I think one could argue the best book on writing was the one you most enjoyed reading. As that is what clearly engaged you, so read that again and divine what made it work so damn well.
But it terms of craft, yeah, I'd prob hail to King on On Writing. I do disagree with his aversion to adverbs though. I want to ask him, if as a small child, he was assaulted by an adverb (or shall I say, if he was slowly, intrusively, unspeakably assaulted by an adverb) but I dig his concept of writing as telepathy and moreover the metaphor of a story being bones you excavate. And the man has definitively sold more books than the King James Bible.
So I deeply trust his experience and instinct. Night Shift was my Narnia. But if he gives me shit for adverbs, I will gently remind him even an effervescent mind like his isn't always right with two words: Maximum Overdrive.
I think one could argue the best book on writing was the one you most enjoyed reading. As that is what clearly engaged you, so read that again and divine what made it work so damn well.
But it terms of craft, yeah, I'd prob hail to King on On Writing. I do disagree with his aversion to adverbs though. I want to ask him, if as a small child, he was assaulted by an adverb (or shall I say, if he was slowly, intrusively, unspeakably assaulted by an adverb) but I dig his concept of writing as telepathy and moreover the metaphor of a story being bones you excavate. And the man has definitively sold more books than the King James Bible.
So I deeply trust his experience and instinct. Night Shift was my Narnia. But if he gives me shit for adverbs, I will gently remind him even an effervescent mind like his isn't always right with two words: Maximum Overdrive.