10 Best Fiction Writing Books For Beginner Writers

Whether it’s a blog post or an editorial, a research paper or a storybook, writing can be one hell of a task! And when it comes to novel writing, it’s actually a tedious plus exciting job. Novel writing is not only about expressing your thoughts or explaining some current issues but mostly related to grabbing reader’s attention.

It’s a fiction based writing that demands endless imaginations and thousands of innovative ideas. A fiction writer’s purpose is to indulge the audience in a story that is totally unreal but extremely convincing.

Fiction writing can be divided into various categories such as horror, romance, fantasy, and crime plus mystery. Writers can follow their theme of interest to compose a catchy material. Nowadays, themes like vampires, witches, wizardry, and mermaids are much trending among children as well as adults. Writers compose fiction novels and short story books in a way that readers start believing it to be true. But, not every fiction writer can do it.

There are many novels out there that may have less than 100 readers. It is because translating imagination into words is not enough. You need to create a piece that is strong and appealing enough to grasp your reader’s attention.

A writer needs to learn some basic skills of fiction writing to become a famous novelist. Following are the 10 must-read books that will help you and all writers out there looking for fiction writing guide:

How to write a novel using the snowflake method

(By: Randy Ingermanson )

This book is written by Randy Ingermanson to help with fiction writing. Creating the first draft of a new novel can be quite difficult and time taking. This book will help you through this initial stage of fiction writing.

It contains a complete guide to using the renowned snowflake method, currently being adopted by all popular novelists.

There are 10 steps of following the snowflake method to map out the rough draft for your novel or storybook. Through this book, you will also learn about the use backtracking feature that is considered to be highly essential in fiction writing. From the theme of the novel to its characters, this book will explain to you how snowflake method can improve each and every detail of novel writing.

Writing fiction for dummies

(By: Peter Economy, Randy Ingermanson )

This fiction book is also written by Randy Ingermanson for beginners and intermediate novel writers. From fiction writing to editing and publishing, this book will provide you a complete guide.

Through this book, you will learn about strategic planning, how to write a powerful fiction and also the means of self-editing your novel. From choosing right writing style to self-management methods, Writing Fiction for Dummies will help you with all tasks. This book will take your status from beginner novelist to a professionally renowned author.

Stein on Writing

(By: Sol Stein )

A legendary writer, editor, and teacher, named as Sol Stein, wrote this book. He summarized his learnings and included an essence of his fiction writing wisdom to complete this piece.

He has shared his techniques and strategies that you may use while writing a fiction story or novel. Stein is a world recognized novelist hence his writing secrets can make you craft your own masterpiece.

Writing the breakout novel

(By: Donald Maass )

Are you looking for ways of writing an outstanding novel? Is yes, then this book is your ultimate guide to it! Donal Maass is the author of this popular book that is particularly written to boost up readers fiction writing skills.

As Maass is a world’s best-known teacher of fiction writing and also proved himself to be the finest literature person in New York, this book will definitely take your writing impression to a whole next level!

After reading this book and learning valuable information about fiction writing, you will be able to come up with a breakout novel.

The writer’s journey

(By: Christopher Vogler )

Behind every good fiction story, there is a strong imagination! This book is written by a legend of innovation, named as Christopher Vogler.

In this book, he has smartly applied Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to fiction writing. If you desire to write a convincing fiction story such as star wars and lord of the rings, read this book and come up with a classic piece of novel.

The writer’s journey will help you in preparing the structure of story to compose an impressive novel.

Self-editing for fiction writers

(By: Renni Browne, Dave King )

This masterpiece has been written by Dave King and Renni Browne. This book covers all the features related to novel editing. It’s one of the most common books owned by all popular novelists.

This book will teach you the ways of rewriting and editing your manuscript to make it flawless and presentable. From basic to advance rules, you will come to learn all about fiction writing limitations by reading this helpful piece of writing.

Getting into characters

(By: Brandilyn Collins )

Remember, characters put life into a story or novel hence they should be strong and persuasive. Brandilyn Collins’ Getting into Characters will help you in this matter as it focuses on the importance and creation of characters. This book is providing a deep guide to using an effective strategy called actors method while composing a fictional character.

You will earn about seven techniques of getting into the skin of your introduced characters to write their part with a powerful impression. According to Brandilyn Collins, even the bad and evil characters need to be written in a way that readers’ minds get completely grasped.

Story

(By: Robert McKee )

This classic piece of fiction writing has been written by none other than a legendary Hollywood star, named as Robert McKee. This book is basically addressing the screenwriters to help them apply the fundamental principles of fiction writing to the story.

The best part about Story is that Robert McKee has explained all the flaws and lacking features that writers ignore while composing a fiction screenplay. This book will help script writers to eliminate such problems in order to come with a more impressive manuscript and convincing story. This textbook is also being taught in literature schools to prepare outstanding fiction writers for the film industry.

Plot and structure

(By: James Scott Bell )

This book is written by James Scott Bell for beginner novelist to improve their knowledge regarding the craft of fiction writing. Being a writer you must know that plot of a story and its basic structure leads a content to its final form. If foundation will be strong, the final look will be simply profound.

This book focuses on plotting and structure elements to improve your fundamental skills of fiction writing. Through this book, you will learn the basic composition of theme, characters and story world.

Techniques of the selling writer

(By: Dwight V. Swain )

This masterpiece has been written by a professional teacher of fiction writing, named as Dwight Swain.

This book is just simply amazing for all beginners as well as expert writers. Every time you’ll read it, your fiction writing will improve and become more and more impressive.

This book means to enhance your creative writing abilities by polishing each and every feature related to it. It’s an overall a classic fiction writing guide!



All in all, fiction writing demands a deep involvement and higher command on writing skills. Read these books to achieve the goal of writing an ultimate breakout novel!

The writer of this article, Clinton Loomis work as a freelance blogger, a Spokesperson and a writer at www.courseworkclub.co.uk who writes different articles and blogs related to fiction writing, business, education and technology.