I have a whole shelf on my bookshelves dedicated to writing books and my favourite by far, in terms of beauty, is Wonderbook – The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer. It’s a fantastic book to pick up and flick through to get the creative juices flowing. The book can really turn your ideas upside down and inside out leaving you with something entirely different after just a few pages. The beautiful illustrations are often weird and wacky as are the graphics which have often made me smile and even laugh.

A lot of the advice in Wonderbook isn’t new. For anyone that’s read other writing books, there’s familiar advice on characterisation, plot and structure, etc., but it’s the presentation of that information which makes Wonderbook special.

There are interviews with the wonderful Neil Gaiman, as well as the mighty George R. R. Martin along with a host of some of the other huge names in literature that are all really interesting.

Wonderbook is a great book for inspiring any type of writer, but I think this is a must-have book for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and other speculative genres.

What’s your favourite writing book?

Lou x