Shocker: one of my favorite types of books to read? Writing craft books. Here are a few of my favorites that I reference over and over again (Amazon affiliate links—I get a tiny percent of any purchase you might make within 24 hours of following one of these links; it costs you nothing and helps me out.)

	Story Engineering by Larry Brooks	I’ve used Larry Brooks’s story structure in every successful story I’ve written since I first encountered it.
	Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder	Like Story Engineering, Save the Cat! has become a staple in my story structure outline. (In fact, I combined the two to create the plotting roadmap freebie you get when you join my newsletter.)
	Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham	This model for scene structure is another that I use every. single. time.
	How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey	This was one of the first books on writing craft I read that went deeper than the basic principles of line editing, and Frey’s books taught me a ton about creating character sympathy. It’ll always have a special place in my heart for that.
	Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass	With a forward by Anne Perry, who gave a PHENOMENAL keynote at the LDStorymakers Writers’ Conference last week, this book of writing advice from an agent/author is a perennial classic. It also comes with a workbook, but having read all of his stuff, I’d actually recommend starting with The Breakout Novelist, as it covers most of the material in his other books.

What do you think? What are your favorite books on writing craft?