For the past year, I've been struggling to improve my writing skills and I've gotten better, but I'm still not satisfied with the stories that I've written so far. When I wrote my first short story, a 40K YA romance, I didn't know anything and I hadn't read many books on the craft of writing. Months later, I've read a lot more more books and written thousands of words.
I have three drafts of romances: two contemporary and one YA. Another two unfinished drafts of about 16K each. I've read read approx. twenty-five random books on the craft of writing fiction. Most of them had some useful information. The books that I liked the best, at the moment, are:
- On Writing by Stephen King
- Revision and Self-Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell
- The Well-Crafted Sentence by Nora Bacon
What writing books have you new writers or authors found most helpful?
