There are many, many guides to Creative Writing. Some will inspire you, some will help you, some will annoy you. Here’s my top three. It’s highly unlikely that they will suit everyone, but if you’ve got radically different opinions from me, the answer’s obvious: write your own top three.
- Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew (first published in 1998).
- Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000)
- James Wood, How Fiction Works (2008)