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How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide - Paperback | Diverse Reads

How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

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"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted.

"Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'"

"But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly.

"It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!"

Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published.

In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

ISBN-13: 9780061357954

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 04-01-2008

Pages: 272

Product Dimensions: 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

Writer and editor Howard Mittelmark's book reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Hollywood Reporter, Writer's Digest, and other publications. He is the author of the novel Age of Consent. Sandra Newman is the author of the novels The Men, The Heavens (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), and The Country of Ice Cream Star, longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and NPR, as well as several other works of fiction and nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s and Granta, among other publications. She lives in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

How Not to Write a Novel
200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

Chapter One

Beginnings and Setups

A manuscript comes screaming across the sky . . .

Many writers kill their plots in their infancy with an ill-conceived premise or an unreadable opening. Try any of the strategies we've collected in our extensive field work, and you too can cut off narrative momentum at the ankles.

The Lost Sock

Where the plot is too slight

"Fools," Thomas Abrams thought, shaking his head as he completed his inspection of the drainage assembly under the worried eyes of Len Stewart. "Foolish, foolish, fools," he muttered. Squirming out from under the catchment basin, he stood up and brushed off the grit that clung to his gray overalls. Then he picked up his clipboard and made a few notes on the form, while Len waited anxiously for the verdict. Thomas didn't mind making him wait.

"Well," he said, as he finished and put the pen away. "Well, well, well."

"What is it?" Len asked, unable to keep a tremor out of his voice.

"When will you people learn that you can't use a B-142 joint-enclosure with a 1811-D nipple cinch?"

"B-but—" Len stammered.

"Or maybe, let me take a wild guess here, just maybe, you confused an 1811-D with an 1811-E?" He paused to let it sink in before delivering the death-blow. " . . . Again."

He left Len speechless and walked away without a look back, chuckling ruefully as he imagined the look on Len's face when he fully realized the implications of his mistake.

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What People are Saying About This

Lynne Truss

“The teaching of creative writing just entered a whole new era with the publication of How Not to Write a Novel. Heavens, what a joy this book is….”

Table of Contents

Introduction     v
Plot     1
Beginnings and Setups     5
Complications and Pacing     21
Endings     41
Character     53
Character Essentials     55
Getting to Know Your Hero     61
Sidekicks and Significant Others     71
Bad Guys     85
Style-The Basics     99
Words and Phrases     101
Sentences and Paragraphs     113
Dialogue     131
Style-Perspective and Voice     153
Narrative Stance     155
Interior Monologue     173
The World of the Bad Novel     187
Setting     191
Research and Historical Background     199
Theme     211
Special Effects and Novelty Acts-Do Not Try this at Home     225
How Not to Sell a Novel     239
Afterword     257
Index     259
About the Authors     263