One of the things I love about writing and editing is that there’s never an end to learning. There’s always something new to discover, some fascinating topic or question, and the best thing is that if you go snuffling around, you’re bound to find someone who’s an expert. Here are some of the resources that I return to again and again, out of interest or purely because they’re gold mines of information and inspiration.
Writing Action/Fight Scenes:
- Violence: A Writer’s Guide, Rory Miller
- Fight Like a Girl, Aiki Flinthart
- Write the Fight Right, Alan Baxter
- The Writer’s Guide to Weapons, Benjamin Sobieck
- Cause of Death: a writer’s guide to death, murder & forensic medicine, Keith D. Wilson, M.D.
Getting the Science Right:
- Putting the Science in Fiction, Dan Koboldt (ed.)
- Science in Sci-Fi, Fact in Fantasy, from Dan Koboldt’s blog, featuring articles from experts on a vast array of topics.
Writing Craft:
- On Writing, Stephen King
- Wired for Story, Lisa Cron
- The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, Shawn Coyne
- Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Jessica Brody
- Writing in the Dark, Tim Waggoner
- The Fantasy Fiction Formula, Deborah Chester
- The Emotion Thesaurus, Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi
- Damn Fine Story, Chuck Wendig
- Writing Monsters, Philip Athans
- How to Get a Blackbelt in Writing, Aiki Flinthart
- Winning Short Story Competitions, Lauren Elise Daniels and Carolyn Sawyer
Self-Editing:
- The Magic of Fiction, Beth Hill
- How to Punctuate Dialogue, from Beth Hill’s blog, The Editor’s Blog
- Self-editing for Fiction Writers, Renni Browne and Dave King
