(Part 2) Best writing & grammar books according to redditors
We found 278 Reddit comments discussing the best writing & grammar books. We ranked the 118 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
In terms of resources for writing, there's one book that helped me with my dissertation far more than any other:
https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Simple-Truth-Writing-Classic/dp/0691147434/
It's a practical guide to writing clearly and succinctly. "Writing for Computer Science" or the Chicago Manual of Style have their place as references - but this gem actually teaches how to write well..
Thanks! Oh and since we're chatting - here's a fun thing: someone started a writing group based on the prompts from my book. So if anyone wants to start off 2017 with a group of people writing I suggest requesting to join here: https://facebook.com/groups/1167993369963261
> How about more than 2 sentences?
So 3+ sentences for 500+ questions = 1500+ sentences.
According to the Oxford Guide To Plain English you should "make the average sentence length 15-20 words.” Let's assume we Mr. Brimage isn't going to be so formal and reduce that number to 10 words per sentence.
10 words over 1500+ sentences is 15,000 words.
I bet if you wrote a convincing 15,000+ word response as to why Mr. Briamge should write longer responses in his AMA you could convince him to do so.
I really enjoyed Writing for Story by Jonathon Franklin. What I really like about this book is that it shows how so many great stories, which seem do different from afar, share the same type of structure underneath.
Check out this book and the also-boughts.
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I heard someone say once that you need to understand the rules before you can break them the right way. Anyway, I found these books helpful. I would never adhere to their advice exactly, but I did learn a lot from all of them and combine it with my own personal style:
John Gardner - The Art of Fiction
A bit dated, but it still does a good job of laying out what it means to write fiction. He has some good suggestions for exercises at the end.
Anne LaMott - Bird By Bird
Half craft, half inspirational. I'm not usually big on sappy, inspirational shit, but I loved this book and found it very helpful.
James Bonnet - Stealing Fire From the Gods
Focuses on the elements of great stories in film and books.
John Trimble - Writing With Style
This is a great overview of the technical side of writing well. The best I have found.
The main thing though: READ A LOT OF FICTION. You should read much more than you write. No one ever became a great writer by sitting around and reading about writing, but it can help you zero in on what to look for in the fiction of others.
Hope that helps.
What is it you're looking for, if you feel like books on writing won't help?
If it's academic writing in particular that you want to improve, why not look at something like
The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Flaws — Haven’t read this but it’s highly recommended!
There’s also some really good websites like:
NowNovel
u/CJWalley’s list of 147 Character Vices
WritinGeekery
There’s also Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes — which I personally read and loved. It explores 16 archetypes created by the author to kind of jumpstart a character (whether you’re struggling or not). It details flaws, background, qualities of character, etc. It even has sketches in it! Super fun read, and may provide some value to you.
Good luck!
A good, professional editor who knows how these things work should be able to offer grammatical corrections without crossing ethical lines.
However, narration and storybuilding are a different problem, and one that native speakers also often struggle with. I'd suggest you point your friend towards some other resources aimed at this topic. Personally, I found the book "Writing with Style" a great resource on how to frame your writing for your audience. Perhaps you could also see if your university has a Writing Center or other resource for grad students looking to get some help.
Buy: Creative Writing MFA Handbook
Visit: Affording the MFA and The MFA Blog
Great places to start. That book is a must. First thing to do is read it. After that you will know enough to make internet searches and contacting programs far less daunting.
Also: AWP has great resources
https://www.awpwriter.org/guide/overview
https://www.awpwriter.org/guide/hallmarks_quality
The second link contains AWP's guidelines for quality MFA programs. They will give you a good idea of what to ask about and what to expect. If a program you're considering fails to meet some of these guidelines you should find out why and whether it's a deal breaker for you.
My own personal opinion?
Greetings,
As an English minor, I am aghast!
Mind you, not because you're whoring yourself out for tips—good on ya for that—but because you had the audacity to say, "Unfortunately, I haven't found a college class on erotica yet. One day, perhaps."
CHARLATAN! If it's one thing a person in the English department knows, it is that knowledge isn't bound to simple college courses!
Lucky for you, I have had ample opportunity to research said subject and have found you these!
1: How to Write Hot Sex: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors
2: Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet
Now you can hold your head high knowing that you're produced the highest quality smut one can afford to tip for!
The problem so many fantasy writers have with traveling is they don't know how to use hooks to maintain interest. There are several types of hooks you can use in a story, and if you're not in an action scene or a conflict scene, you need to use other types of hooks to pull the reader along, things like problems, mysteries, a sense of foreboding, sexual tension, etc. Mary Buckham explores the use of hooks in her Writing Active Hooks duology.
I would also like to ask how "story" can be used without any determiner in the title of this book: Writing for Story.
This is getting a little ahead, if you're just getting started, but I really favor this book, so I try to promote it when I can. When you start revising, I'd check out Revision and Self-Editing for Publication, by James Scott Bell. Don't be intimidated by the title; it's useful long before you consider publication, and even will help somewhat with a first draft. I've used it extensively.
People instinctively or deliberately develop coping mechanisms for unexpected and sudden stress situations. For instance, a first response might be to take a step back and reassess a situation, to allow time to recover so you don't display distress in a social situation.
Loss of control isn't immediate, it's a gradual process that occurs as successive coping mechanisms are tried and abandoned. Ultimately, if no coping mechanism works, the person may enter a state of shock. Of course, this only increases the danger, since a person in shock is less able to respond, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.
>The character has pretty much been dropped in the middle of nowhere, and her love, who had been with her, is not anywhere in sight.
It's going to depend on the personality of your character, for sure. I think most people would start with anger and disbelief, but some people would go straight to fear. Or say she's a very capable and self confident person; initially, she might feel entirely capable of handling whatever problems come at her.
I recommend you have a look at The Emotion Thesaurus by Puglisi & Ackerman. This and also their positive and negative trait thesauri are worth the price.
As an analytical person, I too have always found the advice 'Just read more!' to get better at the technical, nearly formulaic parts of writing - like grammar, punctuation, and syntax - confusing.
There are some great books out there on writing mechanics and style.
My favourite three are:
All three are very readable and much less stuffy than Strunk and White's classic Elements of Style.
Anyone who is interested in learning this kind of writing should check out Writing For Story by Jon Franklin. He won two Pulitzers writing science pieces for the Baltimore Sun. He has a 5-step, 15-word outlining process that really focuses you on the conflict-resolution narrative process. He also derived his rules from fiction writing techniques.
I'm a former journalist now working public affairs for a government lab. I'd make this book mandatory if I could.
Offtopic Random request: Ask the science department to host a unit on composition as well as just doing it in your English class.
Writing is hell for many students because they don't get or care about literature, but could write extremely well otherwise.
And I don't mean "Writing science papers" either, more like writing popsci explanations of things, etc.
Point them at this book or this book and help them make a unit up on it?
Or even you could host a non-literature composition unit. I know I did not really take to writing until the chemistry teacher caught us on fire (figuratively) about the topic in non-literature areas.
I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK
Wow thank you for your advice, I really appreciate that. I shall note them down at once.
Are you using any tables/forms that might be useful in this case that you are currently using for your classes? Are there any writing practices that you would suggest to your class for the sake of improving their writing in general?
Question though, which Hacker book on grammar are we talking about? https://www.amazon.com/Bedford-Handbook-Diana-Hacker/dp/0312419333 is the one I found on Amazon, and I'm just not sure if that's the one you are talking about.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/1-000-Awesome-Writing-Prompts/dp/150091066X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468001449&sr=1-1
Name checks out Mr Kinder
I own each one of those books and I would only cosign on the Amy Cooper and the Emily Baker. I also got a lot of helpful info from Unsilenced's first book.
For Erotica in general - I would also skip the Susie Bright. Instead I would go with Stacia Kane Be A Sex Writing Strumpet. Also this website also helped me helped me think stories through.
I would suggest you start learning story structure and outlining early. Dan Wells is an awesome free source - through his youtube videos, and Dwight V Swain Techniques of the Selling Writer. Also Gwen Hayes Romancing the Beat.
As a writer I would keep reading additional sources, once you find a story structure that you like - as in 3 part or 4 part, then find an ultimate resource for this.
When I first started I didn't really understand pinch points so I read a book on screenwriting that helped.
I agree. Too many words will cloud the message.
Clear and Simple as the Truth is a great book about a writing style that is more efficient.
I agree with you in general and it's a good point: of course people can and should make up their own minds.
Still, the OP was looking for some sort of 'definitive' guide to start off with. I was just suggesting the EofS probably isn't that guide, partly because it's so prescriptive, which is a problem if it's also often wrong. It's no good saying "here's what a split infinitive looks like: don't use them", if good writers have been splitting infinitives for hundreds of years. It's a personal prejudice elevated to a diktat, and I'm not sure that's good for a student who wants to understand grammar or style.
As mentioned by another poster, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar by Huddleston and Pullen is good (if long) — it's a descriptive grammar, but it does a good job of describing good usage and it's probably a better foundational guide to prepare people to be able to take the good out of books like EofS, while disregarding the bad.
A Student's Introduction is quite expensive, though. The Oxford Guide to plain English (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Guide-English-Paperback-Reference/dp/0199669171/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2/257-8116461-2798740?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0199669171&pd_rd_r=6ce92ef0-fc45-445e-adec-8f2560d61755&pd_rd_w=NIW0h&pd_rd_wg=Jqqn6&pf_rd_p=7a9d3b22-47b7-4932-be38-57f4219c3325&pf_rd_r=AYTAYM68196T1BE8KHB3&psc=1&refRID=AYTAYM68196T1BE8KHB3) is a lot shorter and cheaper. I've not read it myself, but a quick scan through suggests it's fairly sensible and useful. E.g. there's a section on "Six Writing Myths" which looks like it provides good advice. It's from the same stable as the Oxford English Dictionary, so it's likely to be fairly authoritative.
Yes. You inevitably will teach basic composition, etc,
It COULD morph into basic literature. However you're less likely to teach lit with just a CW degree. CW degrees focus on craft.
It really comes down to what you want.
Do you want to learn to write? And possibly teach writing?
Or do you want to study literature and possibly teach literature?
Some programs offer a sort of split degree, offering a bit of both. But usually, it's mostly one or the other.
I recommend this book highly if you're thinking of a creative writing mfa. (I have one, btw.)
Creative Writing Mfa Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students (Revised & Updated) https://www.amazon.com/dp/082642886X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_iTTVzbPN8FDX2
It'll tell you everything you need to know about both, and it'll also help you apply, if that's what you choose to do.
Actually, all of that punctuation was correct. The "and?" is a quick question and its own sentence asking to continue the story. The comma in "Don't leave us hanging, man!" is not only appropriate, but downright necessary, as segoli was directly addressing krisperaldo by calling him "man."
Here, you might want to buy a copy of this.
Are you asking whether you could learn new language with this method? Its best you follow a language learning system for that.
It worked for me with english because I grew up learning it from childhood and obsessively read nearly hundred or more novels in my teen and young adult phase.
>What did you do/what was your method?
To put it in simple words, its basically taking great writers work, and imitate their content. For example here's
from the book The scarlet pimpernel first paragraph, chapter 3:
>Feeling in every part of England certainly ran very high at this time against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate traders between the French and the English coasts brought snatches of news from over the water, which made every honest Englishman's blood boil, and made him long to have “a good go” at those murderers, who had imprisoned their king and all his family, subjected the queen and the royal children to every species of indignity, and were even now loudly demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every one of its adherents.
Now rewrite this paragraph to your own liking randomly like this:
>In nearly every part of new york, the feeling of tiredness ran very high against the southerners and their army. Runaway slaves and legitimate human traffickers between the two high parts of texas bought news from over by carts and by doves, which increased the animosity of the northerners towards the slave owners and made the northerners blood boil, and some of them even wished to have "good go" at those war mongers, who had imprisoned even the little black children in dark slave rooms, subjected their parents and the northern soldiers who tried to save them with every known piece of indecency, and were even now demanding the blood of the whole confederate army and every one of its supporters.
Yeah, this doesn't make much sense if you read it too much, but as you can see, I imitated that paragraph with few things added and few things removed. This is how you learn to write effectively. The more you imitate the great writers, the more your own writing will improve.
>How did you use this for English?
The only way you could have mastery over writing is to seriously finish reading books like these and apply its concepts everyday until you get better:
This is a classic book on sentence writing and gives you tons of examples and explanations, although it can get quiet challenging to read it in first try.
This book is quite challenging read and at times very hard to comprehend, but read it one chapter at a time slowly.
Next, this book gives you a basic introduction to the field of rhetoric, which is something that writers in this sub don't usually talk very much, but its one of the biggest things you should focus on if you want to improve your writing to the advanced level from basic and intermediate level.
Finally, this book is the one you should definitely read, and this book is the one that basically inspired my initial comment.
I need this book.
I took a sip of something poison, but I'll hold on tight.
one of my English professors made my class buy this book. Honestly, it's fantastic. I plan on keeping it as a reference for as long as I live. It's definitely worth the money, and it does a great job of addressing writing issues you didn't even know you had.
I upvoted you for knowing enough about your field to write a textbook and also because I know that in the academic field you have to 'publish or perish'. I will say this though: There is little reason I can find to require the latest edition of a writing style guide, or for the school to 'customize' an edition and then price it at triple the amazon price.
THIS is a prime example: Most style guides are less than 10 bucks and the Microsoft APA and MLS templates are free on the internet.
I have this guy and it can be a life saver.
I teach a course in writing for publication in STEM. I use excerpts from the following books: Writing Scientific Research Articles, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, and Research Genres. The last one can be a bit of a dense read, but many of my STEM students find it especially interesting because it's data-driven. A linguistics researcher collected a big corpus of well-cited articles and identified the most common features. These findings are often a big part of other more practical guides to academic writing. CARS, IMRAD, Swales' Moves are very common writing tips identified by this research. But it gets much more fine grained and nuanced than that.
I'd start with http://www.amazon.com/The-Bedford-Handbook-Diana-Hacker/dp/0312419333
English grammar isn't exactly simple. It's sort of like asking for a really basic course in calculus. There's a reason they spend years covering it in schools.
Blended linguistics and creative writing background here. My suggestion would be to start looking into research areas like sociolinguistics (related to literature), discourse analysis, pragmatics, and narrative analysis. More particularly, I would highlight the field of stylistics. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you here, here, and here for some background on stylistics. From what I've encountered in both linguistic and creative writing texts, you have WAY more pedagogical insight into the writing process coming from the linguistic side.
There are some books like Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective / Wicked Good Prose and the ubiquitous Strunk and White's, but if you're looking for more of the creative writing overlap from a deeper linguistic analysis, I'd look at the references above. You might also check out work in forensic linguistics.
Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. An unusual perspective that involves finding the defining moment for your main character. Once you have that, the rest of the book practically falls into pladce. $4 and only 100 pages. Put it on your phone and you can read it in an afternoon or two. Also, his Plot and Structure.
How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey.
Dramatica: A New Theory of Story by Melanie Anne Phillips.
Writing Active Hooks by Mary Buckham. Also, her Writing Active Setting.
Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland.
And, please send some job resources, thank you.
I found this book a month ago by one of the lecturers from The Great Courses, I love it:
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Great-Sentences-Write-Courses/dp/0452298601/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498888041&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=brooks+langdom
Or philosophy, psychology, historical texts. The DSM, even.
The Negative Trait Thesaurus is like a field guide to character development, minus the slog of fiction.