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Submitted By: pipinheart
Submitted Comment:
Hi,
I've heard the more you read the better a writer you can become.. Are there any recommendations of books that would help aspiring writers?
Thanks, pipinheart
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Submitted By: pipinheart
Submitted Comment:
Hi,
I've heard the more you read the better a writer you can become.. Are there any recommendations of books that would help aspiring writers?
Thanks, pipinheart
Read to Write Better
Great question and one I asked when I first decided I wanted to write better.
First, you may be wondering how it can make you a better writer. You can learn by seeing writing done right and seeing writing done wrong. By reading what is out there you can see how your favorite authors make their characters come to life or how they intertwine several plotlines or even how they seamlessly incorporate plot twists. Also, by reading the classics (and some modern works) you can begin to form your own writer’s voice/style.
When you put down a book (or click out of a story here on site) because you’re bored or can’t get involved with the story, then you can learn how NOT to write.
Next, you should try to figure out how you’d fix the story/book (whether or not you choose to share your thoughts with the author).
Was it too much exposition?
Was it weak characters?
Was it a poorly constructed plotline?
Twenty or so years ago I wrote a list of books/short stories/poems to read that can help a writer through example. I’m not sure where I found this list (and it isn’t complete by any means) but since I wrote it down, it was probably from some library research on writing. (KEY: Author: Title/Titles)
Caedmon: Caedmon’s Hymn
Cynewulf: Andreas &
The Fates of the Apostles &
The Dream of the Road
Venerabilis Bede: An Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Chaucer: Canterbury Tales
John Barbour: The Acts and Life of the Most Victorious Conqueror
Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D’Arthur
Sir Thomas More: Utopia
Nicholas Udall: Ralph Roister Doister
Barnabe Rich: His Farewell to the Militarie Profession
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Michael Drayton: The Tragical Legend of Robert &
The Legend of Matilda
John Marston: The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image &
The Scourge of Villainy
Ben Jonson: Every Man Out of His Humour &
Every Man In His Humour &
Complete Poems &
The Alchemist
Thomas Nashe: Summers’ Last Will and Testament
Thomas Dekker: The Wonderful Yeare
John Donne: An Anatomy of the World &
Poems
John Day: The Parliament of Bees &
With Their Proper Characters
Anne Beadstreet: The 10th Muse Lately Sprung Up In America
Izak Walton: The Compleat Angler
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle: Nature’s Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life
Sidney Gondolphin: The Passion of Dido For Aeneas
(NOTE: I have a note here to make sure to read Cavendish 1st, then Gondolphin)
John Milton: Paradise Lost &
Paradise Regained
William Wycherley: The Country Wife &
The Plain Dealer
John Dryden: All For Love &
Mac Flecknoe
Nathaniel Lee: The Princess of Cleve
William Congreve: The Old Bachelor &
Love For Love &
The Mourning Bride
John Crowne: Calista
(NOTE: I have a note here that Crowne wasn’t a gifted writer but he was trying and that the story above was worth reading)
Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub &
Written For the Universal Improvement of Mankind &
Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Captain Lemuel Gulliver &
A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed
George Farquar: The Beaux’ Stratagem
{NOTE: I have a note here that Strategem is a fine piece of work where the author paid attention to structure.)
Ebenezer Cooke: The Sot-Weed Factor &
A Voyage to Maryland
Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
Samuel Richardson: Pamela &
Virtue Rewarded
Thomas Gray: An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard &
Odes &
Poems
Christopher Smart: On the Goodness of the Supreme Being
Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves &
The History and Adventures of an Atom
Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield &
The Good Natur’d Man &
The Deserted Village &
She Stoops to Conquer &
The Mistakes of Night
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Poetical Works
Phyllis Wheatley: An Elegiac Poem on the Death of the Celebrated Divine Georg Whitfield
Richard Brinsley Sheridan: The School For Scandal &
The Critic &
A Tragedy Rehearsed
William Blake: Songs of Innocence
Thomas Morton: The Way to Get Married
William Wordsworth: Lyrical Ballads
Marjorie Flemming: Complete Works
Sir Walter Scott: The Lady of the Lake &
Rob Roy &
The Heart of Midlothian &
Ivanhoe
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice &
Northanger Abbey &
Love and Friendship &
The Watsons &
Lady Susan
Percy Shelley: Alastor, The Spirit of Solitude, and Other Poems
John Keats: Poems
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein &
The Modern Prometheus
James Fennimore Cooper: The Spy &
The Last of the Mohicans &
The Pathfinder &
The Deerslayer
Washington Irving: Tales of a Traveler
Edgar Allen Poe: Poems &
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque &
The Murders in the Rue Morgue &
The Man That Was Used Up &
Tales &
The Raven and Other Poems
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Seraphin and Other Poems
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Twice-Told Tales &
The House of the Seven Gables
Robert Browning: Poems
James Russell Lowell: Poems
Herman Melville: Moby Dick
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights &
Complete Poems
Anne Bronte: Agnes Grey
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
George Meredith: Poems
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom’s Cabin &
Life Among the Lowly
Henry David Thoreau: Walden, Life in the Woods
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Song of Hiawatha
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches &
The Innocents Abroad &
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer &
Life on the Mississippi &
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn &
Extracts From Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven
Louisa May Alcott: Little Women
W.S. Gilbert: HMS Pinafore &
The Pirates of Penzance
Oscar Wilde: Poems &
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rudyard Kipling: Plain Tales from the Hills
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde &
Treasure Island
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Bram Stoker: Dracula
George Bernard Shaw: Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant &
Man and Superman: A Comedy (and a Philosophy)
H.G. Wells: The War of the Worlds
L. Frank Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim
Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows
William Butler Yeats: The Green Helmet and Other Poems
Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage
Dame Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
T.S. Eliot: The Wasteland
James Joyce: Ulysses
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Poems &
Collected Lyrics
Emily Dickinson: The Complete Poems
Sinclair Lewis: Arrowsmith
Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises &
The Old Man and the Sea
Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
Elizabeth Bowen: Friends and Relations &
The Death of the Heart
Pearl S. Buck: The Good Earth
William Faulkner: Light in August
James Thurber: The Seal in the Bedroom and Other Predicaments
Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind
John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie &
A Streetcar Named Desire &
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Robert Penn Warren: All the King’s Men
Truman Capote: Other Voices, Other Rooms &
A Tree of Night and Other Stories &
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone &
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
Carl Sandberg: Complete Poems
Langston Hughes: Mortgage of a Dream Deferred
J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
Lorraine Hansberry: A Raisin in the Sun
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
Sylvia Plath: The Colossus and Other Poems
Anne Sexton: To Bedlam and Partway Back
Edward Albee: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Fire &
The Children’s Crusade
Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Alice Walker: The Color Purple
That’s a lot of reading, but you’ll find most, if not all, at your local library. You may even find many of them for low cost at a thrift shop.
As for “how-to” books on writing – there are as many out there as there are authors. Okay, so I’m exaggerating, but not much. I’d say find one or two by your favorite authors. I’d also make sure you have a good dictionary, thesaurus, and grammar reference on hand.
Whew, this was a long one. I hope I’ve answered your question. 
** Image ID #645115 Unavailable **
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EXCERPT: To invade our home was one thing, to steal my and my wife’s possessions another, but to take stuff away from our not-yet-born babies? That was just too much. The only thing I recalled next was a blood-curdling scream and the thrashing of limbs.
EXCERPT: The garden gate swung precariously from one hinge, mostly rotten wood and lichen. As she pushed it aside and entered the front yard, a strong smell of decay assailed her senses. Her feet trod a sharp staccato rhythm up the path and she dodged the clumps of weeds worming their way through the cracked paving. Discarded plastic bags fluttered in random trees and shrubs, rustling like bizarre wind chimes.
EXCERPT: Lurleen’s back was to the wall with her knees pulled up and a magazine resting against her plump thighs. The trio of vertical lines between her eyebrows scrunched together as she read each question.
“Bobbi-Jo”, she mumbled. “Would you say I’m responsible?”
EXCERPT: You know, it used to be so simple. The twelve of us working together, the dastardly dozen we called ourselves. Every Christmas we’d get together and make magic. Twelve shining balls, greeting the holidays with glistening delight.
EXCERPT: When they went outside, Daddy C picked him up and got real serious. Jason, he said, I want you to be real careful. There are always a lot of trucks and tractors going in and out of the field. Don’t you get to playing and forget about them and get hurt. I’m going to ask Flora Chavez to keep an eye on you for me.
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Submitted By: Shara-vacationing till Feb 20
Submitted Comment:
Your newsletter would definitely help me.. especially the letter from the editor.. I am into poetry and I have some themes in my mind for short stories.. I guess I would do well by following the few tips and tricks that have been mentioned above. Regards, Soniya Ahuja
Submitted By: Brians Next Novel Almost Done!
Submitted Comment:
Good NL! I was just watching a portion of Dead Poets Society on TV the other night before I went to bed, so it was fun for me to see those couple of quotes you included from that movie!
It is hard sometimes to look at an old theme from a fresh perspective, but sometimes when you make a little bit of effort, you find it's not quite as hard to do as you first thought. Thanks for the challenge!
Submitted By: bazilbob
Submitted Comment:
There was a newsletter on modernism and postmodernism? how did I miss this?? I have to write an essay on modernism. Do you keep archives anyplace?
I keep a personal archive and the site has one, as well. You'll find the newsletter you're looking for here: 
Submitted By: MiguelR
Submitted Comment:
Wow! You are back in college and you have time to moderate this newsletter! Double impressive! I wanted to comment on your letter regarding new twists for old ideas. I always found this was a great way to alleviate writer's cramp, and it's so fun. Re-writing a fairy tale, for example, can keep me going for days. Great newsletter, I can't wait for future issues!
 Thanks! Many time I have people ask when I find time to sleep, lol. Usually I ask them, "what is sleep?"
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Short Stories: December 28, 2005 Issue [#793]
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