Resources to Write Better Stories

Stories aren't a mystery or a black box.

People have been telling stories for thousands of years and people have studied stories for thousands of years. The key to writing better ones is intention.

If you are trying to get a book deal or win a Pulitzer Prize, I am not qualified to help you there. If you are trying to craft better narratives to further your pursuits or raise millions, that I can help with.

Stories create influence. Stories are the vehicle of human understanding, the most intuitive construct for how people make sense of the world. Stories are the code of a person's mind.

It doesn't mean you can manipulate people into doing your bidding, but it does allow you to make a conscious decision:

to communicate in the language

that people are hard-wired to understand,

in the way they want to be communicated,

or you can drown in boring facts and figures until their brains hurt...

The choice should be simple. In that sense, we don't require impressive prose. We have but one goal, influence.

In order to achieve influence, we need to understand stories like a machine. Each aspect of a story, any narrative construct, generates influence and emotion in different ways. Thus, I recommend the following books with this in mind to help you create stories and to understand stories mechanistically.

1. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Summary:

A seminal work on creative recovery, this book presents a 12-week program designed to help people overcome creative blocks and reconnect with their inner artist. Its core tools include "Morning Pages" (three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing done first thing in the morning) and "Artist Dates" (a weekly solo expedition to explore something that interests you). It focuses on dismantling the perfectionism and self-criticism that stifle creativity.Link: The Artist's Way on Amazon

My Take:

It's a great resource for understanding yourself in an artistic sense. Especially if you aren't inherently artistic. It goes one by one through your creative blocks to help you get prepped for a new way of thinking.

2. From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler

Summary:

Based on Butler's acclaimed creative writing lectures, this book reimagines the writing process as an emotional rather than intellectual act. Butler emphasizes the "dreamspace"—a state of deep, sensual immersion where the writer accesses the subconscious. He argues that fiction should be driven by "yearning" and teaches writers how to capture the "sensual, cinematic series of takes" that make up a compelling narrative.

Link: From Where You Dream at Grove Atlantic

My Take:

This is one of my favorite books on creative writing. Writing professionally is relatively easy, even easier with AI. But generating creative ideas and even the process just feels different. It's maddening trying to actually be creative. "From Where You Dream" doesn't sound like a book that you would actually read on your own, but the process is absolutely essential before you go onto the other books down the list.

3. On Writing and Worldbuilding by Timothy Hickson

Summary:

Derived from the popular "Hello Future Me" YouTube channel, this guide offers practical, in-depth analysis of storytelling mechanics. It covers everything from the nuances of hard vs. soft magic systems and realistic worldbuilding to character motivations and effective exposition. Hickson uses numerous examples from popular media (like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Lord of the Rings) to illustrate how to build cohesive and immersive stories.

Link: On Writing and Worldbuilding on Amazon

My Take:

This one seems silly at first, but I view world building as undervalued in pitching. Those two ideas don't correlate at all naturally, but hear me out. If you describe a market or an industry, you reduce it to a business space where something gets sold and money is made. But, if you have a market, industry, or niche, you have the opportunity to build a world of wild characters with crazy constraints and incentives that absorb your audience. That's what gets people invested into what you are doing.

4. The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass

Summary:

In this guide, literary agent Donald Maass focuses on how to infuse a story with "fire"—the passion and conviction that separates breakout novels from the rest. He provides techniques for raising the stakes, creating complex characters with deep-seated conflicts, and ensuring every scene has a strong emotional pulse. The book is filled with practical exercises to help writers push their work beyond the "good enough" stage.

Link: The Fire in Fiction on Amazon

My Take:

The Donald Maass series is great because it moves you from a story that is written to one that pops. He's actually a literary agent and wrote these books so he can point people to resources so the books they're pitching suck less.

5. Writing 21st Century Fiction by Donald Maass

Summary:

Maass explores the evolving landscape of modern fiction, arguing that the most successful contemporary novels blend the high-impact pacing of commercial fiction with the deep characterization and resonant themes of literary fiction. He provides techniques for creating "high-impact" scenes, developing "micro-tension" on every page, and crafting characters that feel more real and relevant to today's readers.

Link: Writing 21st Century Fiction on Amazon

My Take:

This book is more technical than the one before. It's more like a textbook for his entire work. It is dry as a end to end read, but it's the master reference.

6. The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass

Summary:

This book focuses specifically on the "inner world" of the story—how to make readers feel what the characters feel. Maass moves beyond the standard "show, don't tell" advice to explore "inner mode," "outer mode," and "other mode" of emotional delivery. It teaches writers how to create an authentic emotional experience that resonates with readers on a deep, personal level throughout the narrative arc.

Link: The Emotional Craft of Fiction on Amazon

My Take:

This book may seem like it's getting redundant, but I continue to recommend yet another Donald Maass book here because he continues on the same theme of generating emotion in your stories, but with a new framework.

7. Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias

Summary:

Karl Iglesias approaches storytelling through the lens of reader psychology, arguing that writers are in the "emotion-delivery business." The book provides hundreds of specific techniques to engage the reader's emotions on every page, covering character humanization, scene construction, dialogue, and narrative description. It is particularly focused on creating the "WOW" factor that keeps readers (and editors) fascinated from start to finish.

Link: Writing for Emotional Impact at KarlIglesias.com

My Take:

This book is a lot like "Writing 21st Century Fiction" as a textbook. It's long its dense, but it's comprehensive. If you are trying to solve a problem in what you are doing in your storytelling, it's a great go-t0.