Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Recommendations: Books/websites/blogs/etc for writers

A thread for recommendations for stuff to add to the FWG website’s resource pages:




If you’ve got a how-to book, website, software program, etc. to recommend, please post it here so I can add it to the website. (Check the above pages first to make sure it isn’t already listed.)

Some very helpful books I’ve come across.

Around the Writer’s Block


One of the best books I have ever come across for dealing with a problem that we all have come across at least at some point or another.

Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers


Really good exercises for any writer to take a look at.

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers


Some really amazing exercises in this book for genre writers. Well worth picking up.

Write The Fight Right


How to write realistic fight scenes using hand to hand techniques. Shows you how to add realism into your combat scenes that won’t have martial artists everywhere shaking their heads.

If I can remember/be reminded, I’ll go through my collection and find some of the ones that I found helpful.

Easily the best book I’ve ever read on the subject of writing, the writer’s life, and most important of all what it means to be a writer. (Note-- You have to read between the lines to get the best parts.)

Some of these are already listed on the books page I linked to above; I’ll get the others added ASAP.

Also, for future posts, if you guys could let me know with your recommendation what page or section it should go in, that’ll save me some time in the editing, especially with books or sites I’m not familiar with. :slight_smile:

Books page updated. :slight_smile:

This website has been pretty helpful to me. They’ve posted several pieces on writing advice and even take questions if you have a particular subject you’re working on. They try to get you all the info you need to carry out your project.

Though not a book about writing specifically, I’ve found reading some of the classics helpful in my writing, as they show you different styles and modes of expression. They also can often give you ideas about your own work, and perhaps show a different way of looking at things.

Just a few pieces from a range of periods and genres:
Beowulf. trans Seamus Heaney
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. trans Simon Armitage
Metamorphoses. Ovid
Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
Macbeth. William Shakespeare
Edward II. Christopher Marlowe
The Monk. Matthew Lewis
The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood
The Silmarillion. Tolkien
Paradise Lost. John Milton
The Bloody Chamber. Angela Carter
I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. Maryse Condé

This writing book is beautifully illustrated and a lot of fun:
http://wonderbooknow.com/

It focuses on speculative fiction.

I notice a serious lack of a piece of software I find very useful on here:
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

Started trying this out about a year ago after hearing about it. There is a demo that you can try out for a month for free. Decided to give it a month to see if I liked it, then ended up buying it after literally 4 or 5 days.

Ooh, yeah, lots of us are Scrivener users - not mentioning it is a major oversight! I don’t know what I’d do without it, now.

Well, actually the original reason for this thread was for suggestions of things I should add to the FWG website’s resources pages. :slight_smile: Scrivener’s listed under “Tools and Software” on the main resources page:

(Been meaning to update that page for a while now with new links to things; it’s on my to-do list for this week.)

In that case I have another resource to consider:

The War of Art

It is basically a book about how to deal with the challenges you face when trying to create something. Highly recommended.

For Editing and Critique:

Tim Clare’s Death of 1000 Cuts is one guy tearing (submitted) writing apart in a smartassed but helpful way: http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/?tag=death-of-1000-cuts

Some people have an issue with his tone, but the feedback is useful more often than not. It’s on hiatus, but the archive has plenty of critiques to look at.

Resource pages are now up to date:

A fellow author under my publisher has a very well-received book (ebook and paperback) about writing and editing technique: Tell Me (How To Write) A Story, by E.J Runyon. She also has a website with 52 weekly lessons you can take yourself for improving your writing: Bridge to Story

Apologize if this is the wrong category; however, it’s one that’s up to date - came across The Wonderling, by Mira Bartok. This is a young reader book, 400+ pages. A young one-eared fox named 13 (it’s on a tag hung around his neck), finds himself in an Oliver Twisty situation.

Escapes over the wall and with a little help from his friends, twitchy magic and a good balanced diet finds his true path in the forest. For those of you who collect book posters, this one is two stories high.

I’d like to recommend mythcreants.com. This site offers plenty of useful articles, like world building advice, ways to avoid cliches, and analyses of already-published works to take lessons from. There are even tips for RPGers, if you need some advice for your games as well.