The Only Books You Need to Write Your Novel
When I wrote my first book, I had no idea what I was doing—I barely knew the difference between a protagonist and an antagonist. Part of me really wanted to spend more time watching video courses, listening to podcasts, and reading books about how to write a novel so that I felt more “prepared” to start.
Thankfully, deep down inside, I knew I’d never feel prepared enough . . . I knew I just had to start.
I’m so glad I did. I wrote an entire 80,000 word book without knowing what the heck I was doing. I continued learning during the process, but I never stopped writing—I figured if I got something wrong, I could fix it later without having to start from scratch.
It wasn’t until my book was about 80% complete (the first draft) that I discovered some of my now favorite books on writing fiction. Would it have been helpful to have these books when I sat down to write my first draft? Of course! But I also may have missed out on the energy I had in that season to sit down and write at every nap time. I wouldn’t change a thing about that season and my experience, but that doesn’t mean you have to endure the same detours I did.
Here are my current—and timeless—favorite books for writing really good fiction:
Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
Any fiction writer would benefit from this book, but beginners even more so. What I love about this book is that it teaches you a clear method you can follow when you have no idea what you’re doing.
I’m all about structure. I love for someone to tell me how to do something because I’m good at following directions. This is what this book will do for you. You’ll discover several genres of fiction throughout the book and what each one requires to make the story flow.
If you prefer to outline your book before you start writing like I do, then you will especially love the way you can easily check your outline against the Save the Car structure to make sure you’ve covered everything your book should have. Even if you’re more of a “pantser,” this book can serve to ensure you leave nothing important out of your book.
If you buy no other book, buy this one.
The Emotion Thesaurus by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman
I didn’t get my hands on this book until after I’d landed an agent and started editing my manuscript with her. Oh, how this beautiful book would have served my earlier drafts!
You know what a thesaurus is, right? Well this one is a little different . . . this book will help you follow one of the most important rules of fiction: Show, don’t tell.
Rather than saying, “Sally felt sad,” you would open this thesaurus to the word sad and find several pages of ideas on how you could show that Sally felt sad rather than simply telling us. Isn’t that amazing? Every writer needs this book in their arsenal!
Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin
A freelance editor I hired to edit an early draft of my manuscript recommended this book to me and I’m eternally grateful she did. There’s a ton of good content in this book (a lot of the same information you’ll find in Self-editing for Fiction Writers), but what was most helpful for me was the content on writing strong characters.
This book gave me good questions to ask myself about my characters that ended up helping me create characters who were more three-dimensional. The character work I did because of this book gave my manuscript new depth and brought my characters to life in a new way.
Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King
Before you submit your fiction to competitions, literary agents, or editors you’ve met at conferences, do yourself a favor and read this entire book—you can likely read it in one or two sittings.
I’ve heard someone call this book the Bible for fiction writers, and I would say that’s a fair assessment of this book. I walked away with endless nuggets of wisdom that helped me feel way more confident about submitting my book to agents. Little things like putting the pronoun before the noun when attributing dialogue make all the difference, friends! At the very least, you’ll look less like an amateur when you finally submit your manuscript.
On Writing by Stephen King
How could I create a list of book recommendations for fiction writers without including this one? On Writing even made it on Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 non-fiction books of all time. I don’t reread many book because my TBR pile is sky-high, but I’ve read this one twice and plan to read it at least every other year.
It may have been published in 2002, but all the wisdom, stories, and tips still apply today.
Not only will you hear about Stephen’s own journey to becoming a prolific novelist, but you’ll also be challenged in your craft and inspired to persevere so matter how arduous the journey becomes—and that’s exactly what all of us writers need.
I hope these five books serve you well and I hope you’ve stumbled upon this list before beginning your first novel. But even if you’ve already written ten, I’m confident your craft will be elevated because you picked up one of these books.
Happy reading!
