10 Best Creative Writing Books

Even if you are a very good writer, this doesn’t mean that you couldn’t use some inspiration. And if you are a beginner, you probably want to know how to improve your writing skills.

That’s why the books on creative writing are written: to help the ones who need some guidance and to inspire the ones who are already experienced enough. However, it could be hard to choose one among many such books.

These days the bookstores (both ordinary and online ones) are filled with such literature and while some books can really inspire or help you, the others can become a simple waste of money. So how can you choose the right ones?

Don’t worry: I can help you with that. I strongly believe that you have to learn from the best – that’s why today I’m offering you a list of 10 best books on creative writing.

The Artist’s Way

(By: Julia Cameron )
For years, Julia Cameron’s book has been helping people to overcome their creative block, to start viewing the creative process as something fun and wonderful instead of something painful and complicated. Maybe it’s time for you to try reading this books and completing tasks in it in order to write easily and to feel inspired more often.

Bird by Bird

(By: Anne Lamott )
Some of us already have everything they need (an idea, a plot, a desire to write) but still find themselves unable to start. Anne Lamott’s book could help you overcome that: it tells how to actually start writing, how to work with the drafts, what to do when you finish, and so on. Probably one of the best things about this book is that it helps to deal with big pieces of writing: it teaches how to approach them without fear and how to finish them successfully. So, if you want to write something big and serious, you might need Anne Lamott’s advice.

On writing

(By: Stephen King )
Stephen King definitely knows how to write – and he gladly shares his experience in this book. It is very concrete and very effective as well as interesting to read. So, if you feel like you need a bit of concrete advice from a very experienced writer, you should definitely read it.

On writing

(By: Charles Bukowski )
Though this book is named the same as the previous one, it is completely different. Charles Bukowski did his best to leave a legacy behind as well as to share some of his thoughts and tips with future writers. From this book, you’ll be able to learn a bit more about him and his writing process with the help of his correspondence with editors, publishers, friends, and so on.

Zen in the Art of Writing

(By: Ray Bradbury )
Some writers do find the whole writing process painful and complex – but not all of them. This book is a perfect example of a writer who thinks differently (and you probably know for yourself what an amazing writer he is). So, if you want to change your approach to writing as well as learn more about the creative process and views of one of the best science fiction writers, you should check this book out!

Writing Tools

(By: Roy Peter Clark )
Some get inspired by reading about the other writers’ creative process; some, however, need something more practical that will help them to learn and improve their skills. This book has been written exactly for the second purpose: it is full of practical advice and working strategies. Though it will be especially useful for beginner journalists, writers could use some of the tips too.

Revising Prose

(By: Richard Lanham )
You should read this book if you feel like you’ll learn better from the examples: it is full of interesting and memorable ones. However, it doesn’t settle with examples only, instead of providing a list of the main writing mistakes and showing the ways to eliminate them from your writing.

Naked, Drunk, and Writing

(By: Adair Lara )
This book will be especially important and useful for those who write not novels but memoirs and personal essays. It helps you deal with things like your friends’ and family’s reaction to your autobiographical works as well as gives some useful tips about finding an agent, etc. Moreover, it is really well-written and interesting to read.

Writing Past Dark

(By: Bonnie Friedman )
In this book, Bonnie Friedman addresses the emotions and the psychology of a writer. Instead of focusing on more practical things like plot, structure, ideas, and character development, she focuses on more personal but no less important things – guilt, fear, writer’s block, etc. The book is very personal and will be useful to all those writers who find it hard not to write well but to control their own emotions as well as build the right attitude to writing.

On Writing Well

(By: William Zinsser )
We write a lot these days even if we don’t call ourselves writers: after all, things like messages, emails, and posts on social media still count as well as creative term paper writing. William Zinsser’s book can help you make even such small pieces of writing look good. It is written in a very straightforward manner and really helps with all the basics of a writing process.




Of course, there are more good books on creative writing. However, it’s important to start slow and take it easy. These 10 can help you improve your writing skills, develop the right attitude towards writing process, overcome creative block as well as the feelings that accompany writing for some of us (fear, criticism that is too strong, guilt, etc.).

Moreover, those of you who are interested in learning more about how famous writers work or used to work, will be able to do so with the help of some of these books. So don’t hesitate – choose the one that seems the most appealing to you and start reading!

If you know some more good books on creative writing, please share them in the comment section below!

Sophia Clark graduated from the University in the City of New York with B.A. in Journalism, 2011. She is a creative writer from New York who loves to share her thoughts with readers, now she writes for BeforeWriting. In her free time, she enjoys writing fiction as well as reading it. Her big dream is to publish a novel one day.