Creating Short Fiction– by Damon Knight This is a very good book for writers who are intermediate in skills. It is smooth and interesting to read and offers a lot of information on various subjects, including a walk through of one of Knight's stories as she discusses why certain things were done.

How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction – Orson Scott Card The strongest portion of this book, for me, was the MICE quotient. This is an important method of classifying stories to better understand them and the resolutions required by each story type. There are also some very important tips about information placement that make this a valuable book to own.

Plot– Anson Dibel This seems to have less to do with plotting and more to do with structure and overall methodology. There are some important tips and tricks explained and discussed. The rule of threes, mirroring and circular and linear endings.

On Writing– Stephen King This is a pleasant read. The first half is an autobiography of King. The second half is the portion with the writing tips.

The Deer on the Bicycle – Patrick McManus This is a nice little book about humor writing. McManus discusses the different techniques of humor writing and in the second half of the book, provides a number of his own stories with commentary about why they are funny and which techniques he used in creating them.

Beginnings, Middles and Ends–Nancy Kress This is a nice little book, with lots of small tidbits. It did not, however, give me the key to the kingdom. More review of other things.

Character and Viewpoint–Orson Scott Card Combined with “How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction”, this is a worthwhile read. It expands on the MICE concept. This was a slow book for me to read.

Scene and Structure–Jack M. Bickham Possibly the most useful writing book I have yet read. It is an easy one to read and provided me with much basic information about the sequence that story information must be presented in.

The Spooky Art–Normal Mailer You have to be a Mailer fan to appreciate this much. The writing is heavy and ponderous. There are a few nice points made, but those are available from other writers in other books. The only thing Mailer brings to the table is a slightly different take.

Conflict, Action and Suspense–William Noble A nice book, but it repeats much of the information already given in many other venues.

Science Fiction Writer's Workshop #1– Barry Longyear This is a very good book, with many examples from his own work and that of others. There are many diagrams and explanations are simple and easy to comprehend. Well worth having.

Stein on Writing– Sol Stein This is one of those books like Longyears, Bickham's and Knight's that you read and know that the author knows his business. Well worth having.

Between the lines – Jessica Page Morrell Remember this title so you won't buy the book. This is very dry, with nothing new revealed and is mostly a repeat of information already published in dozens of worthwhile books. I did not come away from this one with the feeling that Ms Morrell can write. Rather I received the feeling that she is an expert on writing. The distinction here is that you can be an expert on baseball without ever having been on the diamond. That's the feeling Ms. Morrell left me with.

The Art of Fiction – John Gardner A must have. You need this book along with Bickham's and Knight's. Together they make a formidable triad that covers fiction from genre to literary. The language use in this one is a bit heavy. While he describes this book as being for young writers, I'd think they would need a pretty large vocabulary to understand everything being discussed here.

The 38 Most common fiction writing mistakes – Jack Bickham While I like Bickham's teaching style, this book is just a rehash of what has been taught in his other books. It is a good refresher for those who have read the other books.

Story Structure Architect– Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph.D. Another expert heard from. This book is extremely dull and repetitive. It is like looking at a series of maps only not so entertaining. All of the sections are structured exactly the same. A brief description of the type of story being worked with, followed by sections for the beginning, middle and end. Each of the sections contains a series of questions that may be asked and answered in writing the story. The questions are usually the same. This is useful from the standpoint that repeating information over and over will make it stick in your brain, and I did come away with a somewhat better understanding of overall structure. But, if you aren't into pain, this is probably not a book you'll read all the way through, or even refer back to much.

Writing the Short Story– Jack M. Bickham This is a more difficult book to get through than Scene and Structure. This is a working text book all the way. If you follow the program he lays out, you will be doing a lot of work before you ever pay pen to page. On the other hand, this is an excellent system and I have adopted most of it with some modifications into my existing system.

Fiction Writing Demystified – Thomas B. Sawyer Sawyer is the scriptwriter who created Murder She Wrote. Many of the tips he gives directly refer to screenwriting, but can be adopted by any writer of fiction. I've used some of them to modify my outline system. I also find it interesting to have plot tricks explained and see how they were used in both film and print. This is a quick book to read, with easy simple language and a whole new way of looking at story telling.

Dare to be a Great Writer, 329 keys to powerful fiction – Leonard Bishop 1988 Writer's Digest Books, TPB, 219 pages, $14.95 This book has a lot to offer. The individual articles (keys to powerful fiction,) aren't very long, as you can imagine from a book with over 100 less pages than topics. This is both good and bad: good because you can get an overview of many topics quickly; bad because the jumping around after sometimes less than ½ a page can get annoying. There isn't enough about most subjects to adequately instruct a beginner, but someone who has already read other writing books might appreciate the reference-like nature of the book's layout.

In other words, it's like reading an encyclopedia.

Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation – Lynne Truss A witty look at the use of punctuation. All those haunting commas, periods, apostrophes and semi-colons are put to rest here. This is probably much more useful in the UK than the US since by the authors own admission, many of the rules are different between the two countries. She does an admirable job of pointing out the differences, but for anyone who is not heavily into punctuation, this can rapidly get confusing.

In so much as punctuation is a portion of grammar, this is a grammar book. But, it is only about punctuation and has little about other aspects of grammar. If you are seeking a good all around book, I think you are better off with Woe is I. Both are witty, easy reads, but Woe is more rounded (although less in depth on punctuation issues.)

Bird by Bird:Some Instructions on Writing and Life –Ann Lamott Charming–there's not much more I can say about this book. It is mostly biographical, following Ms Lamott's quest to become a writer and shadowing her triumphs and failures. It is also very funny and entertaining enough to make me curious about her other books.

The hints and tips she gives are the same that many other gurus have expounded about over the years: write everyday; write what you know; write the truth; persevere. So, there was nothing that leapt out at me with startling clarity. No 'tiger moment' where the logic became so inescapable it grabbed me by the throat and shook me. No new and fantastic insights into method or craft.

That said, this was still a very entertaining read. One of the more pleasant books I've read of this type.

I guess sometimes a writing book doesn't have to give you the Holy Grail. Sometimes it can just let you know that such an object exists. I think that's what I've taken away from this book. A sense of peace. It's a good read. If you don't have a lot of writing books, it's probably worth getting for the advice it gives. If you have a bunch of writing books already, this is still good for the entertainment value.

Techniques of the Selling Writer. Dwight V. Swain, Norman, OK. University of Oklahoma Press. 1973. Trade paperback I'm going to rate this one as a must have along with Bickham's books. The reason is simple, Swain was Bickham's teacher. The advice he gives is similar to Bickham's, but a lot less rigid and structured. While both authors discuss the same points, here the discussion is often in much more detail, and Swain brings up additional considerations that Bickham either didn't touch on, or only briefly covered.

The writing is open and accessible even though, at times, the data flows pretty fast. While there is some good detail on constructing characters, the main thrust and the bulk of the book is on constructing stories that people will gravitate to.

On Moral Fiction, by John Gardner. “Basic Books.” New York, NY. C1978. ISBN 0-465-05226-6. Paperback. This isn't really a how-to book on writing; instead, is an essay on the nature of art and especially written art.

Gardner's basic premise is that writers, as artists, have the responsibility to explain Truth, Justice and Beauty to the common man. Gardner claims that artists are naturally tuned to see these things while the common man is not. Further, Gardner claims that not all writers and would-be writers can see T-J-B–even those who may be extremely popular or skilled.

True Art, therefore, is written to support T-B-J, and humanity in general. True Art does this by demonstrating for the common man, those things that are universally accepted as T-B-J.

Gardner makes an interesting argument throughout this book, and while he complains about a number of specifically named authors, he directly states that SF and Fantasy are acceptable vehicles for art. His complaint is only with those writers who rely heavily on gimmicks rather than plot and substance.

Of course, none of Gardner's books are for the faint of heart, nor are they casual readers. Gardner's style is heavy, with many, many parenthetical insertions. If you don't mind taking the time to ponder, and have an interest in art, this might be a good book for you. Due to the opacity of the language used, I'd think this might be daunting for some of our younger readers.

Word Painting – by Rebecca McClanahan The biggest help this book gave me came in the first 3 or 4 chapters. Up to that point, there are many hints and tidbits and insights that I either haven't seen covered anywhere else, or not as well. On the basis of the first part of this book, I can recommend it. The latter 2/3rds or so had a very few new items in it. Not really enough for me to rush out for the book just to own them, and none of them earth shattering. The latter portion of the book is where she begins to take on things like POV and how it affects word choice. This is such a heavily, and perhaps even over-heavily discussed subject that I don't expect any discussion to be new. All of them are rehashes of previous discussions that often were better and more insightful. On the basis of the first 1/3rd of this book, though. I'd say read it

The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines – Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, Sue Viders Another writing book with a seriously long name. When I first started with this book, I noticed a strong resemblance to “Story Structure Architect”, the first part of this book is basically an overview of each of sixteen master personality archetypes. It reads much like just that–a list. But, about the middle of the book they begin to show how the different personality types interact with each other and most of the second half of the book is devoted to one page interactions that show how the archetypes feel about each other upon meeting, how they eventually learn to handle their differences and how they are eventaully changed by the meeting. The last 10 pages is spent covering TV shows and movies in light of the archetypes.

This is an important book. That said, I'm not sure how user friendly the information is, but I expect I'll be looking at it a lot closer in the future.

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier: How to solve the mystery of weak writing– Bonnie Trenga This is a good book on some basic grammar issues such as passive voice and simple sentence structure. It is a easy to read, easy to understand, and quite entertaining. This book looks especially helpful for our younger members and is perhaps one of the most valuable I've found in awhile. It is quite short and I can easily read a chapter several times in the 50 minutes or so I have to read in the mornings.

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. C2007, Random House, New York. 292 pages, Hardcover. $24.95 suggested. Why do urban legends stick with us when the location of our car keys gets forgotten? Why did the phrase “It's the economy stupid” stick in the public lexicon when so many other sayings did not? Made to Stick attempts to answer those questions.

Strictly speaking, this is not a book about writing; instead, this book is about ideas. Normally I only review books that are about writing. What gives? Well, this time, I chose a book that is technically about ideas, but one I suspected in large part could be adapted to address the topic of story. After finishing the last page, I can say I was right.

The book is readable and enjoyable and offers many anecdotes and examples. The authors have researched urban legends and other “sticky” ideas and phrases and analyzed them for content. The guidelines they offer here are the results of that research.

Made to Stick presents several interesting points that will help any writer–concepts like “schema,” and theories like “the curse of knowledge” will help solidify writerly technique. The brothers Heath also reveal three types of stories common in the Chicken Soup series, which I found significant from a story plotting perspective.

Made to Stick is not a book for beginners looking to develop their understanding of story. If you need to figure out how a plot works, or want information on character development, this book won't help you. If, on the other hand, you are ready to explore some of the far edges of story, I'm sure Made to Stick will bring you something of value.

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