Good books on fiction writing?

[MWagner]

Italo Calvino actually prepared 6 lectures on writing which were compiled in Six Memos for the Next Millennium to be given at Harvard, though I believe he died before he could deliver them.

An academic work aimed at literary fiction. I enjoyed it for the insights it gave me as a reader of literature. However, there's not a lot to get hold of for someone looking to write commercial fiction.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir is a really good one if your looking for some inspiration. He doesn't go too in depth as far as the mechanics of writing, but it will definitely make you place your rump in the seat and start writing.

As far as learning the basics (grammar, structure, style, ect.) I would recommend Strunk and White's little book The Elements of Style. They are pretty strict as far as rules are concerned, but until you grasp the information in this little gem, you have no business bending the rules to your whim just yet.

 

[BDFiala]

I find books written by James Scott Bell to be very helpful. He's a thriller writer and a writing coach. He doesn't write specifically about creating SF, but his advice can be useful in any genre. He has written 12 books about writing and I find most of them to be very useful. Plot and Structure and Revision and Self Editing being my favorites. I also had a glimpse of one of his new books, Superstructure, and it seems to me it's a good one as well.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

I've encountered but a single book specifically on Fantasy and Science Fiction writing: "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card, the guy who wrote Ender's Game among others. The book's been around for a while (first published in 1990, I believe) so some of the later sections about the business of writing may be out of date. Earlier parts of the book, though, focus on areas such as consistent world building, the rules of magic, space and time travel, and a few other nuggets specific to SFF.

It's a fairly thin book. I certainly found it interesting, but if you're already familiar with the SF and Fantasy genres it may be of limited use. It works best, I would say, for someone who has not read widely within the genres. At least, that's how I remember it: I read it quite some time ago.

If you've read a lot of Fantasy and Science Fiction then the chances are you already understand a lot of those areas specific to SFF, in which case you'd probably find one of the general fiction writing novels mentioned by others in the thread more useful. Definitely worth a read though if you've got the budget.

 

[tinkerdan]

You might want to add to your list.
Brown & Kings Self-editing for fiction writers
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060545690/?tag=brite-21
Ackerman & Puglisi 's Emotional thesaurus.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00822WM2M/?tag=brite-21
Although the thesaurus fell short early on for me and I have a list as long as their total number that could use some help and though you might be able to extrapolate from one of their words or a combination it still is frustrating.(something easily demonstrated because that's a word that's in there.) It still has it's use.

 

[TitaniumTi]

I've found these two very useful:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1599638762/?tag=brite-21 This book provides in-depth advice on characterisation, with Chapter headings like "Introducing Your Characters for the First Time" and "A Character's Emotional Thread." Contributing authors include Check Wendig, Orson Scott Card and Nancy Kress.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/159963273X/?tag=brite-21 James Scott Bell guides the reader through the process of creating conflict and suspense, using detailed analyses of excerpts from well-known books and movies.