Gus and I were talking about books on writing. He admits to not reading words very well — something about mashing the book with his hoof when he tries to keep his place — at least not as well as he reads body language. (He can tell what sort of mood I’m in almost before I’m out of the car.)

Anyway, he mentioned that some writers might want to know what books on writing have been most useful and helpful to me. I had to agree with him. So I’ve listed a few of the best ones, and I’ll add more from time to time.

The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley never fails to inspire my brain to think in new directions. It’s a book of writing exercises from the other side of the brain than the side that normally works on my sentences. I have found that after I work on an exercise for a few minutes, I want to leap up and write the novel. Sometimes an exercise inspires me to expand a character’s scope or change his approach to another character. One exercise challenged me to put two characters in a room together naked and have them relate without sexual overtones. Try it. It’s surprisingly difficult — or it was for me at least. That exercise was revealing in more ways than one. I tried it with two men, two women, and one of each in several separate attempts. None of them was satisfactory enough to be incorporated into a draft of Gold Under Ice.

Both The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante and Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway could well be a personal MFA in a book. Each book covers the entire spectrum of fiction writing, and each book is comprehensive. But Burroway’s textbook on writing fiction is very expensive and inspires strong feelings both for and against. People who object to it do so on the grounds that the price does not seem justified by the content. People who love it think that the content warrants the price. I confess to having bought both the third edition and the sixth edition, but the seventh edition does not appear to me to contain enough new material to spend an extra twenty dollars.

I can’t tell you which book I prefer because I have learned a great deal and enjoyed both of them. But while writing teachers seem to regard Burroway’s book more highly than LaPlante’s, in my mind they are similar in their contents though not so much in the way they carry out their intentions. LaPlante’s style is more accessible, and her book is much less expensive. I’d advise reading the customer reviews on Amazon before you buy either one and then do what you think is best.

Steering the Craft by Ursula LeGuin surprised me. It is one of the best books on writing style that I have ever read, and when I bought it I didn’t think it would be a strong competitor for Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, which I have owned since college. It is excellent for someone who wants to improve the way he or she writes, who wants to understand how to mine the riches of the English language. It’s for people who want to be writers and not merely put out some print-covered pages between covers. If you love our common language, you’ll learn and improve from this book.

No one who loves the English language can overlook the fact that we all need editing. If we can’t afford an editor, we have to try to do it ourselves. Because the publishing houses have cut back on editing in an effort to save money, editing becomes the author’s responsibility. I have found Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King one of the more useful and helpful books on my fiction writing bookshelf. After weeks of concentrating on dialogue, characterization, creating conflict, and writing telling scenes that build the book, going back over the draft with Self-Editing is like putting in a separate set of eyes. Revision comes then from an fresh perspective, and invariably I find a deeper of who the characters are and what the story is about.

“Good,” whickers Gus. “Maybe someday you’ll win a Spur for your other boot.”

“Don’t be silly,” I tell him. “I’m so inspired now I think I’ll put you back in the pasture and go read one of those.”

“As long as you leave me a carrot,” he says, “I don’t mind being left to graze instead of work.”

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