Especially good for King fans looking for a little autobiography.Īnne Lamott's Bird by Bird is an almost spiritual approach to writing. Stephen King's On Writing was surprisingly informative. Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish by James Scott Bell is great for genre writers and those who feel their writing needs to 'get to the point'. Below are links to how-to books I've enjoyed. I'd suggest looking elsewhere for proper writing advice. It is, however, the best book for a writer looking to play the 'finish a novel in 30 days' game that Baty originated. You'll get that book finished soon enough, and it won't be a tragic mess.

If you just want to get that one book within you out, why rush it? Why vomit words on pages that you'll only have to go back and clean all up later anyhow? Pick a good, quiet time during the day to write, pick a reasonable goal number of words to reach per day, and simply make it a habit to do this each and every day. If that kind of impetus isn't within you already this may not be the profession for you.Īnd if you don't want to make writing a profession there is even less reason to do Nanowrimo. You should be grinding your teeth at having to go to your 9 to 5 job and counting off the minutes until you're able to leave that job and return to the work you love. Every day of the damn year you should be waking up each morning yearning to get to work on that book of yours. The aforementioned impetus should be coming from your natural desire to write.

However, a mess of a rough draft is often what you get if you start a novel at your own pace anyhow. Having the impetus or extraneous force of a schedule and a community of likemindeds compelling one to just bloody write is not a bad thing. It might be useful for new writers, who are sometimes afraid of or anxious to place word to paper. Chances are you'll be left with a lot of words on the page and very little structure, an amoeba novel if you will.ĭon't get me wrong, it's not a bad concept, forcing yourself to write a rough draft within 30 days. In essence, what you get if you follow Baty's program and do the Nanowrimo challenge is a microcosm or truncation of the usual novel first draft: a laying down of the bare-bones of your intended book as fast as you possibly can regardless of how embarrassingly awful the outcome. You feel tremendous relief, but it really stinks. No plot?.Yes, that is a problem! Free-flow writing is like having the shits.

No plot no problem by chris baty