Three Books EVERY Writer MUST Read

There are a LOT of great books out there…but which ones resonate with you so much that you want to take what you’re “learning” on the pages and put it into your own manuscript? In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris, Gena are joined by Rene Gutteridge to talk about their favorite fiction and non-fiction books–and what you can learn from them as an author.

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Links:

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• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let’s get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

Episode 64 transcription:

[00:00:00] Christopher: Hello and welcome back to the Writing
Momentum Podcast. My name is Christopher Maselli from Writing
Momentum. I'm here with Gena Maselli, my wife from Writing
Momentum, and I'm here with Rene Gutteridge, friend of the show, also
with Writing Momentum. How are y'all doing today?

[00:00:22] Gena: Doing really good. We're having fun. I'm having fun
talking about all of this. We've had some great conversations even off
the air..

[00:00:30] Christopher: Yeah, cuz last week we talked about three
movies every writer must see, right? And they weren't necessarily the
best movies of all time, but they were writer movies that had really good
points for writers to follow that, that we can learn from.

[00:00:44] Christopher: And so we're taking, we're gonna go in that
same vein. These aren't necessarily, we're gonna talk about books,
three books every writer must read. And it doesn't mean these are the
best books in the world, although they might be to us. But these are
some books that have just some really good takeaways for us [00:01:00]
as writers that we can learn from.

[00:01:02] Christopher: And it is kinda interesting when we talked about
the movies they were from all different decades. They were all different
kinds of genres. I have a feeling it's gonna be the same thing with books even though I don't I can't at this moment remember what ya'lls picks
are. So I might be surprised.

[00:01:19] Christopher: But Gena, we started with you last time. Why
don't we do the same thing, let's just go around the table here and Gena, what is your book that you think every writer must read?

[00:01:29] Gena: I think the book that has really impacted me in the last
few years that has really resonated with me. Was Tolkien.

[00:01:37] Gena: Tolkien's The Hobbit.

[00:01:38] Christopher: The Hobbit. Oh, you're going for the classic
again. Last time you went with Casablanca, now you're going with The
Hobbit. Oh my. I don't think ours, mine's not gonna hold up. You can't
compare to the Hobbit.

[00:01:52] Gena: This came out in 1937, and I am, I was really blown
away. It was my first Tolkien book that I had read [00:02:00] and just
really blown away by his style of writing.

[00:02:04] Gena: I just thought it's a really, there's a beauty and a lyrical quality to his writing that I find really engaging. And it was great. For reading with my kids because I've been teaching them these different literary techniques and to then have them be able to see it and hear it, it was just great because they could see it in the wild.

[00:02:26] Gena: They could see these different techniques that we're
been learning put into practice in such a great way. With such a great
and engaging story as well. And, I was really reading it to my two boys,
so it was perfect because it is an adventure about a hobbit, a young
male hobbit, Bilbo Baggins who goes on this adventure with this ring and
with these the people around him who help make that happen.

[00:02:53] Gena: Great book. Just really loved it and what really blows
my mind is when I read a classic like [00:03:00] this and I realize that
this writer wrote this probably long hand on a piece of paper without a
word processor, without a computer to do his spell check or him to be
able to go back and think how did I write that before? Let me tweak that
a little bit. None of that. It just, I'm always just stunned at the, probably the discipline and just the craft that someone had to be able to write a book like this long hand. It just blows my mind.

[00:03:33] Christopher: Which it goes back to a little bit of the theme
from last week about intentionality. When you're writing at longhand,
you're probably gonna make sure everything you write has a purpose.
But also those universal themes, right? There are very universal themes
in The Hobbit just about life and death and friendship and that sort of
thing that I think transcend generations and make people love them over
time.

[00:03:52] Gena: Yes, it definitely is a Quest book. You've talked before
Chris, about your the 20 Master Plots book that you love so much.
[00:04:00] This is definitely a quest with so it's just one of those great
adventure quest stories of just these people coming together. And so
you get to root for the good guy and how is he gonna get out of every
scrape that he gets into or every problem he gets into. It's just a great
story from that respect.

[00:04:20] Christopher: We've joked before about how if you watch the
movies, it's like you're just going from one walking scene to the other
because they just keep going on this quest. They just keep moving
forward going to the next part of the adventure. And and that's what it is,
but you're just totally entranced by and just totally want to be on that with them because it's like you want to be taking every step with the
characters in that book. I love it.

[00:04:44] Christopher: All right, Rene, what is the book that you
believe every writer must read?

[00:04:50] Rene: Okay, I've got two. I've got a non-fiction one and

[00:04:53] Christopher: Overachiever!

[00:04:55] Rene: Thank you, not really, ya'll know. So the first one I have
is from a nonfiction. Now I'm [00:05:00] a, people might be surprised to
know I'm a huge non-fiction reader, even though I write fiction.

[00:05:07] Rene: I read mostly nonfiction, not all but one of the things
that has really gained popularity in the past decade or a little longer is
more narrative storytelling in nonfiction. And I think that has, Started to
engage people more into nonfiction because, a lot of old non-fiction
books tended to be more scholarly or written by history professors, and
you really had to love the subject to enjoy the book.

[00:05:41] Rene: Whereas now some writers have discovered if you
really dig into the story of what has happened and the quote unquote
characters or real life characters and really make it follow some of those
major story [00:06:00] type archetypes like the quest and the adventure
and all of that. Then You can engage somebody who might not even be
interested in the topic.

[00:06:12] Rene: So that is what has happened to me in the past few
years. I have began to understand what incredible stories are out I've
started watching documentaries endlessly and whatnot, so I came
across a book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I can't
even remember, I think one of my fiction editors recommended it to me
and I read it and was consumed by it.

[00:06:42] Rene: So this story entails this reporter who has begun to
uncover this thing called the immortal cells. And immortal cells are in
certain people, very few, where their cells will replicate endlessly. They
[00:07:00] never die. They do not have a lifespan.

[00:07:03] Christopher: And this is non-fiction. This isn't a fiction book.

[00:07:05] Christopher: This is non-fiction. Wow. Okay. Cause this
sounds like a great setup for a sci-fi novel.

[00:07:10] Rene: That's right. I was just like, what in the world? How
would I even know? Every scientist probably knows about it, but your
average reader doesn't. So this reporter begins digging into this and she
says where did this all come from?

[00:07:24] Rene: Turns out it was a lady from a poor African American
family and lady who the mom had uterine cancer and they biopsied her.
She ended up dying. Couldn't get the medical care that she really
needed. But in the, in the middle of all this, they discover that she has
immortal cells.

[00:07:44] Rene: So from there they took her cells and began using
them for research. And to this day, I can't remember exactly what the
percentage is, but it's like a huge amount of 70%. Don't quote me on
that. Go look it up [00:08:00] yourself. But it's like a huge amount of the
cells that are used for research and bio research and any like vaccine
research all came from her.

[00:08:10] Rene: Her family had no idea. Her cells were being used
without her consent and making companies millions and billions of
dollars. And they have come from this one lady who died poor in an
unmarked grave. So that's interesting in and of itself. But then this
reporter inserts herself into her own story and decides to go search out
this family and this say what do you know about this?

[00:08:39] Rene: And they were like, oh my gosh, what in the world?
And so it's this discovery that, they've been subject to research against their will and the fact that there's this thing called immortal cells, which is just unbelievable in and of itself. Now I bring this book up, not just
because it's interesting, but I think it, it proves three things.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Rene: A lot of people will say, like a book has to be, it has to
be something everybody's interested in. Untrue. The idea as the writer is
that you make something nobody's interested in interesting. And that's
what I think this Rebecca Skloot did, is she took something I would've
never, if you would've, if I would've read this in some sort of medical
journal, I would've skipped right over it.

[00:09:26] Rene: I could not have cared or understood the implications.
What the writer did so well, she took something like that and found the
narrative, found the story, found the and created this epic story that actually Oprah made into a movie. It's a wonderful book and I
really highly suggested unbelievably it's a page turner.

[00:09:50] Rene: But that goes to show you the power of the writer,
right? The power that the writer can bring to anything if they can write
well.

[00:09:59] Christopher: And you, [00:10:00] you called that narrative
non-fiction, right? Is what you were calling that which essentially means
taking something that's non-fiction and telling it as though it were fiction.

[00:10:09] Christopher: All those components of a fiction story, right?
You've got the characters, you've got the story, and, you create scenes.
Is that right? How would you define it?

[00:10:17] Rene: Yeah. It's murky in how people are defining it these
days, but because some people will say I filled in the gaps. You can't fill
in the gaps and call it nonfiction. You really, you can't make up part of
the story just to make it a good story. Narrative non-fiction is the idea
that you're telling a true story with the facts that you have in a way that is compelling beyond just, a regular non-fiction read.

[00:10:46] Rene: And many writers have used non-fiction and
implemented story-like factors in it, but not through the whole thing.
Another great author Eric Larson does this so well. He wrote [00:11:00]
Devil in the White City and many others that take something so, you
would never, I would never read about it on my own and I get immersed
in it.

[00:11:10] Rene: Whether you're a fiction writer or a non-fiction writer,
you can learn from these really well done non-fiction stories.

[00:11:17] Rene: For fiction, I'll just mention it briefly since I've been
talking a long time here. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson
Walker is probably one of the best written books that I've ever come
across. Beautifully written, lyrical as Gena was mentioning and similes
and metaphors that just work all over the place. Immersive point of view.
And a topic that is so fascinating, it follows a family and in particular a
girl starting out at the age of around 12, I think, when we get the news
that the earth has begun to slow its rotation, and you would [00:12:00]
think it would be in like an apocalyptic sort of book. And it is apocalyptic, but it really has more to do with her life and her perspective on growing up in a world that's gonna end. So it's well done and I use it constantly when I teach.

[00:12:18] Rene: And so I always recommend if people say what's a
great, well written novel I will point them there.

[00:12:25] Christopher: That's good. And what was that called again?

[00:12:27] Rene: The Age of Miracles.

[00:12:29] Christopher: The Age of Miracles. Wow. Good
recommendations ya'll. So I'm going to recommend a book that our
children's readers are going to appreciate.
 
[00:12:37] Christopher: And if you haven't read this, I highly
recommend it if you write for middle graders or really anyone, if you
write, you should read this book. But this I read this book when after I
had read a lot of middle grade books, lot of one-off adventures, singular
storylines. Theres's a trend in the industry if you have to keep it simple,
right? Cuz they're kids.

[00:12:59] Christopher: [00:13:00] And then I read Holes by Louis
Sachar. And it was written in 1998. It's about a kid named Stanley.
Stanley Yelnats, his last name is the same as his first but reversed. And
he was sent to Camp Green Lake, which was a JV corrections facility
after he was accused of theft. And so he has to go there and it's the
story of his time at this facility.

[00:13:26] Christopher: One of the main things they have to do are dig
holes and they don't know why are we always digging all these holes.
And so it's an adventure and it's a modern day adventure. But what
surprised me about it was how much more than that it was, I thought I
was in for another one-off adventure. And instead, first of all, there were
multiple time periods that took place in the book.

[00:13:51] Christopher: I didn't expect that. It got into touching on the mythical and almost into fairy category or territory. [00:14:00] And then it went beyond that and challenges you as a reader. It gets into. Themes of destiny and racism and homelessness and purpose. And it just will
absolutely blow your socks off when you're reading it and you don't
expect it from, first of all, from this book.

[00:14:22] Christopher: You think it's just gonna be an adventure. You
don't expect it from a middle grade novel. And it is just so good on so
many levels and this. Levels is really the right word to use because I saw
how there were so many layers to what this book was. And as someone
I had written, when I went and started reading this book, I had already
written a couple dozen books of my own for middle graders, right?

[00:14:46] Christopher: So was feeling like I was into a groove of how
these things are written and how these are done. And then I read this
book and realized I didn't know the first thing about writing books for
middle graders because it had so many layers and [00:15:00] symbolism
and things like that in it. I never even really considered going to that
level, and so it changed my definition of what a really good middle grade
book could be.

[00:15:13] Christopher: And so if you're into, like I say, children's books, you're into just a good story. I recommend Holes by Louis Sachar. I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly. But it's just a fantastic book really good. And look for the layers as you read through it and I think you'll be surprised how many there are.

[00:15:30] Christopher: So anyway, so that's my recommendation. Let's go around again. Mine was Holes by Louis Sachar. Gena. What did you
recommend? Which one was yours?

[00:15:37] Gena: I recommended The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

[00:15:39] Christopher: Yes. Very good. Classic book. And Rene, you
had two of them. What were your two again?

[00:15:45] Rene: Mine was the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by
Rebecca Skloot and Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

[00:15:54] Christopher: Yeah. So we'd love to have you guys read
these and let us know what you think. Go ahead and put them on your
reading list, [00:16:00] and as you get to them, let us know if you agree
that they are good or what you got out of them. And we'd also love to
hear from you what are some of the books that you've read that you
believe other writers, every writer must read and why?

[00:16:14] Christopher: It doesn't mean it has to be the best book in the
world, it just means it has to be there's some reason you think writers
need to read this, we'd love to hear about that. If we start collecting
those, maybe we'll do another podcast where we cover what some of
ya'lls favorites are. Because, we're not in this alone.

[00:16:28] Christopher: We gotta do this thing with other people. And
the reason is why Gena?

[00:16:33] Gena: Because together we have writing momentum.

[00:16:36] Christopher: All right, we'll see ya'll next week. Bye-bye.