Three act structure.

In 1993 I picked up a book on writing, and ended up throwing it across the room at an early chapter on W diagrams. How dare anyone try to reduce the pure art of storytelling into a formula! I went through a long phase of refusing to accept that there are technically important ways to write better - one I sincerely regret.

Bottom line is that your cynicism is misplaced. Yes, there are probably a lot of crap books on writing out there - so just watch for recommendations. I made a few in this thread, and no doubt others will do so over time, too:
http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-resources/14895-best-books-writing-fiction.html

 

I use the three act dramatic structure and feel it gives me a lot of freedom to be creative. But if you want to read up on this you need to choose the books you read carefully, some express it dogmatically and too simplistically.

 

There are a lot of online articles written by aspiring writers, but the trouble is that it's the blind leading the blind. There are no absolutes in writing - genre writing is a different animal to literary writing, and there's room for cross over inbetween.

Books on writing I've read basically talk about features - tools - that have a long tradition in good genre writing. I don't think any say "don't do this" as much as "try this and see if it makes your writing stronger". Unless, of course, you're literary agent Donald Maas in which case his message is "conflict, conflict, conflict!"

Another good resource on the technicalities of writing are a series of writing lectures by Brandon Sanderson that were put on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WriteAboutDragons

You don't have to agree with his creative decisions, but it's hard to disagree that the guy has good experience - and success - within the industry. Watch some of those, and they may point out areas you want to research further.

 

I have an alternate approach for your consideration:

Find a book that you really like, one that exemplifies to the greatest degree possible what you want to achieve as a writer

Read that book analytically. For every scene, try to determine the techniques used.

If you're unable to see past the writing to the techniques, read more about writing craft until you can recognize techniques.

Experiment with those techniques in your own writing.

 

The folks at Writing Excuses suggest taking a novel that you like and writing its outline; i.e., reverse engineer it.

 

Yes the best way to learn to write is by reading great books. Historically that's been the best approach. It does help to have some flexible context into which to do the reading/analyzing, but studying what works and why in context along with your reason for writing is the best. This is why two instructional books are at the top of my recommended how-to-write books.

The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante

and

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

and thirdly a more traditional book, but it too contains many great examples and analysis of them.

Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway


Read, re-read, study the stories you love and that you want to write. Then Write! Analyze/Critique your own work and Read, re-read, study, and write some more.

There is no easy path other than the one recommended by Neil Gaiman.

 

Yes, but just to be clear: outline on a scene level as well as a story level. Story level outline details how the story works. Scene level to figure out how to make scenes work - use of tension, showing, word choices. backstory, etc.

 

Interestingly today's Goodreads quote of the day:

We write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves.
- Andrea Barrett

Happy birthday, Andrea Barrett! Some of the American novelist's characters appear in more than one story. She addressed this in her 2007 book, The Air We Breathe, which featured a family tree, outlining all the overlapping relationships.