Reading About Writing
Books of craft, technique, theory, and writing exercises
created by ayzrules
last updated August, 2026
Comments
Notes that i've gathered from friends about the titles on this list
Word Painting: Solid/decent advice for descriptive writing. Great prompts and exercises included (for samples, go to the Goodreads page and expand reviews, people have posted some of them up for free, they are doing god's work)
Story Genius: Lisa Cron has an overbearing and slightly obnoxious voice, but the advice and guidance is quite good. The example/hypothetical story used to demonstrate the advice is extremely strange, but the prompts and exercises are good/helpful
On Writing: Everyone likes this book. Good exercises
Steering the Craft: Everyone also likes this book, also has good exercises (one that I particularly enjoy is "write something beautiful")
The Artist’s Way: Julia Cameron is a weirdo Christian but the advice is not bad (if you can get through some of the weirdo Christian woo-woo spirituality stuff). Morning pages are useful
Gentle Writing Advice: Helpful, healing, and encouraging for the soul, not as focused on concrete/specific craft topics
Wonderbook: I’m reading this! Less of an intense craft book, more of an exploration of foundational storytelling principles and harnessing the creativity/imagination. Great prompts and exercises, and also great depth/nuance to some of the more popular topics I’ve read articles about (i.e. “elements of a good beginning). Love the illustrations; just flipping through the visuals is helpful for sparking my imagination but obviously YMMV depending on how your brain works
The Heroine's Journey: Some people really like this. Other people didn't find it that helpful. Explores an alternate framework of storytelling where the protagonist overcomes the conflict with the support and empowerment of an entire community of people, rather than as a solitary/individual journey
