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1
Steering the Craft (1998)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In Le Guin’s opening exercise, the rhythm of a sentence has to carry some of the movement or feeling it describes. Write a short action twice, once with a halting rhythm and once with a smooth one, then read both aloud. The revised edition pairs each chapter with an exercise you can use alone or in a group.
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Bird by Bird (1994)
7.5/10on Open Library
Published
Lamott keeps a tiny picture frame on her desk to remind herself how little she needs to write at a time. If the thought of drafting a whole chapter stops you cold, use the frame to pick one thing you could see now, like a thumb worrying the edge of a ticket. This is a book to turn to when getting started is the hard part.
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Several short sentences about writing (2012)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
Klinkenborg makes you look at what one sentence does before you carry its work into the next. Take a paragraph you’ve revised too many times and put each sentence on its own line. Anything that merely announces the next idea will stand out. The short sections suit a writer who wants to work slowly at the sentence level.
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Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition (2010)
Published
Bring a scene you’ve already written. Browne and King’s chapters on dialogue and beats help you see what the gestures between speeches are doing. Try taking out the ones that break up the conversation without changing its meaning, then see which pauses you miss. This is especially handy when a draft has plenty of dialogue but feels slow.
More about Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition5
Making Comics (2019)
Published
Barry’s students draw themselves as monsters and superheroes and keep daily journals by hand. Try making a rough comics page about a day you remember from an exaggerated version of yourself. It’s an approachable place to start if you already collect scraps of dialogue and want to think about what a panel can do with them.
More about Making Comics6
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process (2017)
Published
McPhee sketches a structure in letters before he knows which people will fill it in Encounters with the Archdruid. If you have a heap of interview notes and no clear beginning, try laying out the relationships among the people first. This is a close look at how reported work gets shaped, with examples drawn from books and magazine pieces he wrote.
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Craft in the Real World (2021)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
When a reader says a choice in your story is unbelievable, Salesses asks whose experience they’re using as the test. Read his examples from No-No Boy and One Thousand and One Nights, then mark the places where you’ve added explanations for an imagined audience. This is especially useful when workshop advice pulls you in several directions.
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The situation and the story (2001)
Published
A family visit gives you a situation. Figuring out what you wanted from it might give you the story. Gornick’s essays on memoir and personal writing help you hear the difference in the narrator’s voice. Try describing the same visit as the person you were then and as the person writing it now.
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Writing Down the Bones (1986)
8.3/10on Open Library
Published
Set a short timer and keep writing until it goes off, leaving every false start on the page. Goldberg’s approach gets you through the stretch when you want to cross out each line as soon as you’ve written it. It’s useful for generating raw material to sort through later, even if you usually revise as you go.
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The making of a poem (2000)
Published
The entries on poetic forms put examples beside explanations of how the forms work. A villanelle is a good one to try. See whether repeating a line in a new place changes its meaning, even when you’ve kept every word. Choose this anthology when you want to learn a form by reading several writers’ solutions.
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
Saunders pauses after the first page of Chekhov’s In the Cart to ask what you expect from the next one. Try that on a story you’re writing by handing a reader just the opening page. What they’re waiting for may surprise you. This is a good choice if you’d rather work through whole stories than read lists of rules.
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Writing Tools (2006)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Clark’s tool for moving strong words to the ends of sentences takes minutes to test. Pick the word you want a reader to carry into the next paragraph, then see how close you can get it to the period. This guide works well as a reference when you have a paragraph in hand and a specific job to do.
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The Art of Time in Memoir (2007)
Published
If your memoir draft reads like a calendar, try putting two memories together because they echo, even if they happened years apart. Birkerts studies books such as Speak, Memory and The Liars’ Club to see how writers make meaning by moving through time. This is best for someone with material already on the page.
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The Art of Subtext (2007)
Published
Take a conversation in which the characters say exactly what they feel and try leaving out one declaration. A detail they notice or an object they won’t touch might carry some of that feeling. Baxter’s examples from writers including Paula Fox and Lorrie Moore are especially useful once you know what a scene is about and want to resist saying it twice.
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Unstuck: 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page (2026)
Published
When you can’t tell what should happen next, Ausubel has you write twenty-five possible answers to a question about the scene. Let the list get strange before you pick one to follow. This collection of short exercises will work for a new story or a draft whose characters have stopped surprising you.
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