Three books for your writing bookshelf

At the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference in Seattle this weekend, I attended author Robert Dugoni’s Novel Writing Seminar. During the course of his talk, he mentioned several books on writing that have a prominent place on his bookshelf and that he looks at repeatedly, including:

Sol Stein’s Stein On Writing

Lawrence Block’s Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

Stephen King’s On Writing

Dugoni said that if you’re concerned that your character is too boring, you may be playing it safe. Many writers fear their readers will think they’re writing about themselves, that the author is really the protagonist in disguise. You have to let that fear go.

Stephen King once said that you can’t write honestly if you have someone on your shoulder watching you. Good advice from the master.