Kyla Stone’s Top 5 Craft Books

Alessandra Torre, Inkers Con co-founder and contributor

We recently had the pleasure of having bestselling post-apocalyptic thriller author Kyla Stone on our stage at Inkers Con. She shared her detailed plan on how she tripled her income when she began to write to market.

She also joined our all-star cast of bestselling authors during a panel discussion. During that discussion, she mentioned that she continually focuses on and improves her writing skills by reading a craft book in between every book she writes. We loved this idea! Imagine how good you would get at a skill if you trained yourself on a consistent basis and made it a priority.

Wanting to improve our own writing acumen, we asked Kyla for her top 5 craft book recommendations. Here they are!

1. Take off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker. This is great for pantsers and those who desire a loose framework rather than a heavily structured plot. Great for beginners.
2. Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. This plotting book is great for beginners and includes basic “tent pole” beats.
3. The Anatomy of Story by John Truby. This book is a deep dive into theme, necessary beats for the most potent emotional response from your readers, and mixing genres like a boss.
4. Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Another intensive, deep dive into structure, but fabulous.
5. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. A classic book on archetypal story-telling—the classic, mythic beats that underly the best epic fantasy, sci-fi, superhero stories, etc.

We hope you check out these books – and that Kyla’s example inspires you to continually improve your own writing craft.

Update: Kyla Stone was a speaker at the 2022 Inkers Con conference (which is still available to watch). The upcoming 2024 Inkers Con conference offers dozens of brand new classes, Q&As, author discussions and more! Join us in Dallas or online!