While you generally have a point in there, I’d have to disagree a bit. Yes, there are those infantile manuals, where advice becomes a system of rules [sometimes it even grows to be a new set of Sacred Commandments]. Those are the hogwash books and this is the majority of the books out there. They are written like self-help books and consist of many, many exercises. I can think of one author, who fits in that category.

However, there are those articles, blogs and books, which are less about exactly how to write and simply highlight the problematic areas that pop up as you discover your own self, while writing. Most offer general advice as to how the problem can be overcome, usually by giving examples of their work or the work of others. Writing is individual and the sites I have visited and the one book I have read about writing [On Writing by the way] acknowledge that fact and are far from instructing people with guarantees for success. Instead, they simply broaden the writer’s horizon, but let him/her do all the work and discover himself/herself as such.

Preachy [for which I am sorry], but as far as written advice for writer’s go, it’s a mine field.

I would agree there is an exploitative aspect to a large part of the “how-to-write” market (I CAN MAKE YOU THIN! I CAN MAKE YOU RICH! I CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO WRITE A BESTSELLER!), I don’t think you can lump them all together like that.

The writing guides worth reading can be divided into two categories – the practical side, and the experiencial side.

On the practical side you have things like The Elements of Style and various (very good) guides on grammar, language and structure. While it is easy to scoff at the idea of someone who wants to be a writer not knowing their basic grammar and form, you may be surprised at how ill-served a lot of people have been by their high school English education. When I took high school English in New Zealand in the early nineties, all grammar and form had been removed from the national syllabus, entirely.

Also, I think there is something to be said for knowing the rules of writing well before you attempt to break them

The experiential kind of manual includes things like On Writing by Stephen King, or The Secrets, an on-going email newsletter from NYT best-seller Michael Stackpole. They’re not so much how-to guides, as a collection of notes, observations and thoughts from people who have forged long and successful careers in writing. If we can learn from our own experience as a writer, as you say, then we should also be able to learn from the experiences of others. I would actually consider On Writing an essential read for any writer, whether just starting out or with their own established career.

Of course the key thing to remember is that writing is an individual experience, everybody writes different, and the only way to improve and learn is to write, and keep writing, and write some more. But there is nothing wrong with knowing the foundation of writing to begin with (eg, The Elements of Style), and there is nothing wrong with picking up some tips and pointers from those who have gone before (eg, On Writing).

I like to classify any form of advice (or point of critique) as: addressing language, or narration?

Language is quite important, certainly for a non-native like me, because I want to be sure that when people congratulate me with inventing a wonderful new word, the word is actually what I intended to write (the whole Flemish-English-French language triangle sometimes makes me wanna poke my eyes out!).

Narration I find intriguing, because storytelling is something I never had to work hard on to get the basics right, so I strive to understand what makes people scratch their head and ask: how do you do that? And with this I’m not claiming to do narration particularly well; someone with an ear for rhythm might have a leg up when becoming a drummer, it doesn’t mean they get to fill in for Lars Ulrich without a lot more work.

If we’re talking language, I’ve found Elements handy up to a point (but any English grammar book will tell you the good stuff, and this without cramping your style into “essay”-writing). The Oxford Style Manual has a wealth of information, not only on the basics of the industry (formats, proofing,…), but also the really difficult stuff: how you English types capitalize, or derive from religious/national/racial etc names, insights into different languages (which is always handy when inventing Martians or fantastic tribes).

Now, I’ve read quite a few books and articles on the “art of writing”, written by writers of whatever genre, and find most on the whole not as interesting as they promised to be. They usually try to define *The* process instead of trying to define *their* process, which only works when you have either no process at all, or if your process aligns with theirs. Also, the hubby and me sport this theory that whenever an author starts writing about writing like this, in too serious a way, his/her own writing sort of bleeds to death. So: don’t you give in to the pressure, dude!

But some books/articles I felt were useful; they stand out because they are written from that specific author’s point of view, using her/his own voice. They help me see how narration works *for them*, which in turn helps me to understand how mine works, which in turn helps to refine and improve my writing.

And of course there is a vast body of very interesting literature on writing that I’ve found strangely lacking in every discussion about “books on writing”: the scholarly work. If I ever need to suggest a good book on writing, it would be Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan’s “Narrative Fiction, contemporary poetics”.

…interesting AND useful.

This is interesting. I agree with you about there being no ‘right’ way to write a novel. It really is all about doing it, learning what works for you, and finding your voice. However, as someone who is, first and foremost, a screenwriter, those manuals do come in handy since it’s a form that very much depends on knowing and following the rules, and being unable to break them until you know them like the back of your hand. For prose though, manuals are very limiting, and, I find, have you focusing too much on what you could do wrong, rather than what you are doing right. I’d say that their biggest value is in consulting them after you’ve written a first draft to see what huge mistakes you should keep an eye out for while redrafting.