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Good for Your Writing! ~ A Book List

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MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Books I personally recommend!

Good for PLOT

The Writer's Journey
Mythic Structure for Writers
by Christopher Vogler




Writing Erotica
by Edo Van Belkom





How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
by Orson Scott Card




20 Master Plots:
And How to Build Them
by Ronald B. Tobias




Story Structure Architect
by Victoria Lynn Schmidt




Good for CHARACTER


The Gift of Fear
by GAVIN DE BECKER
Personal Note: An absolute MUST READ for VILLAIN Creation!


Read Chapter One


Characters and Viewpoint
by Orson Scott Card




Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus:
A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships
by John Gray




The Writer's Guide to Character Traits:
Includes Profiles of Human Behaviors and Personality Types
by Linda N. Edelstein




Vampire:
The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead
by Manuela Dunn-Mascetti




The Action Heroine's Handbook
by Jennifer Worick, Joe Borgenicht, and Larry Jost




Good for GRAMMAR


Scene and Structure
by Jack M. Bickham




The Deluxe Transitive Vampire
A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager and the Doomed
by Karen Elizabeth Gordon




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




Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus
by Barbara Ann Kipfer



There you have it, my recommended reads for writing fiction.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
LadySharon
Active Ink Slinger
I have Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus in storage. I want to get the writing erotica book relatively soon from my best friend Amazon.com

www.szadvntures.com

Latest story:

  • TBD

  • Bump in the Night-Microfiction

  • Smoke Break-Interracial
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by DirtyMartini
I have Roget's Thesaurus somewhere...not sure if it's the 21st Century one though. Does it matter what century it's from?


As long as it's not from the 19th century (the 1800's,) I guess you're good. smile The point is, every writer should have a Thesaurus to keep from using the same words over and over in their stories.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by LadySharon
I have Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus in storage. I want to get the writing erotica book relatively soon from my best friend Amazon.com


That book, Writing Erotica, is where I learned the rule:
"If you can take the sex out of the Erotica and still have a viable story -- you did it WRONG."
Best thing that ever happened to my writing.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
Jingle
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by MorganHawke
Quote by DirtyMartini
I have Roget's Thesaurus somewhere...not sure if it's the 21st Century one though. Does it matter what century it's from?


As long as it's not from the 19th century (the 1800's,) I guess you're good. smile The point is, every writer should have a Thesaurus to keep from using the same words over and over in their stories.


thesaurus.com <-- my best friend when I'm sitting at the computer

dictionary.com <-- is it sad I use this too? lol

Would a printed thesaurus be better? I've never actually held the real thing in my hand and looked at it, so I've got nothing to compare the electronic version to.
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by Jingle
thesaurus.com <-- my best friend when I'm sitting at the computer

dictionary.com <-- is it sad I use this too? lol

Would a printed thesaurus be better? I've never actually held the real thing in my hand and looked at it, so I've got nothing to compare the electronic version to.


Those are very good sites, but YES. A printed Thesaurus would be MUCH better.
-- My print thesaurus has over 957 pages with 20,000 main entries or headwords, which generates over 500,000 synonyms. Your site doesn't even come close to that many words and their synonyms available -- and my book is over 10 years old.

Seriously. Go to the bookstore, find a thesaurus, open it to a random page, and LOOK at how many synonyms are available per word then compare it to the site's entries. Thesaurus.com is only fit for a child in comparison.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
Guest
Lurker
Quote by MorganHawke
Quote by LadySharon
I have Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus in storage. I want to get the writing erotica book relatively soon from my best friend Amazon.com


That book, Writing Erotica, is where I learned the rule:
"If you can take the sex out of the Erotica and still have a viable story -- you did it WRONG."
Best thing that ever happened to my writing.


Totally take this point..... Recently shelved a story called "Blue On Black" where an older white detective is seduced by a young black woman... Only problem was, after about 3,500 words of back story my characters were nowhere near to doing the deed.... It was interesting stuff, but it wasn't Lush Stories.....

Nice story, but not what I wanted to write....

xx SF
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by stephanie
Quote by MorganHawke
"If you can take the sex out of the Erotica and still have a viable story -- you did it WRONG."


Totally take this point. Recently shelved a story called "Blue On Black" where an older white detective is seduced by a young black woman... Only problem was, after about 3,500 words of back story my characters were nowhere near to doing the deed. It was interesting stuff, but it wasn't Lush Stories.

Nice story, but not what I wanted to write.

xx SF


An easy way to get around that is by Writing the Sex Scene first, then write the story around it.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by GallagherWitt
Great recommendations!

I also highly recommend Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass, and How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman.


Oh, I've heard extremely good things about both of those books! I just haven't had the opportunity to read them -- yet.
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
GallagherWitt
Advanced Wordsmith
Quote by MorganHawke
Quote by GallagherWitt
Great recommendations!

I also highly recommend Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass, and How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman.


Oh, I've heard extremely good things about both of those books! I just haven't had the opportunity to read them -- yet.


"How Not to Write..." is worth reading for the humor alone. The examples are hilarious. But it's quite insightful, too.

And "Breakout" is definitely a good one.
Lori
L. A. Witt (gay male erotic romance)
Lauren Gallagher (heterosexual erotic romance)
Twitter: GallagherWitt
My Website * My Blog * Marginally Unhinged (my webcomic)

"Service with a Smirk, that's you." - Morgan Hawke
CharlotteRusse1
Active Ink Slinger
I love Orson SC! I'm going to download his books and read them on vacation next week. Thanks!

CR
An old favorite story of mine: The Chaise Lounge
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Lurker
Yes, Characters and Viewpoint is one of a handful of favourites references that I keep going back to.

I see MorganHawke has one or two on "scenes" that I must check out. Another favourite of mine on that theme is Novelists Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes by Raymond Obstfeld.

Some good stuff in this thread.
MorganHawke
First Person Smartass
Quote by daviddownunder
Yes, Characters and Viewpoint is one of a handful of favourites references that I keep going back to.

Me too!

Quote by daviddownunder
I see MorganHawke has one or two on "scenes" that I must check out.

It's an excellent book about writing in Chronological Order, (Action THEN Reaction.) Not just the paragraphs, but in the sentence itself. I only wish I'd read it BEFORE I learned it the hard way.

Quote by daviddownunder
Another favourite of mine on that theme is Novelists Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes by Raymond Obstfeld.

Oooooo! Sounds like something I'd really like!

Quote by daviddownunder
Some good stuff in this thread.

I agree!
Morgan Hawke
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purveyor of fine Smut.
Morgan Hawke's DarkErotica ~ My Website
DarkErotica Blog ~ My Writers' blog

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein
Mistress_of_words
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by GallagherWitt
Quote by MorganHawke
Quote by GallagherWitt
Great recommendations!

I also highly recommend Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass, and How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman.


Oh, I've heard extremely good things about both of those books! I just haven't had the opportunity to read them -- yet.


"How Not to Write..." is worth reading for the humor alone. The examples are hilarious. But it's quite insightful, too.

And "Breakout" is definitely a good one.


Totally agree! For example, "The Penis Like Sausage" wherein the author uses inappropriate metaphors.

I find the sub headers a great way to remember their points. Like "The gum on the mantelpiece"; I now catch myself looking at points in my stories when I'm editing and saying, is that mantlepiece gum? Or if I can't figure out how to get from A to B I say I'm having an Underpants Gnome issue.

Got a friend who raves about Don Maass. I have "The Fire in Fiction" on my shelf waiting to be read :P

The other one I found incredibly useful was "Self Editing for Fiction Writers" by Browne and King. A little strict in places in terms of it's "rules" but very well illustrated with examples.
Guest
Lurker
I'm going to hunt down a few of those titles. Well picked! smile
Tie_Raider
Active Ink Slinger
What about the great standard, Strunk & White's "Elements of Style"?
DLizze
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Tiepinkraider
What about the great standard, Strunk & White's "Elements of Style"?

Strunk and White is my"go to" book when I am unsure about punctuation. (which is not often, unless I am doing technical writing and have to reference my work)
Another reference I find useful, and interesting bedtime reading, is The Dictionary Of American Slang by Robert Chapman.
"There's only three tempos: slow, medium and fast. When you get between in the cracks, ain't nuthin' happenin'." Ben Webster
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