5 Book Recommendations for Fiction Authors and Writers

Looking for a few good books to improve your craft as a writer? Look no further than this post! Check out the list below.

NB: I am not a fan of Amazon, and would advise you to support your local, independent bookstore by shopping there instead. However, if you have a tiny budget, libraries provide a wonderful alternative. Library cards are free and will give you access to print books, ebooks, and even movies!

• Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide From New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School (Edited by Alexander Steele; ISBN: 9781582343303) — The Gotham Writers’ Workshop has been teaching the craft of writing for three decades, and it shows. This book offers the best advice and techniques to help you take your stories to the next level. It is very well written, easy to follow, and shock-full of useful examples and exercises. The tone is so friendly that it feels as though the contributors were speaking directly to you. In a nutshell, a must-have in your collection!
• The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression (Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi; ISBN: 9781475004953) — Do you struggle to come up with fresh ideas to express realistic feelings and make your characters more relatable? If so, this is the book you need. Each main emotion (e.g., acceptance, apprehension, curiosity, elation, uncertainty…) has its own dedicated chapter, which features a large variety of phrases and words listed by categories. Those categories include: Physical signs and behaviors; internal sensations; mental responses; acute or long-term responses; signs that the emotion is being suppressed; and more. Also, writer’s tips are sprinkled throughout the guide.
• The Writer’s Lexicon: Descriptions, Overused Words, and Taboos (Kathy Steinemann; ISBN: 9781544070186)—Part thesaurus, part reference guide, this excellent book will help you strengthen your dialogues, understand how to leverage punctuation better, and find alternatives to the words that often kill descriptions.
• The Writer’s Lexicon Volume II: More Descriptions, Overused Words, and Taboos (Kathy Steinemann; ISBN: 9781983583582) — More of the same!
• The Writer’s Body Lexicon: Body Parts, Actions, and Expressions (Kathy Steinemann; ISBN: 9781927830314) — I may be an avid reader of the science and history genres, but when it comes to describing the body, I always find myself unable to go beyond the surface. Words literally lack me. So, when I came across this guide, I knew I had found an answer to my problem. It has all you need to create believable characters and make your writing come alive on the page. I have never seen so many adjectives, similes, colors, scents, shapes, verbs, and idioms to describe parts of the body presented in one book before!

I hope that you found this post useful. What other books would you recommend? Tell me why in the comment section. I will compile answers in a future list, and mention you in the post.

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That's it for today! Thank you for reading!

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Cendrine Marrouat is a writer, photographer, podcaster, blogger, anthology editor, and the co-founder of Auroras & Blossoms and A Warm Cup of Cozy. She has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including The Train: A Short Story (2023), In Her Own Words: A Collection of Short Stories & Flashku (2022), After the Fires of Day: Haiku Inspired by Kahlil Gibran & Alphonse de Lamartine (2021), Rhythm Flourishing: A Collection of Kindku and Sixku (2020), Walks: A Collection of Haiku (2019-2020), and In the Silence of Words: A Three-Act Play (2018).

Cendrine's work has appeared in many publications. She is the creator of the Sixku, Flashku, Sepigram, and Reminigram; as well as the co-creator of the Kindku, Pareiku, Vardhaku, and Hemingku.