sponsored athletes) talking about they are motivated by victory and that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to win. Writing those four words — winning isn’t for everyone — fosters a strong reaction. After all, there are far more people who don’t win than do. But audiences are also likely to watch more of the videos to learn what Nike is really talking about.

As you watch the video, note the repetition of the same question (“Am I a bad person?”) followed by short, staccato-paced statements. This approach creates a lyrical story. And it paid off, earning over 2.2 million views in two weeks.

2. Don’t forget text has a starring role in video

Words appear in blog posts or descriptions of product features and benefits. But writers can also shine in  video scripts, along with set designers, actors, and filmmakers. Writers can take any topic and help make it captivating.

J.P. Morgan used animation and strong scripts to explain finance-related concepts in its Unpacked series, a finalist in the Content Marketing Awards for best video. This 4.5-minute episode covers how private companies go public:

3. Tap into trends with simple writing prompts

I’m always a fan of Dove’s #KeepBeautyReal campaigns. Most recently, it created an example of powerful writing in this simple question, “ What kind of beauty do we want AI to learn?”

Capitalizing on the AI trend and interest, Dove illustrates the difference between AI-created images for prompts about “beautiful women” and “beautiful women according to Dove’s Real Beauty ads.” In the first three months of its debut, the video with few words has earned over 100K views on Dove’s YouTube channel and garnered mainstream and industry media attention.

4. Let your audience create great writing and video examples

Creativity can emerge in many ways. Sometimes, it’s a simple starting point that reflects the times, as Dove did in its content example.

It also may lead a brand to contribute to its own pop culture trend as The Stanley did with its Quencher Cup social media campaign in 2024 . Its influencer campaign prompted these fun user-generated examples of web writing and illustration in the form of memes and TikTok videos promoting the brand’s popular drinking vessel.

Hilarious Scales created this sample that’s been seen by over 10 million viewers:

@hilarious_scaless How yall be lookin with them Stanley Cups 🤣 #fypシ #fyp #stanleycup #stanleytumbler ♬ original sound – Hilarious_scales

Fans of hockey (that sport with the other Stanley Cup) also got into the action as Instagram account Daily Facebook shared this example:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by DailyFaceoff (@dailyfaceoff)

5. Nail down your headlines

I’ve said it often: Headlines are the powerhouse of your content writing. After all, if the headline isn’t a success, the content behind it will never be read.

A 2024 study published in Science Advance conducted over 30,000 field experiments with The Washington Post and Upworthy headlines. It found that readers prefer simpler headlines (more common words and more readable writing) over complex ones. They also paid more attention to and more deeply processed the simpler headlines.

The e-book headline in this example from OptinMonster is straightforward: 50 Smart Ways to Segment Your Email List. It uses a numeral (50), a helpful adjective (smart), and a second-person pronoun (your) to speak directly to the audience, all of which elevates the article’s value in the reader’s mind.

Image source

6. Analyze the potential impact of your content headlines

Size up headlines with the Advanced Marketing Institute’s Headline Analyzer , which reveals an emotional marketing value score.

This headline example — 14 Ways Marketing Automation Helps B2B Companies Succeed — earns an emotional marketing value (EMV) of 37.5%. Most professional copywriters’ headlines typically have a 30% to 40% EMV score.

The same headline in a similar tool, CoSchedule Blog Post Headline Analyzer , earns a score of 77 out of 100. This analysis looks at word balance, headline type, sentiment, reading grade level, clarity, and skimmability. It also identifies areas for improvement, such as the use of uncommon, emotional, and power words.

7. Adjust title formats with this content writing tool

Speed your formatting tasks with TitleCase . The tool converts your title into various circumstances — all caps, hyphen, etc., so you don’t have to rekey or reformat.

8. Write headlines with words that resonate

BuzzSumo research consistently identifies “how-to” or guidance-focused headlines that resonate far better with audiences than any other type.

It makes sense. Audiences are seeking information that will help them in their lives, and they have a lot of content from which to choose. By writing phrases like “how to” in a headline, you tell them clearly what they’re going to get.

Get more tips from CMI’s article How To Create Headlines That Are Good for Readers and Business .

9. Focus on clarity for web content

Explaining your product or service can get cumbersome, but it shouldn’t if you want the audience to quickly understand how your company can help solve their pain points.

In this example, Zendesk succinctly highlights three results gained by the enterprise clients of its customer service platform:

• Drive better conversations
• Maximize agent efficiency
• Adapt faster to change

The three- and four-word headlines are followed by short explanations (two sentences) and a link to the product’s relevant features for that category.

10. Write to win over readers

How does your content inspire readers or get them to care?

Some suggestions include:

• Focus on actionable content they could use right away.
• Establish instant credibility and expertise so they understand why you’re the go-to resource.
• Add value they wouldn’t see or find elsewhere.

This ad for the Content Marketing Institute newsletter works well as a sample of website content writing. It illustrates how to motivate the audience to see that the content is relevant for them. Its headline “Looking for Fresh Content Inspiration?” speaks directly to the reader. Its follow-up sentence explains in detail what the reader will get — expert advice, standout examples, and creative ideas.

11. Choose words that motivate actions

Sometimes, it’s a simple word or phrase that prompts someone to take the next step. Buffer offers a list of more than 150 words . These 19 words and phrases are examples of how to gain the audience’s trust:

• Bestselling
• Endorsed by
• Money-back guarantee
• No obligation
• No questions asked
• Recommended
• Transparent
• Try for free

In this web page example, OptinMonster opts for one of those words in its headline — How To Create a Fail-Proof Digital Marketing Plan in 5 Steps .

12. Keep it brief but convey a lot

Given your audience reads on screens, your web writing usually appears in a small space. Yet, it still must reflect a strong message.

For example, this American Express Business web copy uses five words to indicate that it gets the reader’s problem — “Don’t stress over seasonal surges.” Then, it uses another five words to indicate that it has a solution — “Help you keep your business thriving.” On the right, it shows the product name that will do all that (American Express business line of credit.)

13. Create compelling content with better words

Choosing a single word to convey the perfect sentiment makes the most of your available content space. To help, Jon Morrow of Smart Blogger offers a collection of words that can make a difference in your writing: 801+ Power Words That Make You Sound Smart . Here are 15 of them:

• Frightening

In this headline — Firefox Hacks for Everyone: From Cozy Gamers to Minimalists and Beyond — the Mozilla blog opted for one of the power words, “hack.”

 I’ll issue a caveat on this option: Power words can quickly become overused. “Hack” is coming close to saturation.

14. Length isn’t everything

I like to know content length rules and preferences. They give me guideposts for my web writing.

Google makes 30 characters available in its ad headlines, and it’s hard to go shorter than that. This simple sample — Best Enterprise CRM Platform — is 28 characters.

On social media, though, the character parameters are greater, and you could improve engagement by falling short of the upper limits.

Instagram is a perfect example of where writing content short of the 2,200-character maximum caption is a better decision. In fact, experts say the ideal length is 125 characters, which takes up the space visible before the viewer must click to read more.

Still, sometimes writing fewer than 125 characters can work well and draw attention in a crowded feed, as this sample from Grammarly shows. Its caption — “Learn actionable strategies for leveraging Gen AI to elevate your team’s productivity.” — totals just 88 characters.

Of course, exceptions exist. If your content’s primary goal is search engine optimization, longer content is almost always best. As a website ages, it may be able to get by with shorter pieces because it’s already established authority and has more pages, inbound links , etc. However, extended content often helps generate high rankings for targeted keyword phrases and similar words.

15. Choose short words for your web writing

You don’t need to use a lot of words to get your point across. Short ones can work in your favor. Consider these common examples of better choices:

• “Show,” not “indicate”
• “Get rid of,” not “eliminate”
• “Use,” not “utilize”
• “To,” not “in order to”
• “Help,” not “facilitate”
• “Get,” not “obtain”

16. Use a tool to keep track of word counts

Meet your word count goals and improve your word choice with the WordCounter tool. It also helps identify keywords and their appropriate frequency of use.

17. Recognize common writing mistakes

Grammar Girl , created by Mignon Fogarty, founder of Quick and Dirty Tips, outlines some common mistakes, such as this example on the use of that vs. which in writing.

“The simple rule is to use ‘that’ with a restrictive element and ‘which’ with a non-restrictive element … The cupcakes that have sprinkles are still in the fridge. The words “that have sprinkles” restrict the kind of cupcake we’re talking about. Without those words, the meaning of the sentence would change. Without them, we’d be saying that all the cupcakes are still in the fridge, not just the ones with sprinkles.”

18. Use parallel construction

Parallel construction organizes the text and relieves your readers of expending mental energy to piece together the thoughts.

• For example, this mish-mash list is not parallel because the sentence structures vary:
• It could be time to look over your business software contract.
• Consider the best products.
• If you want the product to benefit your company, include others’ points of view.

The list is parallel because every sentence starts the same way – with a verb .

• Review your business software contract.
• Shop for the best products based on features, costs, and support options.
• Ask key members of your team for their perspectives, including productivity barriers.

19. Know when to break the infinitive rule

Avoid splitting infinitives. However, sometimes you might need to bypass grammatically correct in favor of unawkward content.

Pro Writing Aid explains that split infinitives are nothing new — their use dates back to the 1300s. However, there is a time and place for them, as shown in this example from Northern Illinois University’s Effective Writing Practices Tutorial :

• Split infinitive but easily understood: It’s hard to completely follow his reasoning.
• No split infinitive, but awkwardly written: It’s hard to follow completely his reasoning.

20. Be conscious of pronouns

A conversational approach typically works best when you’re creating web content. Writing in the first or second person can accomplish this.

Embracing inclusivity also fosters a conversational atmosphere.

When you’re using pronouns, make sure it’s clear to what the pronoun refers. Given some people use they/them pronouns, ensuring pronoun clarity is especially important.

In those cases where the reader may be confused, explain the person’s use of the plural non-gendered pronoun in the text, for example, “Alex Alumino, who uses they/them pronouns …” Even better, just repeat their name in the sentence so there’s no need to explain and no misunderstanding.

21. Don’t overuse words

Redundancy bores. To figure out if you’re committing this sin, paste your text into the Word It Out tool. The word cloud reveals those used most often in your text.

We input a recent CMI article about user stories to create a word cloud for that content sample. It is no surprise that “user” shows up front and center, but it’s also an indicator for us to review the article to see if “user” is overused. “Katie” also shows up prominently in the word cloud as it’s the first name of the source for the article, and CMI uses first, instead of last names, on second and subsequent references. A review of the article could reveal it unnecessarily references the source too many times.

Similarly, WordCounter detects whether you’re using the same words too often. Use Thesaurus.com to find alternatives.

22. Try this content writing tool to replace jargon-like words

You need to speak your audience’s language, but that doesn’t mean you need to adopt the industry’s jargon. De-Jargonizer is designed to help analyze the jargon in scholarly articles, but the tool works just as well with your content writing.

In this example from a CMI article about building a social media plan , De-Jargonizer identifies four “rare” words — ebbs, inhospitable, clarifies, and actionable.

You can upload a file or paste your text to discover those rare words, aka potential jargon, in your content writing. Then, you can find more reader-friendly replacements.

23. Check your readability score

Even if readers can understand the jargon and complex sentences, they still don’t want to work hard to understand your content. To help understand if your writing is on the easier side, use a tool like Web FX’s Readability Test . It scores your content’s average reading ease and targeted readership age.

In this example, it evaluates the Fedex.com website and concludes it has a reading ease of 27.8 out of 100 and is targeted at 14- and 15-year-olds.

You can scroll down to see other readability scores, including Flesch Kincaid reading ease, Flesch Kincaid grade level, Gunning Fog, Smog Index, Coleman Liau, and Automated Readability Index.

The bottom of the evaluation includes the statistics about the evaluated text, including:

• Total sentences
• Total words
• Complex words
• Percent of complex words
• Average words per sentence
• Average syllables per word

Adjust your writing to meet the preferred readership level of your audience.

24. Evaluate sentence structure with the Hemingway App

Want more help to write content that’s easy to read? Consider tools like the Hemingway app, which provides immediate and detailed feedback on content structure, including sentence formatting. With the website version, you can replace the default text with your own.

The Hemingway app identifies potentially unnecessary adverbs, warns about passive voice, and triggers alerts to dull, complicated words.

In this web writing example from its home page, Hemingway App highlights one of the 13 sentences as very hard to read, one as hard to read, two weakener phrases, and one word with a simpler alternative.

25. Get web writing right with good grammar

Proper grammar is a necessity; you want to get everything correct to satisfy readers (and bosses). Try Grammarly .

Improve your writing with this cloud-based, AI editor. Grammarly automates grammar, spelling, and punctuation checks, often giving better, cleaner content options. The tool also alerts writers to passive voice, suggests opportunities to be concise, and assesses overall tone.

You also can save time and energy with ProWritingAid . It eliminates the need to reread to polish your content. This AI editing software offers more than grammar checks. It checks for vague wording, sentence length variation, and overuse of adverbs and passive voice. The tool also identifies complicated or run-on sentences. (“Content Writing Examples, Tips, and Resources”)

26. Read your web content in scanning mode

Here’s some sad news for content writers: Readers won’t consume every word in your content. They skip and scan a lot to see if the content is a good fit for them, and then they hope they can glean the relevant information without having to consume all the content.

As you write, think about how the text will look visually. Make it easy for readers to scan your content by including:

• Short paragraphs
• Bulleted lists
• Bolded text
• Words in color

27. Read aloud

If your content doesn’t flow as you speak it, it may not work for the reader . Pay attention to when you take too many pauses or pause in places where no comma exists. Adjust your text — add a comma or break the sentence into two.

Microsoft Word offers a read-aloud feature through its immersive reader tools, while Google Docs can use a Chrome extension to give a voice to the content .

28. Use plagiarism checkers

In recent years, advancements in artificial intelligence have prompted growth in automated plagiarism checkers. Microsoft Word embeds the feature option in its software as does Grammarly. You also can use tools dedicated to ensuring that the content writing isn’t a copycat (or being copycatted), including:

• Unicheck – Verify the originality of work with plagiarism detection. You can spot outright copying and minor text modifications in unscrupulous submissions.
• Copyscape – Protect your content and your reputation. Copyscape uncovers plagiarism in purchased content and detects plagiarism by others of your original work.

Of course, no plagiarism checker is 100% accurate, so before you accuse a content writer of plagiarism, triple-check the results (and add a human touch whenever appropriate).

29. Use a topic tool for writing inspiration

HubSpot’s Ideas Generator works well to get your creative content writing juices flowing. Just fill in the fields with three nouns to get some ideas.

For example, if you input the words car, truck, and SUV, HubSpot delivers these ideas along with the targeted keywords for the topic:

• Keyword: Top truck accessories
• Keyword: Comparing SUV models
• Keyword: Truck bed organization ideas

HubSpot’s topic generator also allows users to pick a title and have an outline created for that article.

You also could perform a similar exercise by writing the prompts in other generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Gemini .

NOTE: Always review the titles and accompanying data to ensure accuracy. In the HubSpot sample, the generator included a headline — Discover the Best SUVs for Families in 2021. Yet, it’s 2024.

30. Know SEO responsibilities in web writing

Sometimes writers create content with multiple purposes. They have the burden of blending SEO into the content . I frame it as a burden because it’s one more variable to deal with. If you have a knack for SEO and goals you can measure, it’s not a burden.

Unfortunately, you sometimes don’t know what realistic keywords to pursue. Aim too low and you use rarely searched keywords. Aspire for something too competitive, and the content won’t rank.

How are you evaluating keywords? Learn how to find your sweet spot with keyword selection (and how to appear on the first page of Google). Identify potential keywords by using tools like:

• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Google’s Keyword Planner
• Keyword Tool
• AnswerThePublic
• Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest

31. Monitor relevant topics to get ideas for your content

With Feedly , you can stay informed about what matters most and avoid information overload. This AI assistant learns your preferences, then culls and curates content from the internet that you want and need.

Share your favorite writing tricks

What content creation and copywriting productivity tools do you favor? What do you do each day to make your writing tasks just a little easier? Please tag CMI on social media using #CMWorld.

All tools mentioned in this article were suggested by the author. If you’d like to suggest a tool, share the article on social media with a comment.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can't attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

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• How To Get Branded Content Right: Examples, Ideas, and Tips
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

Mirinae Lee and Fae Myenne Ng awarded the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

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8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster (Harper, 2023), a novel by Mirinae Lee, and Orphan Bachelors (Grove Press, 2023), a memoir by Fae Myenne Ng, are the newly published books chosen to receive the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing administered by Stanford University Libraires and the William Saroyan Foundation . The biennial prize honors the life and legacy of novelist, playwright, and short-story author William Saroyan by encouraging and celebrating the works of new and emerging writers.

University Librarian Michael A. Keller announced awards of $5,000 to each winner and remarked, “Both of these outstanding books offer fascinating cultural insights at the person-to-person level otherwise very difficult to perceive.”

Mirinae Lee, winner in the fiction category for her first novel, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster , lives in Hong Kong and has previously published short fiction in several notable literary periodicals. Inspired by the story of Lee’s great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, the novel’s protagonist spins stories of life in the demilitarized zone at the border of North and South Korea and in other conflict-ridden settings.

The Saroyan Prize fiction judges said: “Lee's characters are so fascinating and complicated that the need to decipher them and unravel their mysteries generates unexpected suspense and a desire to rush toward the answers, but her lyrical and evocative prose simultaneously demands a slow savoring of each page. A beautifully complex story of human frailty and strength.”

The finalists in fiction were A Down Home Meal for these Difficult Times (Restless Books, 2022) by Meron Hadero and Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (Tin House, 2022) by Kim Fu. Each book is a compilation of short stories, the former about immigrants and refugees finding new homes and the latter about building fantastic new worlds in modern times.

Fae Myenne Ng, winner in the nonfiction category for Orphan Bachelors , is an author of short fiction and two award-winning novels and has written this memoir of her family’s life in San Francisco’s Chinatown and of her father’s struggles to secure citizenship. Subtitled “On Being a Confession Baby, Chinatown Daughter, Baa-Bai Sister, Caretaker of Exotics, Literary Balloon Peddler, and Grand Historian of a Doomed American Family,” the memoir spans generations.

The Saroyan Prize nonfiction judges said: “Beautiful, poetic, with astonishing leaps in time and place, this book stood out for its experimental structure and raw honesty. A ‘book of living memory,’ Orphan Bachelors focuses on the effects of U.S. immigration laws, specifically the Exclusion Act. This is a book about absences and secrets and what is lost in families when silence is the norm. Built on segmented memories, on deciphering family lies from truth, on balancing history with the author’s place in a world that is and is not home, Orphan Bachelors is a brilliant narrative of the immigrant experience, told through the lens of a writer who knows how to weave fragments into whole cloth.”

The finalists in nonfiction were Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt (Grove Atlantic, 2022) by Phoebe Zerwick and I Would Meet You Anywhere (Mad Creek Books, an imprint of The Ohio State University Press, 2023) by Susan Kiyo Ito. The former is about a falsely incarcerated man exonerated eighteen years later by DNA evidence, and the latter about a woman’s relationship with her long-absent birth mother and the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II.

This year’s panel of distinguished Saroyan Prize judges comprised Sumbul Ali-Karamali, Elizabeth McKenzie and Scott Setrakian for fiction and Mark Arax, Lori Jakiela and Fritz Kasten for nonfiction. The six judges, including three Stanford alumni, two former Saroyan Prize winners, and the President of the William Saroyan Foundation, are themselves the authors of numerous award-winning books and other creative productions. Nearly 250 additional volunteers, primarily members of the Stanford Alumni Association, read the entries and provided initial evaluations to the judging committee.

“We are especially thankful to the volunteer readers and judges, both new and returning, who make the Saroyan Prize possible,” Keller said. “Characters and circumstances reminiscent of Saroyan’s depictions of Armenian Americans revealed his lasting influence in many of the nearly 320 entries. The finalists and winners stood out for their superb storytelling abilities, as did one of California’s and our nation’s greatest writers, William Saroyan.”

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10 great fantasy books that are under 300 pages.

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10 Must-Read Cozy Fantasy Books To Snuggle Up With

10 most anticipated fantasy books coming out in august 2024, 10 ambitious fantasy book series that really pay off.

• Bite-sized fantasy reads under 300 pages offer intuitive storytelling with original elements.
• Standalone works by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett deliver impact in short lengths by using established tropes.
• Anthologies like Vampires Never Get Old provide fresh takes on classic fantasy themes, also within a reasonable number of pages.

There are plenty of lengthy fantasy book series worth committing to , but readers are sometimes in the mood for a bite-sized fantasy experience of 300 pages or less. Books like this face the challenge of cramming world-building into a much smaller read, so sometimes, they don't bother with world-building or exposition at all. The experience of reading them is much more intuitive; readers must give themselves over to the feeling of the story rather than demanding strict logic.

Fantasy legends Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are the authors of some amazing standalone fantasy books , but only a select few titles from their careers pull off their usual impact in less than 300 pages. Authors can get away with a shorter story by utilizing established tropes, so the reader understands the framework while enjoying the original elements. On the other hand, those looking for a short fantasy read might turn to anthologies, which comprise many shorter stories to be read on their own while still totaling less than a few hundred pages.

These cozy fantasy books are the perfect reads to snuggle up with, boasting low stakes, heartwarming character moments, and plenty of humor.

10 Coraline

By neil gaiman.

Coraline is a children's movie that is actually terrifying , doing justice to Gaiman's story through vivid stop-motion animation. However, the book upon which the movie is based is a different kind of scary; a Stephen King-style horror story for beginners. Because Coraline figures out the Other Mother is not to be trusted much sooner, there is less of a theme of a wish having gone wrong. She was bored, but she would always have been targeted by the Other Mother, even if she had left well enough alone.

The book's simple presentation is almost deadpan, even as the characters say progressively creepier things. Readers are treated to additional sardonic characterizations and morbid setting descriptions through Coraline's perspective, while the girl's bravery is emphasized differently. The movie adds several elements and characters, meaning that the book is inherently more condensed in its narrative and themes.

9 The Colour Of Magic

By terry pratchett.

There are only too many reading orders of Pratchett's Discworld books , with several different starting points and a few contained subseries that follow specific sets of characters. However, those looking for a short and sweet experience can go back to the beginning with the first Discworld novel ever published: The Colour Of Magic . This book is the original introduction to the bizarre, fantastical, and comedic setting of Discworld, where a flat planet exists on the backs of four elephants who stand atop a giant turtle, and an unskilled wizard called Rincewind sets out on a genre-defining adventure.

Anyone familiar with the author knows that the journey will be whimsical and hilarious.

Pratchett said that he hoped Discworld would "do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns," while The Colour of Magic is the start of Rincewind's seven-book subseries. Pratchett's sarcastic sense of humor comes through as Rincewind is hired as a guide for an even more incompetent clerk, leading to the book ending on a cliffhanger. Anyone familiar with the author knows that the journey will be whimsical and hilarious.

8 Vampires Never Get Old

Edited by zoraida córdova & natalie c. parker.

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite is the first in the Untold Legends series of fantasy anthologies, each emphasizing different supernatural beings. Comprising short stories by various popular authors, Vampires Never Get Old is advertised with the line: "Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page." The eleven vampire stories cover historical, feminist, body image, and LGBTQ+ themes while reminding everyone that vampires are a force to be reckoned with — which is exactly what some of these characters aspire to.

This is perfect for those looking for inclusive takes on legends like Dracula and something fresh in the vampire genre in the wake of Twilight TV show reboot announcements. Vampires are a genre that was at one point very oversaturated and got a bad reputation, but these short stories represent something completely different and much-needed, all in under 300 pages. Readers who enjoy this one can then pick up Mermaids Never Drown: Tales to Dive For .

The third Untold Legends book, Faeries Never Lie: Tales to Revel In , is expected September 24, 2024.

By Roald Dahl

Most of Roald Dahl's children's novels are on the shorter side for anyone looking for a quick, classic read. However, Matilda is still a highlight of Dahl's career and a bittersweet underdog story. Matilda's story is tragic, illustrating how helpless she and her classmates feel in the face of an unjust world over which they have no control. A hallmark of Dahl's books is cruel adults and children who have the agency to make their situation better. Therefore, the universe conspires to help them by granting Matilda powers and cleverness.

Matilda has a natural academic talent as well as randomly being bestowed supernatural powers, but she works to become a strong reader and perfect telekinesis. Matilda also beautifully fosters a love for literature and learning and shows the characters finding kind people even in their unfair world. Additionally, Matilda in particular is the selection of Dahl's quirky writing everyone should read because of the worldwide phenomenon the musical adaptation became.

By Susanna Clarke

Piranesi is a very abstract novel with classical vibes, which will leave the reader mulling things over in their head long after reading the last page. The title character lives in a strange world he refers to called the House and meticulously tracks everything that goes on there. However, a new arrival in the House will prompt Piranesi to investigate its phenomena further and uncover the disturbing truth about how he came to be there.

Piranesi is based on strong themes about the identity forged in imprisonment. Ron Charles formulated the theory (via The Washington Post ) that Piranesi unintentionally resonated with the experience of lockdown (its publication in 2020 means that it was likely conceptualized before the height of the pandemic). Additionally, the motivations behind the novel's main conflict retread ground concerning the cost of making groundbreaking discoveries. While Piranesi is a short novel, it is still very weighty and more difficult to read.

August 2024 is on the slower side for new fantasy releases, but there are still some exciting books hitting shelves over the next month.

5 The Phantom Tollbooth

By norton juster.

The Phantom Tollbooth bears a strange resemblance to Matilda in that it also stresses themes of learning and mental engagement. By means of a magical tollbooth mysteriously delivered to him, a bored boy called Milo finds himself in a world where letters and numbers are tangible concepts. One king advocates for the supremacy of literacy while another argues for mathematics. These rulers banished their younger sisters Rhyme and Reason after the princesses said that numbers and letters are equally important.

Milo finds himself with the clear goal of bringing the princesses home, a mission steeped in symbolic implications. The Phantom Tollbooth features a lot of witty prose, highlighting themes of petty political disputes and the need for rhyme and reason as well as strict facts. The point of it all is for Milo to find that there are many engaging things to be discovered in the world, concluding with him returning home to a world he now finds very fascinating.

4 The Honey Month

By amar el-mohtar.

Amar El-Mohtar was gifted a box of honey samples and subsequently wrote The Honey Month , a collection of short stories and poems each inspired by a different flavor of honey. These short stories are *short* — only three or four pages at the most, while the majority are only one or two pages. This anthology is a delightful, seductive reading experience comprising brief bursts of emotion tied up with the profile of each honey's color, smell, and taste.

The Honey Month is incredibly clever and sweet as honey.

El-Mohtar translates the taste of each honey into expressions of emotion that are romantic and sexual or familial, occasionally touching upon the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world. The Honey Month is still a soft fantasy anthology in its own unique way, with surreal depictions of anthropomorphism and the occasional appearance of a faerie-like being. Overall, The Honey Month is incredibly clever and sweet as honey.

3 The Tale Of Despereaux

By kate dicamillo.

The Tale of Despereaux breaks the fourth wall throughout in service of heightening its fairy tale aura. The narrator addresses the "reader" and repeatedly emphasizes the importance of storytelling, because "Stories are light" and "Light is precious in a world so dark." It is a strangely satisfying perversion of a traditional fairy tale, where a smaller-than-average mouse is cast as a knight in shining armor who must rescue a princess. Meanwhile, the characters who prompt the conflict are sad figures who are also searching for light.

The Tale of Despereaux is also a very fast and easy read — it can possibly be finished in one sitting. Yet readers may find themselves re-reading it sooner rather than later, indulging in the deeply hopeful dialogue. Kate DiCamillo's writing is often like this, showcasing strange bits of ordinary magic and how they create ripple effects that change many lives for the better.

2 The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Gaiman tells an ever more mature storyline than Coraline in The Ocean at the End of the Lane , demonstrating the wide variety of his fantasy. Gaiman does fairy tales with twists like Coraline and Stardust , commentative mythological reimaginings like American Gods and Sandman , and hilarious collaborative projects like Good Omens . Yet The Ocean at the End of the Lane still defied what people expected from Gaiman's writing, delving into more abstract concepts.

Following a man who returns to his hometown and remembers a mysterious family of women from his childhood, The Ocean at the End of the Lane delves into themes of childhood vs. adulthood and long-forgotten friendships. The fantasy, even darker than that of Coraline and Stardust, is interesting and has much bigger symbolic implications than logical ones. As the entire story happens in the memory of the POV character, it is even more effective when it is brief.

Every great fantasy series includes intricate worldbuilding and character arcs, and the best can balance complex magic with compelling stories.

1 I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons

By peter s. beagle.

The title I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons is quirky enough to grab anyone's attention, and it is what it sounds like. A few years since his last novel, Peter S. Beagle returned in May 2024 with I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons , which follows dragon exterminator "Robert" who hates his job because he likes dragons. Of course, Robert soon finds himself at the center of a different adventure told through Beagle's funny yet saddening style.

Melancholy is a huge theme in Beagle's writing, as he is most famous for the lonesome novel about the loss of innocence with themes of environmentalism, The Last Unicorn . I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons quickly won the same praise as Beagle's previous novels, proving that it is something everyone should check out. Yet they need not worry about the commitment of I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons , which will be a quick read, offering the kind of enjoyment only short novels can.

Source: The Washington Post

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Ready to read? Amazon editors say these are the 10 best books of 2024 (so far)

From a fresh take on 'huck finn' to tales of romance, time travel and nuclear war, these page-turners will see you through the rest of summer..

It's easy to forget that Amazon started as an online bookstore. Since then, it has grown into, well, an everything store. But every so often, Amazon editors emerge from the shadows to remind us of their roots and rank the best books of the year . For 2024, the list is especially juicy, with picks spanning categories including romance and mystery. There's even an exposé.

'James' by Percival Everett

'the women' by kristin hannah, 'all the worst humans' by phil elwood, 'the ministry of time' by kaliane bradley, 'martyr' by kaveh akbar, 'nuclear war: a scenario' by annie jacobsen, 'all the colors of the dark' by chris whitaker, 'lies and weddings' by kevin kwan, 'lost man's lane' by scott carson, 'this could be us' by kennedy ryan.

Percival Everett's New York Times bestseller, James, a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, nabbed this year's No. 1 spot. Curious to see what other titles you should check out? We've highlighted the rest of the editors' top 10 picks, including a Good Morning America Book Club pick (and one of President Barack Obama's favorite books of this summer ) as well as one that the New York Times Book Review named a best book of the year .

You know a book is special when it's being developed as a feature film by the one and only Steven Spielberg. That's the case for this New York Times bestseller that Amazon Editor Al Woodworth says is "rip-roaringly American, wry and hard-hitting." She adds that it was "unanimously voted as our No. 1 pick" simply because it's "a knockout" — and over 10,000 Amazon reviewers agree.

"I love a book that is so richly written that I read it in one day," one five-star fan wrote . "Everett blends history, satire and the horrors of humanity against the enslaved prior to the Civil War as a reimagined telling of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ."

Another New York Times bestseller, this title sees Hannah, author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds , strike gold once again. It's described as "an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided" by the Vietnam War.

If you love novels about self-healing, this may be the one to check out. "This reader found The Women to be another stitch in a still-open wound, one that can only help the healing process," Amazon editor Erin Kodicek said.

Woodworth said this book "will make your jaw drop" — and that's all we needed to hear to add it to our cart. This title is described as a "juicy, salacious memoir" that explains just how seedy the world becomes when money, politics and power intersect.

Unlike many of the books on this list, this one is a memoir. It's by a top PR operative in Washington who exposes the secrets of the $129 billion industry that chooses what we see and hear the most.

"One of the best books I've ever read," one reviewer wrote . "I loved it! ... If you think the topic would be an interesting read, it is!"

This is among the most viral books on the list. Even former President Barack Obama dubbed it one of his favorite books of the summer . It also blends subjects and themes like time travel, spies, government conspiracies and love.

"I've never read anything like it, and I loved every second," said Amazon editor Abby Abell. "It's near-future London, and a time travel device has been discovered by a top-secret government agency. The operatives bring back 'expats' from different times in history when they would not have survived (to avoid disrupting the future) and pair them with 'bridges' — people to help them acclimate to current times."

Please hold while we grab our popcorn!

Akbar made quite the splash considering that this book marks his official fiction debut. Woodworth says the title has one of the most "unforgettable main characters" of the year, one that reminds her of the "voicey, charismatic and undeniably addictive hero of   Demon Copperhead in the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Barbara Kingsolver."

"This book left me absolutely breathless," one five-star reviewer wrote . "72 hours after finishing it, I'm still suffering from the hangover of how much I loved it."

An instant bestseller with both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times , this book is definitely worth checking out. Amazon editor Lindsay Powers adds to the hype, writing, "Ten trillion scream emojis are not enough to describe this book, and I'll resist the urge to write this entire review IN ALL CAPS."

The book is described as a terrifying story of what could happen if our nuclear safeguards fail. "An absolute 'must read,'" a reader wrote . "A gripping, nail-biting, terrifying, shocking, minute-by-minute explanation of how the USA would detect and respond to an inbound nuclear ICBM launch."

When a book has other well-known authors viscerally reacting to its story, it's usually a winner. Hannah, author of The Women , said this title "kept me frantically turning the pages and somehow made me cry at the end."

Romance lovers, this one is for you. It's described as a "soaring thriller" and an "epic love story" set in 1975, when the Vietnam War is ending. It's set in a small Missouri town where girls are disappearing. The story centers around Patch, a local boy who saves the daughter of a wealthy family.

"The settings are so well-crafted," one reviewer wrote . "You exist in the story as you read it."

The author behind Crazy Rich Asians is back with another glitzy story of "family, legacy and finding our own happiness," Amazon editor Seira Wilson explains. It all starts out with an extravagant wedding in Hawaii that introduces readers to the class dynamics between two sets of families.

"Despite the fact that this book has the exact same core plot lines as Crazy Rich Asians ... I love the book and burned through it," one reviewer wrote . The same reader points out that this novel appears to take place in the same universe as the bestselling book, which was made into a blockbuster film.

Are private investigator thrillers more your jam? Well, you've found your next summer read. This one's a bit dark and supernatural, but not enough to turn you off. Amazon editor Vannessa Cronin said that "by the time the supernatural kicked in" in this book, "I was already so taken with the writing — evocative, funny, surprisingly philosophical and insightful."

"As a person who grew up (teen years) in a small town, I could relate to so much in this great book, both good and bad," one reviewer wrote . "Everyone knowing who you are can be a good thing and also a curse."

"Have you ever been so into a story that nothing else around you registers, as you take slow, deep breaths and absorb every word?" wrote Amazon editor Kami Tei. "That is exactly the trance This Could Be Us put me in."

The book tackles the outcomes of divorce, both negative and positive, and touches on several more topics including autism, child-rearing, self-discovery and friendship.

"[Kennedy Ryan] poured her heart into this story and it shows," one impressed reader wrote . "The dynamic between Soledad and Judah felt so raw and authentic, particularly as it involved both of their respective children. I also appreciated the care in which Kennedy took to discuss her autistic characters and the nuance of both being autistic and being a caregiver for autistic loved ones."

If you have Amazon Prime , you'll get free shipping, of course. Not yet a member? No problem. You can sign up for your free 30-day trial here . (And by the way, those without Prime still get free shipping on orders of $35 or more.)

The reviews quoted above reflect the most recent versions at the time of publication.