Here are 100 books that The Elements of Style fans have personally recommended if you like
The Elements of Style.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I’ve worked in the wonderful world of storytelling for the last thirty years. I’m an award-winning writer, Telly Award-winning screenwriter, acclaimed short filmmaker, educator, and creator suffering from occasional self-doubt. One of the greatest honors of my life is that I’ve been invited to judge the work of other writers in major competitions around the world. As a result, I’ve come into direct contact with thousands of writers. Many of them have stories trapped inside their minds that they think would make an excellent movie or television series. But screenwriting is incredibly structured, and the expectations of what a script should be can catch many newcomers off guard.
I can’t recommend books about storytelling without including this masterwork. Anyone who works in storytelling will face times when their creative well is dry, and this book is the solution. I’ve run into quite a few moments in my life when tragedy and trauma prevented me from being my most creative self.
Whether I was dealing with personal or professional struggles, this book has always been able to bring me back to my authentic, creative self. I’ve done this “program of artist recovery” both alone and with a group (which Cameron calls a “creative cluster”), and it’s been just as successful each time. I even force my MFA writing students to do the “Artist Dates” explained in this book, and they always thank me later.
The Artist's Way provides a twelve-week course that guides you through the process of recovering your creative self. It aims to dispel the 'I'm not talented enough' conditioning that holds many people back and helps you to unleash your own inner artist. Its step-by-step approach enables you to transform your life, overcome any artistic blocks you may suffer from, including limiting beliefs, fear, sabotage, jealousy and guilt, and replace them with self confidence and productivity. It helps demystify the creative process by making it a part of your daily life. Whatever your artistic leanings, this book will give you the…
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
I’m an oral historian as well as a writer, so I’ve always been fascinated by how people speak and how they interact with each other through dialogue. I soon realized some of the ways spoken language differs from written language and began exploring those differences. When I started writing, the dialogue came fairly easily, but this was deceptive, as I wasn’t being rigorous enough–I wasn’t making the dialogue really work for the script. So, I’m always trying to get better at that. I’ve had over 60 scripts performed on stage, radio, and screen, but I still gobble up books about speech and dialogue–there is always more to be learned.
I loved the voice of this book–it’s the voice of Stephen King, clever, yes, and a brilliant novelist, of course, but also absolutely down-to-earth. King is a perfectionist, continually going back through his writing to hone it–a useful reminder to all of us not to be satisfied with a first or second draft.
The book shows how, in the best writing, both dialogue and plot arise out of character. And I particularly valued his emphasis on cutting, cutting, cutting–dialogue and everything else. He’s made me do that more than ever!
Twentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen King
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the…
It started with Goosebumps. Then came Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stephen King. King led me to Kubrick, DePalma, Reiner, and Cronenberg, where my passion for film and screenwriting was sparked. This passion eventually led me to write my book. On that path, these 5 books helped me understand storytelling better: how it helps us understand the machinations of the world; makes sure our messages reach our audience; how language can tell its own story; how to find the spirit within the structure; and how storytelling can change your life. My world is richer thanks to these books. My ideas of what is possible are broader. Hopefully, they’ll do the same for you.
I read this book years ago, and it has become such a part of my DNA that I barely remember not knowing the ideas it introduces. A lot of screenwriting books focus on structure and premise, trying to decide what kind of event should happen by which page. This book gave me a freer, more spiritual way to think about and structure stories.
Vogler’s book—heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces—showed me how to think of stories as mythical journeys, almost Jungian in their symbolism. How even the most modern or intimate story can be seen as a warrior’s journey into an unknown land; How stories can benefit from being a few degrees closer to dreams or the unconscious.
I've been an avid fan of the book ever since, and can barely think of storytelling separately from the ideas in it.
Originally an influential memo Vogler wrote for Walt Disney Animation executives regarding The Lion King, The Writer’s Journey details a twelve-stage, myth-inspired method that has galvanized Hollywood’s treatment of cinematic storytelling. A format that once seldom deviated beyond a traditional three-act blueprint, Vogler’s comprehensive theory of story structure and character development has met with universal acclaim, and is detailed herein using examples from myths, fairy tales, and classic movies. This book has changed the face of screenwriting worldwide over the last 25 years, and continues to do so.
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
Having been a Hollywood writer for thirty years, and now written a novel that although satirical still accurately describes the creation of a TV series, I’ve long been amazed at how many Hollywood stories – including films made in Hollywood – offer fantasies that have even less to do with the reality of love and work in film and television than Game of Thrones does with the real Middle Ages. I’ve written fantasy myself, but for people fascinated by Hollywood, or who want to work in film and TV, there’s a reason too to read books that capture the reality, especially when like the books listed here, they do so astonishingly well.
This book coined the maxim far and away the most quoted in Hollywood to this day: “Nobody knows anything.” I first read it the year before I broke in. My copy is heavily annotated with yellow highlighter and red pen; a black paperclip still marks the second of Goldman’s two capitalized maxims, “Screenplays are structure.” The value of this book to anyone wanting to understand – or survive in – Hollywood is that, ironically, Goldman, one of the most successful screenwriters and novelists in Hollywood history, knew almost everything, not only about screenwriting, but also the psychology, cautious care, and perilous feeding of actors, directors, executives, and the rest of the Hollywood zoo. It’s both a textbook and survival guide, illustrated with a veteran’s vivid stories about life behind the tinsel.
No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get…
I’ve always been fascinated by the power of language to propel everything we think—from our values and beliefs, to political views, to what we take for absolute truth. Once I learned there’s a whole field devoted to studying language called “rhetoric”—the field in which I’m now an expert—there was no turning back. Rhetoric has been around for more than 2,000 years, and since its inception, it has taught people to step back from language and appraise it with a more critical eye to identify how it works, why it’s persuasive, and what makes people prone to believe it. By studying rhetoric, we become less easily swayed and more comfortable with disagreement.
I love Ted Chiang’s short stories. Chiang’s background is in computer science, and he’s drawn to questions concerning the relationship between language, technology, cognition, and the physical universe.
His stories are fascinating thought experiments: They depict how a change in the medium or format of language transforms meaning and opens new possibilities for what language can be and do, what humans can think and know, and what it means to be a thinking, speaking human against the backdrop of a vast, infinitely complex universe. His stories are often backed by years of detailed research.
When I read Chiang, I find myself entangled in a strong emotional bond with his characters even as I ruminate on larger questions about what it means to be a language-using human.
'Lean, relentless, and incandescent.' Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys
This much-anticipated second collection of stories is signature Ted Chiang, full of revelatory ideas and deeply sympathetic characters. In 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate,' a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and the temptation of second chances. In the epistolary 'Exhalation,' an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications not just for his own people, but for all of reality. And in 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects,' a woman cares for…
I am an associate professor of neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands. My research lab focuses on discovering how the brain uses electrical signaling to compute information, and transfer information across different regions of the brain. I also have a few decades of experience teaching scientific coding, data analysis, statistics, and related topics, and have authored several online courses and textbooks. I have a suspiciously dry sense of humor and insufficient patience to read five books on the same topic.
“Are we alone?” An age-old question that we may never answer. Andrew May walks us through the scientific study of whether there might be life elsewhere in the universe, and how we might identify it. And by “scientific study,” I mean actual scientific investigations, not wishy-washy sci-fi fluff. The book is both inspiring and terrifying, because the immense distances in space and time make you realize that intelligent life is both incredibly insignificant and incredibly precious.
Extraterrestrial life is a common theme in science fiction, but is it a serious prospect in the real world? Astrobiology is the emerging field of science that seeks to answer this question.
The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. Astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale 'signatures' it produces, and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the Solar System or on the many 'exoplanets' now being discovered by the Kepler…
I am an associate professor of neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands. My research lab focuses on discovering how the brain uses electrical signaling to compute information, and transfer information across different regions of the brain. I also have a few decades of experience teaching scientific coding, data analysis, statistics, and related topics, and have authored several online courses and textbooks. I have a suspiciously dry sense of humor and insufficient patience to read five books on the same topic.
Sand (yes, that grainy stuff at the beach that never fully gets out of your shoes) is a ubiquitous feature of dream-vacations, and yet is a really obscure topic to study. Michael Welland managed to present a fascinating and thought-provoking story of where sand comes from and where it goes. But this book isn’t only about sand; it is about the unimaginable timescales of geology and how a countless number of tiny grains can fill nearly 400,000 miles of beaches, not to mention deserts, ocean floors, and volcanos. Welland’s writing style is poetic and flowing, and overall a joy to read.
From individual grains to desert dunes, from the bottom of the sea to the landscapes of Mars, and from billions of years in the past to the future, this is the extraordinary story of one of nature's humblest, most powerful, and most ubiquitous materials. Told by a geologist with a novelist's sense of language and narrative, "Sand" examines the science - sand forensics, the physics of granular materials, sedimentology, paleontology and archaeology, planetary exploration - and at the same time explores the rich human context of sand.Interwoven with tales of artists, mathematicians, explorers, and even a vampire, the story of…
I am an associate professor of neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands. My research lab focuses on discovering how the brain uses electrical signaling to compute information, and transfer information across different regions of the brain. I also have a few decades of experience teaching scientific coding, data analysis, statistics, and related topics, and have authored several online courses and textbooks. I have a suspiciously dry sense of humor and insufficient patience to read five books on the same topic.
Igor Stravinsky was one of the most influential and innovative music composers of the 20th century. He was also remarkably intelligent, humorous, and insightful. This book is a collection of interviews, letters, and notes made by and about Stravinsky. Some of these writings would interest only classical music enthusiasts, but much of the book comprises witty observations of human nature, art, and what it really means to praise or critique someone.
'The conversations between Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft are unique in musical history.' Sunday Times
Dialogues is the final volume in the legendary series of Stravinsky's conversations with Robert Craft. In his Foreword, dated March 1971 shortly before his death, Stravinsky wrote of his 'final work of words': 'They are hardly the last words about myself or my music that I would like to have written, and in fact they say almost nothing about the latter, except tangentially, in comments on Beethoven. It is almost five years now since I have completed an original composition, a time during which I…
Hiking in the flower-covered hillsides of Central California as a nature-loving kid, I couldn’t help but wonder about my companions. One of my first purchases (with babysitting money!) was a wildflower guide. I’ve moved around the country many times and every time I’ve had to start over, make new plant acquaintances and discoveries—always an orienting process. Of course, I’ve also studied plants formally, in college and in my career, and (honestly, best of all) via mentors and independent study. All this has shown me that flowers are more than just beautiful! They’re amazingly diverse, and full of fascinating behaviors and quirks. In fact, they are essential parts of the complex habitats we share.
This book is a revelation! The author (1907-1977) was a scientist (a naturalist, anthropologist, and paleontologist), and, boy, could he write. The title refers to the arc of time on this planet. There are chapters that describe and ponder fossils, evolution, so-called missing links, “the great deeps,” and so forth in the most captivating, poetic language. But the chapter to read is “How Flowers Changed the World.” I consider it the most important and insightful essay ever written on the dramatic arrival of angiosperms (flowering plants)—because he takes into account all context, and because he marvels. As we should.
My passion for story began while I was still in elementary school. I was an avid reader, taking the tram to the library whenever I could. I read biographies, short stories, comic books, and novels of all kinds. In college, I studied comparative literature, focusing on 19th and 20th-century novels in English and Spanish. I met many authors and was inspired to write my own stories. Eventually, this led to screenwriting as a career and then teaching and writing about screenwriting. I never abandoned my love of novels, publishing one of my first novels as a magazine for which I sold advertising to pay for printing.
This was my first introduction to the structure of films. It gave me a place to start as a screenwriter and helped me focus on what was important in organizing a screenplay.
I really liked how specific and simple it was in explaining what the author found in the thousands of screenplays he had read. I used it as a guide to create my first full-length screenplay, which got the attention of directors and production companies and kickstarted my career.
Hollywood's script guru teaches you how to write a screenplay in "the 'bible' of screenwriting" (The New York Times)—now celebrating forty years of screenwriting success!
Syd Field's books on the essential structure of emotionally satisfying screenplays have ignited lucrative careers in film and television since 1979. In this revised edition of his premiere guide, the underpinnings of successful onscreen narratives are revealed in clear and encouraging language that will remain wise and practical as long as audiences watch stories unfold visually—from hand-held devices to IMAX to virtual reality . . . and whatever comes next.
