Craft Book Recomendations

Character

• Orson Scott Card - Characters & Viewpoint

• David Corbett - The Art of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV

• Nicholas Corder - Creating Convincing Characters

• Rib Davis - Developing Characters for Script Writing

• Maren Elwood - Characters Make Your Story

• Jeff Gerke - Plot Versus Character: A Balanced Approach to Writing Great Fiction

• Andrew Horton - Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay

• Holly Lisle - Create A Character Clinic: a Step-by-Step Course in Creating Deeper, Better Fictional People

• Mary L. Mercer - Standout Characters: How to Write Characters who Make Readers Laugh, Cry, and Turn the Next Page

• Roz Morris - Writing Characters Who'll Keep Readers Captivated (Nail Your Novel)

• Jordan Rosenfeld - Writing the Intimate Character: Create Unique, Compelling Characters through Mastery of Point of View

• Lee Sheldon - Character Development and Storytelling for Games

• Dwight V. Swain - Creating Characters: How to Build Story People

• K.M. Weiland - Creating Character Arcs: the Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development

• K.M. Weiland - Crafting Unforgettable Characters

• Writer's Digest Editors - Creating Characters: the Complete Guide to Populating Your Fiction

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Genre Craft

• Peter Brooks - Reading for Plot

• Jane Cleland - Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot: How to Write Gripping Stories That Keep Readers on the Edge of Their Seats

• Lisa Cron - Wired for Story: the Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

• Debra Dixon - GMC: goal, motivation, and conflict for writers

• Yellowlees Douglas - The Reader's Brain: How Neuroscience Can Make You a Better Writer

• Will Dunne - The Dramatic Writer's Companion

• Lajos Egri - The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives

• Angus Fletcher - Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature

• Stuart Griffiths - How Plays are Made: the Fundamental Elements of Play Construction

• Bekki Hill - NLP For Writers: Techniques to Help You Succeed

• Karl Iglesias - Writing for Emotional Impact: Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader from Beginning to End

• Steve Kaplan - The Hidden Tools of Comedy: the Serious Business of Being Funny

• Elizabeth Lyon - Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore

• Leigh Michaels - On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells

• William Packard - The Art of the Playwright: Creating the Magic of Theatre

• Gary Provost - Make Your Words Work

• Jodie Renner - Fire Up Your Fiction: an Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction

• Jodie Renner - Writing a Killer Thriller

• Sam Smiley - Playwriting: the Structure of Action

• Stuart Spencer - The Playwright's Guidebook: an Insightful Primer on the Art of Dramatic Writing

• Cheryl St. John - Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

• Dwight V. Swain - Techniques of the Selling Writer

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Plot

CLASSICAL DRAMATURGY

• Aristotle – The Poetics
• Gustav Freytag – Technique of the Drama
• Northrup Frye – The Anatomy of Criticism
• William Gibson – Shakespeare’s Game
• N.J. Lowe – The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative
• Vera Tobin – Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot
• Walter Watson – The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's "Poetics"

 HOLLYWOOD THREE-ACT STRUCTURE

• Linda Cowgill – Secrets of Screenplay Structure: How to Recognize and Emulate the Structural Frameworks of Great Films
• Steven V. Duncan – Genre Screenwriting: How to Write Popular Screenplays that Sell
• Syd Field – Screenplay (n.b. dated now, but useful) and The Screenwriter’s Workbook
• Lew Hunter - Screenwriting 434: The Industry's Premier Teacher Reveals the Secrets of the Successful Screenplay
• Robert McKee – Story: Style, Structure, Substance, & the Principles of Screenwriting
• Tom Pope – Good Scripts, Bad Scripts: Learning the Craft of Screenwriting Through 25 of the Best and Worst Films in History

HERO'S JOURNEY

• Joseph Campbell – Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth
• Gail Carriger - The Heroine's Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture
• Kim Hudson – The Virgin's Promise: Writing Stories of Feminine Creative, Spiritual and Sexual Awakening
• Jeffrey Alan Schecter - My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: 10 Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch
• Christopher Vogler – The Writer's Journey (also Memo from the Story Department)
• Stuart Voytilla – Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films

HOLLYWOOD “BEAT” MODELS

• Jessica Brody - Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You'll Ever Need
• Keith Giglio - Writing the Comedy Blockbuster (includes a great section on Sequences)
• Paul Joseph Gulino – Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach
• Jeffrey Alan Schecter - My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: 10 Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay from Opening Hook to Knockout Punch
• Blake Snyder – Save the Cat (also Save the Cat goes to the Movies)
• Stanley Williams – The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success

COMMERCIAL FICTION

• James Scott Bell – Plot & Structure (also Conflict & Suspense)
• Jack Bickham – Scene & Structure (also Writing and Selling Your Novel)
• Lisa Cron - Wired for Story: the Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
• Amy Deardon – The Story Template
• Jeff Gerke - Plot Versus Character: A Balanced Approach to Writing Great Fiction
• Randy Ingermanson – How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method
• Donald Maas – The Emotional Craft of Fiction (also Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling)
• Victoria Lynn Schmidt – Story Structure Architect
• Dwight V. Swain - Techniques of the Selling Writer
  • also his fantastic Master Writing Teacher audio classes
• K.M. Weiland – Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success

ROMANCE FICTION

• Jayne Ann Krentz – Dangerous Men & Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance
• George Paizis – Love and the Novel: The Poetics and Politics of Romantic Fiction
• Pamela Regis – A Natural History of the Romance Novel
• Laura Vivianco – For Love and Money: Literary Art of the Harlequin Romance
• Sarah Wendell & Candy Tan – Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels

 

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Grammar & Language

• David Auburn and Rae Armantrout - Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus

• Barbara Baig - Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

• Jenny Baranick - Kiss My Asterisk: A Feisty Guide to Punctuation and Grammar

• Gyles Brandreth - Have You Eaten Grandma?: Or, the Life-saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English

• June Casagrande - It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: a Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences

• Chamber’s Thesaurus, 5th Edition (2015)

• Claire Kehrwald Cook - Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing

• Benjamin Dreyer - Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

• Kitty Burns Florey - Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: the Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences

• Karen Elizabeth Gordon - The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: the Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed

• Karen Elizabeth Gordon - The New Well Tempered Sentence: a Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed

• Karen Elizabeth Gordon - Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness: a Dictionarrative

• Karen Elizabeth Gordon - Torn Wings and Faux Pas: a Flashbook of Style, a Beastly Guide through the Writer's Labyrinth

• Luci Gutiérrez - English Is Not Easy: A Visual Guide to the Language

• Constance Hale - Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing

• Constance Hale - Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose

• Rayne Hall - Euphonics For Writers: professional techniques for fiction authors

• Ellen Jovin - Rebel With a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian

• Marcy Kennedy & Chris Saylor - Grammar for Fiction Writers

• C.S. Lakin - Say What?: the Fiction Writer's Handy Guide to Grammar, Punctuation, and Word Usage

• Max Morenberg - Doing Grammar

• Patricia T. O'Conner - Woe is I: the Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in plain English, 3rd ed.

• David Olsen,‎ Michelle Bevilacqua,‎ Justin Cord Hayes,‎ & Robert W. Bly - Roget's Thesaurus of Words for Writers: over 2,300 Emotive, Evocative, Descriptive Synonyms, Antonyms, and Related Terms Every Writer Should Know

• Arthur Plotnik - The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words, revised and expanded

• Arthur Plotnik - Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style

• J.J. Rodale - The Synonym Finder

• Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition (2005)

• Susan Thurman - The Only Grammar & Style Workbook You'll Ever Need: A One-Stop Practice and Exercise Book for Perfect Writing

• Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

• Virginia Tufte - Grammar as Style: Exercises in Creativity

• Ben Yagoda - When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse

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Slang

SLANG

• * Esther and Albert E. Lewin - The Random House Thesaurus of Slang <--- best starter slang resource!

• Robert L Chapman - American Slang

• Tom Dalzell - The Slang of Sin

• Tom Dalzell - Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang

• Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor - The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

• Jerry Dunn - Idiom Savant: Slang As It Is Slung

• Jonathon Green - Cassell Dictionary of Slang

• Jonathon Green - The Vulgar Tongue: Green's History of Slang

• A.D. Peterkin - The Bald-headed Hermit & the Artichoke: an erotic thesaurus

• Richard A. Spears - NTC's Thematic Dictionary of American Slang

 

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Criticism

• George Ainslie, "Money as MacGuffin" in Addiction and Self-control, edited by Neil Levy. http://picoeconomics.org/HTarticles/MacGuffin/MacGuffin.pdf

• Brian Boyd - On The Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction

• Seymour Chatman - “What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa)” in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 7, No. 1, On Narrative (Autumn, 1980), pp. 121-140.

• Albert Cook - The Dark Voyage and The Golden Mean: a Philosophy of Comedy

• Aristotle, translated by Richard Janko - The Poetics (with the Tractatus Coislinianus, reconstruction of Poetics II, and the fragments of the On Poets)

• Kevin L. Flannery, SJ - Action and Character According to Aristotle: the Logic of the Moral Life

• William Flesch, “Love, MacGuffins, and Death” July 5, 2016.

• Michael Goldman - Acting and Action in Shakespearean Tragedy

• Michael Goldman - Shakespeare and the Energies of Drama

• Kendall Haven - Story Proof: the Science behind the Startling Power of Story

• Ronald Hayman - How to Read a Play

• Richard Janko - Aristotle on Comedy: towards a Reconstruction of Poetics II

• Wendy Jones - Jane on the Brain: Exploring the Science of Social Intelligence with Jane Austen

• Walter Kerr - How Not to Write a Play

• Walter Kerr - Tragedy and Comedy

• L.C. Knights - How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth? An Essay in the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare Criticism

• Harry T. Levin - Playboys and Killjoys: an essay on the theory and practice of comedy

• Keith Oatley - Such Stuff as Dreams: the Psychology of Fiction

• Keith Oatley - The Passionate Muse: Exploring Emotion in Stories

• Amélie Oksenberg Rorty - Essays on Aristotle's Poetics

• Walter Watson - The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's "Poetics"

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TROPES:

• Rick Altman - "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre." Cinema Journal 23, no. 3 (Spring 1984). 6—18. Rep. in Film Genre Reader II. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1995. 26—40.

• William Archer - Play-Making: a manual of craftsmanship

• D.E. Berlyne - Conflict, Arousal and Curiosity

• Julia C. Berryman - "Interest and liking: further sequential effects"

• Kristina Busse & Karen Hellekson, editors - The Fan Fiction Studies Reader

• Colin Campbell - "The Desire for the New: its nature and social location as presented in theories of fashion and modern consumerism" in Consuming Technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces 

• John Cawelti - Adventure, Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture

• Amy J. Devitt - Writing Genres (Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory) 

• Jay Dixon - The Romantic Fiction of Mills & Boon, 1909-1995 (Women's and Gender History)

• Mike Figgis - The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (based upon Georges Polti’s original text)

• John Frow - Genre (The New Critical Idiom), 2nd Edition

• Anne Jamison - Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

• Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek, editors - Romantic Conventions

• Keith Oatley - Such Stuff as Dreams: the Psychology of Fiction

• Pamela Regis - A Natural History of the Romance Novel

• Joyce G. Saricks & Neal Wyatt - Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (ALA, 3rd ed., 2018)

• Thomas Schatz - Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and The Studio System

• Jesse Schell - The Art of Game Design: a book of lenses

• Jule Selbo - Film Genre for the Screenwriter

• Peter Stockwell - "The Cognitive Poetics of Literary Resonance" © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association, 2009

• Damon Suede - Activate: a thesaurus of actions & tactics for dynamic genre fiction

• Teo Hsu-Ming - Desert Passions: orientalism and romance novels

• Laura Vivianco - For Love and Money: the literary art of the Harlequin romance

• Morgan K. Ward, Joseph K. Goodman, Julie R. Irwin - "The Same Old Song: the power of familiarity in music choice"

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Acting & Performance

• William Ball - A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing

• John Barton - Playing Shakespeare which is a transcript of the dazzling video series of the same name...highly recommended.

• Richard Boleslavsky - Acting: the First Six Lessons

• Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previtio, & Scott Zigler - A Practical Handbook for the Actor

• Edward Burns - Character: Acting and Being on the Pre-modern Stage

• Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams - Actions: the Actors' Thesaurus

• Cameron Crowe - Conversations with Wilder

• Declan Donnellan - The Actor and the Target

• William Gaskill - Words into Action: Finding the Life of the Play

• William Gibson - Shakespeare’s Game

• Tyrone Guthrie - In Various Directions: a View of Theatre

• Moss Hart - Act One: an Autobiography

• Richard Hornby - The End of Acting: a radical view

• Francis Hodge and Michael McLain - Play Directing: Analysis, Communication, and Style

• Charles Marowitz - Directing the Action: Acting and Directing in the Contemporary Theatre

• Nick Moseley - Acting and Reacting: Tools for the Modern Actor

• Max Stafford-Clark - Letters to George: the Account of a Rehearsal

• Francois Truffaut - Hitchcock/Truffaut (revised edition)

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Neurology, Psychology, and Philosophy

• Barry Arons, MIT Media Lab, "A Review of the Cocktail Party Effect." (Journal of the American Voice I/O Society, Fall 2008)

• Yellowlees Douglas - The Reader's Brain: How Neuroscience Can Make You a Better Writer

• Daniel M. Gross - The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science

• Donald Horton & Richard Wohl, “Mass Communication & Parasocial Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance”, Psychiatry 19: 215-29, 1956

• Edward Jones & Richard Nisbett - The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior

• Peter Kingsley - Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition

• Raph Koster - A Theory of Fun for Game Design

• Claude Levi-Strauss - Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture

• Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

• Keith Oatley, "A Feeling for Fiction" (1 September 2005) at Greater Good.

• Jaak Panksepp PhD and Lucy Biven - The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions

• Nicole K. Speer, Jeremy R, Reynolds, Khena M. Swallow and Jeffrey M. Zacks, “Reading Stories Activates Neural Representations of Visual and Motor Experiences” in Psychological Science, Vol. 20, No. 8 (August 2009), pp. 989-999…

• Nicole K. Speer, Jeffrey M. Zacks and Jeremy R. Reynolds, “Human Brain Activity Time-Locked to Narrative Event Boundaries” in Psychological Science, Vol. 18, No. 5 (May, 2007), pp. 449-455

• Vittorio Caggiano, Leonardo Fogassi, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Antonino Casile, Martin A. Giese and Peter Their, “Mirror Neurons Encode the Subjective Value of an Observed Action” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 109, No. 29 (July 17, 2012), pp. 11848-11853

PERSONALITY MODELS

• Richard Bartle - "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs" (1996)

• Richard Bartle - “A Self of Sense” (20 June 2003)

• Stephen R. Covey - Principle-Centered Leadership

• Malcolm Godwin - Who Are You?: 101 ways of seeing yourself

• David Keirsey & Marilyn Bates - Please Understand Me: character and temperament types

• David Keirsey - Please Understand Me II: temperament, character, intelligence

• Otto Kroeger & David B. Goldstein - Creative You: using your personality type to thrive

• Otto Kroeger & Janet M. Thuesen - Type Talk: the 16 personality types

• Eileen McCann - The Two-Step: the dance toward intimacy

• Mary Miscisin - Personality Lingo: use the power of personality to transform relationships, improve communication and reduce stress

• Stephen Montgomery - People Patterns: a modern guide to the four temperaments

• Dario Nardi - Character and Personality Type: discovering your uniqueness for career and relationship success

• Bart Stewart - “Personality and Play Styles: A Unified Model” (GamaSutra, 1 September, 2011)

LITERARY TRADITIONS

• David G. Grote - The End of Comedy: the sit-com and the comedic tradition

• James A. W. Heffernan - Hospitality and Treachery in Western Literature

• Diana Wynne Jones - The Tough Guide To Fantasyland: the essential guide to fantasy travel

• Anne K. Kaler - Romantic Conventions

• Harry T. Levin - Playboys and Killjoys: an essay on the theory and practice of comedy

• Allardyce Nicoll - The World of Harlequin: a critical study of the commedia dell'arte

• George Paizis - Love and the Novel: Contemporary Romantic Fiction and Society

• Carol Pearson Ph.D - Awakening the Hero Within: twelve archetypes to help us find ourselves and transform our world

• Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley - Dramatica: a new theory of story

• Randy Rasmussen - Children of the Night: the six archetypal characters of classic horror films

• Pamela Regis - A Natural History of the Romance Novel

• John Rudlin - Commedia Dell'Arte: an actor's handbook

• Lewis Salingar - Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy

• Scott Sedita - The Eight Characters of Comedy: a guide to sitcom acting and writing

• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - The Coherence of Gothic Conventions

• Walter Watson - The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics

• Anne Williams - Art of Darkness: a poetics of gothic

ESOTERIC MODELS

• Noga Arikha - Passions and Tempers: a history of the humours

• Helena Avela and Luís Ribeiro - On The Heavenly Spheres: a treatise on traditional astrology

• Linda V. Berens - Sixteen Personality Types: descriptions for self-discovery

• Joseph Campbell  - The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on his life and work

• Mary K. Greer &  Tom Little - Understanding The Tarot Court

• David Adams Leeming - Mythology: the voyage of the hero

• Thomas Moore - The Planets Within: the astrological psychology of Marsilio Ficino

• Claudio Naranjo - Ennea-type Structures: self-analysis for the seeker

• Randy Rolfe - The Four Temperaments: a rediscovery of the ancient way of understanding health and character

• Art Rosengarten, Ph.D - Tarot and Psychology: spectrums of possibility

• Judith Searle - The Literary Enneagram: characters from the inside out

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