There are two books that teach you all that books can teach you about writing. They are:
20 Problems of the Fiction Writer, John Gallishaw, 1930
Characters & Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing), Orson Scott Card, 1988
The first book comes mostly from a time before TV, radio, and talking movies, when everyone got their fresh narrative fiction from Blue Book, Argosy, and Colliers (fiction magazines of the early 20th century). Gallishaw taught fiction writing at Harvard. This book is what he taught.
He offers a few important insights into writing fiction. First, there are only two kinds of narrative stories.
The first is the familiar story of accomplishment. A strong, sympathetic character is faced with a narrative problem that must be solved — a foe to be defeated, a disaster to be averted, an obstacle to be overcome. The beginning of the story presents the problem. The scenes consist of attempts to solve the problem, which end in failure but further illuminate the nature of the problem. Each scene has its own beginning and ends with a link to the broader problem.
The second is the story of decision. In this story, the narrative problem comes at the end — the story is all beginning. Once the decision is made, the story is over. That means the story is all beginning — the hardest part of a story to write because you’re not relying on the narrative interest to pull the reader through. It requires the most skill in enticing the reader to keep reading.
Gallishaw points out that there are several things that hold a reader’s interest — and none of them can hold that interest for more than a few hundred words. Think about newspaper stories. Even a story about a disaster or a crime or a unique person is seldom more than a few hundred words. The only thing that holds the reader’s interest is a narrative problem that must be solved — and that can hold your reader through all three books of the “Lord of the Rings” or all seven books of the Murderbot Diaries.
He presents the craft of fiction writing on the level of a technical manual — sort of on the level of Put bolt A in slot B and turn with 5 foot-pounds of torque. You can get this book on Amazon for $53, or you can go to a good university library.
https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Problems-Fiction-Writer-Gallishaw/dp/B000HXER3Q
The second book is more recent. There are a lot of reasons to criticize Card that have nothing to do with his writing skills, but you should set them aside and read this book.
It provides a clear and easily understood explication of point of view — the most essential element of fiction writing. I picked up this book, saw what my writing needed, and began selling stories literally within a month.
It’s also available on Amazon.
These are basically structural books about fiction. If you are a self-aware writer and structural analysis helps you, they are worth their weight in gold. If you just write on what you might call instinct, you are probably following the structural rules without fully understanding them (after all, you’ve been reading narrative fiction for most of your life). But seeing them laid out with specificity and detail can only help you.
Beyond that, you can apply all you know about philosophy and psychology and history to describe how someone starts off feeling powerless and alienated before his situation, how they progress through challenges that only make them more powerless and alienated, and how an epiphany — a final burst of enlightenment — leads them to take radical action using human powers (courage, justice, wisdom, faith) to resolve the situation (or fail, in a tragedy).
I hope this is helpful.