What do you call...

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I'll start with The Character Naming Sourcebook and The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, two excellent examples of resources easily found online. Both of these were purchased back in the day when I didn't have as quick access to the Web as I do today. But I still use them a lot, only because sometimes a quick Google search for a name brings me an hour later to something completely unrelated. Like recipes for chocolate peanut butter cookies when all I wanted was something popular to call a girl in 19th century Ireland. Can anyone relate?

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Related sort of, but immensely helpful has been Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary. You know that feeling when you're in the middle of a great scene and you've found yourself saying "what the heck is that word for...."? Look no further! If you know the definition but not the word, this book will lead you right to it. Using thematic categories, you'll be able to search for a variety of descriptions. For example, "Hair" will direct you to dozens of names for hairstyles through the ages, such as bouffants, Piccadilly fringes and just about every mustache you might need. I highly recommend this one (the book, not necessarily the mustaches).

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Writing for Kids

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Need anything specific to Kidlit? Cheryl Klein's The Magic Words and Mary Kole's Writing Irresistable Kidlit are excellent. Both were recommended to me through Twitter and I can't speak highly enough about them. Geared especially for those writing young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG), you'll find dozens of exercises sprinkled throughout explanations and examples to help guide you through your writing process for the younger set. Also really helpful is Nancy Lamb's The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, which is full of world building exercises and examples.

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If you're wondering whether you're using appropriate vocab in your novel, you can check out Alijandra and Tayopa Mogilner's Children's Writer's Word Book. This is a thesaurus that breaks down words and which grades they're typically taught. I used this when writing my first MG novel just to make sure I wasn't using anything out of the ordinary. 

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Characters

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Your books need people and the best stories need characters who we haven't seen a hundred times before. Do you need something to help freshen yours up? Dwight Swain's Creating Characters: How to Build Story People will give you actionable advice on how to master your own creations. K. M. Weiland's Creating Character ARCS provides brilliant insight on building both major and minor characters to catch and keep your readers' attention. And Rachel Ballon's Breathing Life Into Your Characters  is chock full of exercises to give your story people emotional and psychological depth. You'll find ways to build backstory, create satisfying villains, have characters cope with trauma, and much more.

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The Story Itself

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Most of these titles were recommended among the AuthorMentorMatch round 3 mentees when we were asking each other about craft books everyone found most useful. They center around building the book itself: how to structure your story and how to make sure you're hooking your reader from page one. And there's clearly something to them--they're all highly mentioned across writing groups on Twitter and Facebook:

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Jessica Brody's Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

John Truby's The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Writer

Lisa Cron's Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting  Novel

Lisa Cron's Wired for Story

Donald Maass's The Emotional Craft of Fiction

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Bonus:

Victoria Lynn Schmidt's Story Structure Architect. This is an excellent compendium of plot types to help you start your own unique story.

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Jack Heffron's The Writer's Idea Workshop. Prompts for taking your spark of an idea to a compelling finished product.

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Steven Taylor Goldsberry's The Writer's Book of Wisdom: 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft. Small and colorful, you'll breeze through this one.

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World Building

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Ok, I admittedly don't have a lot for this, and two of these are about 20 (yikes, time flies!) years old, so some of the info in them might be a bit outdated.

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Writer's Digest Books produced Code Blue and Order in the Court as guides to the medical and legal profession. They're definitely both worth a peek as a starting point if your book touches on these fields. 

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I also love the Writer's Guide to Places, which breaks down all 50 US states, 51 major cities, and 10 Canadian provinces with information pertinent to each. It's not definitive--it's a concise 390 pages, but it will give you a bunch of details to juice up your world.

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A Favorite

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I've created a blog post for this one, but I love it so much I can't help put it in multiple places. If you're in a writer's group or working with critique partners (CPs), which are indispensable for your career as an author, Becky Levine's The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide is a must-have. Whether you're experienced at providing feedback or don't know where to start when reading someone else's work, this will give you tons of direction. It will also help you process your own feedback to start your revisions and has plenty of worksheets to help you plan. Check it out! 

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Do you have any favorite craft resources, print or otherwise? 

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