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Stephen King has the classic of the work:
https://stephenking.com/works/nonfiction/on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft.html
If you want something more esoteric, there’s metafiction (see William H. Gass’ “Philosophy and the Form of Fiction“ for the originations of the term) and authors like Borges (“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”) and Nabokov (Pale Fire)
Metafiction sounds interesting, thanks
Recommending Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium, the lectures he has been preparing shortly before his death.
Not an assembly guide for a work of literature, but it'll help your own process if it's already ongoing and you want to improve.
The lectures also have some comments on what Calvino himself was doing here and there and why.
cool, thanks, I do like "memoirs of the craft" books also
Since all your examples are science fiction, you might be interested in science fiction studies—see in particular the list of societies and journals at the end of the article, which you can go to for studies of particular works.
that's peculiar there's no overarching genre for SF studies that i see, just sf studies.
thanks, at least i can look up a few sf titles to start.
You might find writing guides relevant to your interests. For example, "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card contains some details about how the author came to write Hart's Hope and other novels. "Scene & Structure" by Jack Bickham might also be interesting -- I don't remember discussion of specific books in it, but it might scratch a similar itch for how-it's-made style content.
Some books also contain introductions/forewords/afterwords with details about how the book was written. A bunch of OSC's novels (like some editions of Ender's Game) come to mind specifically -- I read those back when I was curious about maybe trying to become a writer, so that's the most prominent example in my mind, but I'm sure there are others. I've also seen translations of a number of works where the translators include really long introductions explaining some of their choices -- and sometimes criticize earlier translations.
i have read several writing guides for just that reason after i came across King's On Writing.
good idea, thanks.