Creative writing. I recommended him elements of style so that he gets into English grammer better. May it be terse and outdated, but it gives the right balance of grammar basics and how to improve one's style.
And, most of all, it's cheap as an apple. Detlik has a short budget, or else I'd recommend him to get Harry Potter, LotR and the last unicorn.

HAHA good one.

Thanks for awesome tips :) I didn't expect so much replies.

I bought Writing for Dummies and skimmed through it a few times. It's surprisingly helpful when you have questions. Other than that, read - and I mean read a LOT. Every genre. If you don't know what a good book feels like, you can't write one. And write a lot, of course. I've never published, but I've been writing since I was eight, and I've been told I am an excellent nonfiction writer and a decent fiction writer. (In fact, ironically, I was just sitting down to work on my novel when I saw this post).

For concise writing I'd recommend anything written by Roger Zelazny.

Or, for concise writing on a grand scale, Graham Greene. No matter what you think of his politics, Greene was a master storyteller, "nothing deflects Greene from the main business of holding the reader's attention". Or his protege, R. K. Narayan.

Reading and writing are completely different domains of language. People continually confound the two and there really isn't any good reason for it. You'll find people who can effectively write well before they've mastered reading and you find people who can read, but seemingly are unable to write.

There is some crossover, but definitely not enough to justify the strength with which people suggest it as a prerequisite for writing competence.

If you are going to take the approach of just writing to achieve mastery of writing, you will need either of two things:

A natural gift, such that you can produce fine writing without any knowledge of fine writing; or

The Editor from Hell, who will force you to revise, rework, and delete everything you write until you have learned to write it well.

You can no more learn to write without reading than you can learn to play music without listening. Sure, there's the occasional savant. But that person is never you.

I would disagree. They are very clearly different forms of literacy, but they're inextricably intertwined. Both fluent reading and fluent writing require a deep and sophisticated command of the language you're using, conventions of style and substance, and an ability - innate or acquired - to weave together multiple threads of storytelling or reasoning into a coherent understanding of the entire passage.

I will concede that reading requires a knowledge base from which the reader can extrapolate to gain an understanding, whereas writing requires the writer to engage in conceptualizing ideas, arguments, or stories from his or her knowledge base. This is another similarity, though - both good reading and good writing require the individual to be well read (hence some of the reading problems in America; one must be well read to read well).

If we are speaking of the raw mechanics of writing - grammar, spelling, and structure, then much of this is unnecessary for reading. I too know fairly fluent readers among my students who cannot write. I do not know a single student, out of the two hundred or so I've worked with, who can write well but cannot read well.

I think you'll find that it's normal without being specifically taught otherwise. It's not at all unusual for people to be heads and shoulders ahead in one domain or another of language. My ability to listen in German does not imply that I'm fluent at speaking it, it implies that I've spent a lot of time listening and have gotten good at it. I could quite easily learn to become a master orator in German without any meaningful ability to write, read or listen.

It is unusual for somebody to have an extreme spread, but there are plenty of reasons why one might be a master at writing without being able to read. Or be really good at reading without any meaningful ability to write. I regularly see students lately who are quite good at writing and reading, but can't speak. Or who have rote memorize the grammar rules without knowing how to use them.

The notion that it's somehow unusual is really not one that I can buy into when it's quite common amongst people learning secondary languages.
It's far more common than you give it credit for. Being so educated in a first language is probably not particularly common. But it's quite common for people who are learning secondary languages to be unable to produce speech or writing despite spending large amounts of time reading or listening.

Different domains of languages are utilized in different ways and it's never been particularly well supported the supposition that reading inherently increases writing ability. The way you get better at writing is by writing and optionally by telling stories. Reading and listening might help you identify stories and how others have done it, but choosing one over the other is nonsensical.

Now, if there's a particular style of writing that one is interested in, that's a different matter altogether.

Ah...yes, it would be common. Reading and writing ability is not tied to the language mastery in that case. I am very fluent in English. I have had some education in Spanish, but I read poorly and can't speak it very well - that didn't take away the ability to think and form coherent sentences I gained during my English education. The vocabulary and grammar are irrelevant - it is the overall thinking, planning, and creative ability that matters, and that was still tied to reading in the person's original language.

I've never seen anyone argue this before. I'm quite interested, as this is my field - would you mind elaborating a bit more on what you mean? Perhaps I'm missing your point.
Oh...you're referring to pure creative ability, rather than traditional standards of quality or form? I could see that. Some of the most interesting poets I've read ignored any and all standards of grammar, form, and convention.

I like it when they have deeper meaning, great storyline and mainly characters about which you actually care about. I am not sure what I don't like...I liked pretty much everything I read.

I am trying to get better at creative writing and I will try to expand my vocabulary, thanks for tip.


Thanks I will check it out.


I am honored that blue text replied to my thread :D. Anyway I am trying to delve into Terry Pratchett Discworld but it´s hard for one simple reason. I have to use dictionary too often. Sure it´s amazing because I will expand my vocabulary this way but thanks to the fact I have to run away from the book so often it is harder for me to enjoy ti.


Well not sure if I would call it gift, but in my native language few years back (in Elementary School) I had always best written stories in class when we were supposed to do one. Sure it was some time back, sure it was Elementary School but I think main problem is that I am trying to write in English...unknown sentence structure and vocabulary.

Read Dune and then try to write like Herbert (hehehehehe)

For Fantasy/Comedy, Pratchett would be an obvious choice, but you already mentioned the dictionary problem. Hmm. Perhaps consider Piers Anthony instead? He's far from being a stylist, but he has a very fluent, light style (imho), and many original and funny ideas.

For Sci-Fi and perhaps a more darker side, personally I'd recommend Theodore Sturgeon. I think you'd like his stories, and most of his work is short stories, so they'd be easy to digest. He doesn't exactly use beginner's vocabulary. But his style was consistently considered to be among the best of his time.

In the end, however, I think your question can't really be answered. You want to develop _your_ style, not copy someone else's, so you'd have to find authors whose style fits yours.
You're mean. ;) Herbert could create vast, interesting, and highly complex worlds, but his style wasn't that much different from that of a newspaper reporter imho ... I think people mostly like him for his settings, not for his style, which can be oddly dry and distanced.