5 Books That Will Make You a Better Writer

Stephen King's manual offers not only wonderful advice if you're striving to write suspense or horror, but integral advice for every writer. Image from Unsplash

Jennifer Wright August 16, 2019

If you are 21 and live in Brooklyn writing like a man from the deep south of the 1930s, it will not make you sound profound so much as totally deranged.

In this course, participants learn core principles, concepts, and methods of continuous improvement and explore the history of continuous improvement efforts. In a series of lectures, Master Black Belt in Six Sigma Shane Wentz, Ph.D., enables learners to enhance, optimize, and stabilize business processes and to augment quality control through varied methodologies. Participants gain the skills and knowledge to reimagine internal processes, engage in advanced problem-solving, and empower employees. The course covers high-level foundational principles of Lean, Six Sigma, and DMAIC processes before diving deep into Lean Six Sigma methods. Learners will analyze the tools of process mapping, Kaizen (a continuous improvement method/tool deemed a prerequisite for Lean transformation success), Lean (a continuous improvement philosophy that emphasizes streamlined workflows and reducing waste), and the process improvement methodology driving DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Entrepreneurs fostering new ventures outside of well-developed entrepreneurial ecosystems like Silicon Valley face significant challenges. These markets are unlike Silicon Valley, and they will likely remain so. That doesn't mean they can't nurture and sustain new businesses. In transitioning markets that lack abundant private sector financing, creative approaches from government officials, donors, and business leaders can fill the void to support entrepreneurial activity. Northeast Ohio (where Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University are located) has become a laboratory for such innovative solutions. During our time together in this course, we will explore some of these creative approaches to promoting regional entrepreneurship. Northeast Ohio has seen a massive infusion of government and donor resources for over ten years. In that time, Northeast Ohio has promoted regional development (including job creation and follow-on funding) through alternative methods of financing startups. It has not been easy. The region has made progress, but it remains to be seen whether it has struck upon an enduring formula. A dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem takes many years, even decades, to develop. Government policymakers and donors typically seek quicker returns on their support programs, which makes long-term support for entrepreneurship challenging. This course includes case studies and first-person testimonials from entrepreneurs who have launched products and services ranging from medical devices to LED lights to whiskey. You will learn how these entrepreneurs discovered and procured resources from various programs and intermediary organizations. You will hear from business people still in the process of developing their companies as well as those whose ventures have flourished. Our focus will extend beyond Cleveland to selected markets around the world, including Greece, Vietnam, Tunisia, Argentina, Rwanda and China. You will learn about international incentives and other supports available to developing startups and small businesses across the globe. This course examines how different communities around the world approach implementing strategies and methods to support businesses. I will ask you to reflect on how to apply the principles we learn to growing entrepreneurship where you live. The social interactive features of the online platform will enable students from around the world to share ideas and learn from one another. Most MOOCs rebroadcast professors’ lectures; this course is different. Don’t expect to see me standing in front of the camera, talking and lecturing every module. Instead, the lectures will be relatively short in length. They have more of the feel of an engaging documentary than a static classroom setting. ## __What type of person takes the *Beyond Silicon Valley* course?__ - Active and aspiring businesspeople in communities looking to initiate new startup ecosystems or bolster existing ones - Current and prospective entrepreneurs who want to learn about funding sources, risk management, and the lifecycle of startups - Professionals who work in government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic institutions, and various private funds that fund startups - Anyone curious about how to create and grow startup ecosystems outside the major tech hubs - The principles Beyond Silicon Valley teaches have been drawn from and applied to startups worldwide, from small villages to megalopolises. You'll study success stories spanning the globe from Vietnam to Kosovo to Botswana. ## __What will you learn in *Beyond Silicon Valley*?__ - How and where startups can find funding to get their businesses off the ground - What role government can play in encouraging startups and a healthy startup ecosystem - How anchor institutions such as universities and healthcare systems participate in startup ecosystems - How nongovernmental organizations support startups - How to raise funds from venture capitalists, angel investors, and accelerators - How to navigate challenging periods in the startup lifecycle - The importance of mentoring in successful startups

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If you want to write, you must read, and you must read a lot.

That said, if you are trying to write a book or an article, there are a few authors I recommend you avoid for the duration of your writing. Shakespeare. Hemingway. Faulkner. Fitzgerald. Basically, anyone who is commonly considered one of the greatest writers of all time.

Best case scenario, you'll end up imitating them. If you are 21 and live in Brooklyn writing like a man from the deep south of the 1930s, it will not make you sound profound so much as totally deranged. At worst, you will read about two pages of The Great Gatsby, realize you'll never do anything as good, and want to give up forever.

Save them for when you're finished. As you're working, read these instead.

Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White__

I can't say I've found this one is especially inspirational, but, with sections like "commonly misused words" and "a few matters of form," it will cover all the technical aspects of writing you need to know. Someone has doubtless already given it to you as a gift, so you can keep it on your desk for the rest of your life and consult it regularly.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions On Writing and Life by Anne Lamott__

Anne Lamott is basically every young writer's Tenzing Norgay. The book provides all aspiring writers with tools and exercises, but also tips for navigating the insecurity that can accompany the writing process. Her advice, "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better" is the mantra of everyone I know who writes personal stories.

Since I am not one of those people, I treasure Lamott's reminder that, "what if you wake up some day, and you're 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart."

Lamott will tell you how to approach writing and, for that matter, life.

On Writing by Stephen King__

Stephen King's manual offers not only wonderful advice if you're striving to write suspense or horror, but integral advice for every writer.

One of his most memorable passages is about choosing to stop working inside a locked room with a massive desk at the center. Instead, he gets a small desk and opens the door to his family.

Writing can be an isolated profession and one that can allow you to cut yourself off from the world. Don't. Writing isn't an excuse to hide away in an attic and lord your genius over anyone else.

It's worth remembering King's excellent quote from On Writing that writing, "is about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy."

Write Your Heart Out: Advice from the Moon Winx Motel by Geoff Schmidt

This is a novel cleverly disguised as a writing manual.

The story—about a failed writer of self-described "Midwest Grotesques" trying to win back his estranged wife, while simultaneously doling out increasingly bizarre writing prompts. If you've ever heard—probably in a creative writing 101 class—about how there are a limited number of stories in the world (man vs. man, man vs. nature, etc.), you will appreciate the narrator's insistence that one of them is always, "you awake on Christmas morning to find yourself in the nativity crèche only to realize all the other nativity figures are vampires and they can move" and that people must stop writing that exact story.

From the narrator's insistence that you should try to work the Green Lantern's Power Ring into your story as many times as possible, to the idea that you try eating only pixie sticks for a few days might inspire you, it's a great and very funny meditation on all the ways writers can and do self-destruct.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel__

This is a perfect book if you need to remember why we write.

The novel traces a group of survivors who roam the post-apocalyptic countryside performing Shakespeare following a global pandemic. Their caravan bears the Star Trek motto "Survival is Insufficient."

If you are the kind of person who lives for plays, and stories, and comic books, namely, someone who cares about more than just surviving, this book is for you.

Jennifer Wright is the Political Editor at Large at Harper's Bazaar and author of four nonfiction history books, Get Well Soon, It Ended Badly, Killer Fashion, and the upcoming "Dead Girl's Guide to Dating." She recommends that young writers keep these books on hand for technical guidance, navigating insecurities, and falling in love with the creative process again and again.

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