The first step to becoming a writer is to read. The first step to becoming a great writer is to read everything. But what books should a beginning writer read? What will give you the biggest jump-start in your writing skills, in understanding storytelling and in understanding yourself?

The most useful book I have found on the creative process is Steven King's "On Writing". Even if you don't like other books by Steven King it is impossible to discount his success and nearly impossible to discount his writing ability. This is someone who truly understands the process.

For your basic grammar needs, I would suggest, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". This book isn't really any better at the rules of grammar and writing than others, but it's much more fun to read and that makes it far more likely you will actually read it in comparison to a typical style guide.

The third book worth getting is "The Writers Handbook". This is a fantastic book with each chapter written by one of the masters of that particular skill. Because each writer writes about what he knows best you get almost entirely good advice.

While there is a great deal of good information on storytelling in books about storytelling books about how to tell a story are a different style. These are books that simply discuss how stories are told. One of the best is "The Hero with a thousand faces," by Joseph Campbell. This is a fascinating book I would recommend even for people who don't write but for the writer the understandings of the basics of the hero is vital.

Once you have read that you should reread some of the classics. Books like "Tom Sawyer", "Moby Dick", "Frankenstein", "Oliver Twist" and "The Grapes of Wrath" are the best teaching tools any writer can read and the better you understand the art of story telling the better you will see just how remarkable these books are.

The final category of books that a writer must at some point read are books on the writing industry. If you are serious about becoming a writer you will at some point have to understand it.

The central book of this group is "The Writers Market," and while, on its surface, it appears to be simply a list of markets there is a fantastic amount of information in this book. From the crafting of a query letter to how to write for specific genres of magazine not only will this book tell you where to sell your writing and how much to expect but it will teach you how to sell it.

For more specifics, you can then move on to "100 things every writer should know", this book covers everything from setting up your workspace to breaking writers block.

No matter how many books you have read as a writer there is are always more to read. From understanding the genre of books that you are writing for better than anyone else to perfecting the writing art there is simply no end to the amount of books that can be read so set aside at least as much time each day for reading as writing and you will be far ahead of the writer who cuts out his reading time to spend more time on his own work.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Book recommendations for beginning writers and wannabe authors?
We want to hear your view. Write now!