by Matthew Caverhill

Created on: December 22, 2009

The focus of this article will be books which will help you improve your skills in the creation of fiction and verse, and anyone who has browsed the reference section at their local bookstore knows that there are a wide variety of books on those very subjects. Therefore it is important to find the books that will be the best fit for the kind of instruction you need.

For those who are just beginning their journey into writing, Three Genres by Stephen Minot is a good starting point, and as such, it has become part of the curriculum for many university creative writing classes. The Three Genres in question are fiction, drama and poetry, and along with lessons on specific elements of craft. The most recent edition is likely much more expensive than your average writing book, but with 7 earlier editions floating around, acquiring a copy shouldn’t be hard, especially if you live in a university town.

Of course, when I think of books on writing, the first one that comes to mind for me is The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Gardner, a writer who had some fame (as well as some infamy) for his literary fiction and criticism, along with being one of Raymond Carver’s early mentors, was also a superb teacher of creative writing and The Art of Fiction condenses a lot of his theories on the creation of compelling fiction into a dense few hundred pages. However, I must warn you that it seems he wasn’t fond of so-called popular fiction or genre fiction, so if you are looking for specific advice for that kind of writing, you may want to consider seeking volumes that deal with the type of writing you are trying to do. However, there are lessons within this book which are generally applicable to all kinds of fiction. I am also a great fan of a book written by Canadian author Jack Hodgins called A Passion for Narrative: A Guide for Writing Fiction, which deals in most of the common areas that an aspiring author may need help with, such as plotting, characterization and setting, and thus, it is a very comprehensive volume.

When it comes to verse, there is one book that stands head and shoulders above the rest and that is Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms, originally released in 1968 and recently revised in 2000. If you ever wanted not only the tools to explore formal poetry, or just a broader understanding as to how verse in constructed, look no further. I say this despite being a largely free verse poet myself, so there is material which would be useful for

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