Nine Great Books to Help Improve Your Writing

by Mewla Young

Cat Writers’ Association members get together for CWA Zoom Meet-ups twice a month to share ideas, advice, and otherwise support one another. During a recent meet-up, we discussed “Helpful Books About Writing.” Here I share some of our favorite tomes on writing both fiction and nonfiction.

Writing Fiction

“Show, don’t tell” is a writing technique that allows the reader to experience the details of a story through actions, words, or the characters’ emotions, rather than reading the author’s narration or description of what happened.[1] The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi provides practical tools to help novelists show rather than tell. The book lists body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 different emotions. It also includes helpful suggestions for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues.

Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody is a great book to read, especially for those in the early stages of writing a novel. Brody provides a “beat sheet” to help you develop your storyline’s arc(s) that follows the arc structure of hundreds of successful books. Brody also emphasizes that each novel should have two “stories.” Story “A” is what the character wants. Story “B” is what the character needs, which may or may not be what they think they need. For example, the protagonist may want a boyfriend but may need greater self-esteem.

Another helpful book is Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel – Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere by Lisa Cron. This book provides additional tools to help you create your novel, from developing a blueprint for your story to composing fully developed scenes with a focus on “what the protagonist wants.”

If you’re interested in writing thrillers or adventure stories, you may find Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass helpful. The book instructs novelists on how to write with a high degree of narrative tension and create larger-than-life characters.

Last in the fiction category, a CWA member recommended Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King. This book covers topics such as dialogue, exposition, point of view, and interior monologue,. The authors also share specific revising techniques that they developed while editing hundreds of books.

Writing Nonfiction

Many great books exist on writing good nonfiction. Here are a few we’ve found helpful:

Do I Make Myself Clear? by the eminent journalist, writer, and editor Harold Evans offers great advice for effective writing. Especially entertaining are the examples of bad writing and suggested corrections from journalism, as well as examples from dense legal and governmental documents.

Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies by Roy Peter Clark is organized into four sections: “Nuts and Bolts,” “Special Effects,” “Blueprints for Stories,” and “Useful Habits.” Clark uses examples from literature and journalism to cover basic writing strategies, from activating verbs and altering sentence length, to developing concrete detailed descriptions.

Editor Proof Your Writing: 21 Steps to Clear Prose Editors and Agents Crave by Don McNair is another helpful book that addresses writing basics. It’s step-by-step advice in line with Harold Evans’s Do I Make Myself Clear?

Last, for marketing, websites, and blogs, Everyone Writes: Your Go-To Guide for Writing Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley can help add sparkle to content for customers, fans, or viewers/readers. In addition to writing hints, book topics also include helpful websites and the use of branding to engage readers and customers.

Of course, this list is far from inclusive. Let me know about your favorites in the comments below!

References:

{1} Master Class. Show Don’t Tell: How to Write Effective Exposition. Downloaded 16jul2025 from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-effective-exposition

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