You’ve finally done it. You’ve created a four-hundred-something page manuscript with it all. Your soon-to-be book has a modern and untapped love theme, it handles contemporary mores in a irreverent and upbeat fashion, it has the unspeakable deed of the month, and it has telekinetic ninjas and zombie dinosaurs in a revisionist historical novel of the Barbary Wars. You may have even been one of those lucky freaks who’ve gotten a response from one of the big six publishers expressing interest in your project with a blank check enclosed. But please. Before you send those quires to potential buyers or doubleclick your way into self-publishing immortality, do one thing for the reading community: read How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Neuman.
So as not to smother your oeuvre, the authors have tailored an approach to writing instruction that just might make a new section pop up in book stores: the “how-not-to” section. Chapter by chapter the authors undergo the oversights of the subject of writing. Nowhere in life will aversion to the theme of a self-help book get you so far. If you have the great American novel in your sights, Howard and Sandra have double-handedly compiled a helpful litany of “ain’ts” comprised of 200 classic examples of what isn’t good writing.
On the subject of character dialogue, the road most traveled for new writers is the one with the most exposition. Here is a bad example from the book:
'The fact is our Cincinnati, Ohio, apartment is adequate for two bachelors, but I feel you should get your own place, now that you are engaged to your blonde girlfriend, Jane, who virtually lives here, as I’ve told you many times before.'
On the same theme of dialogue, the recycling of the word “said” doesn’t sit well with new writers. But the result of explicitly coordinating all the dialogue with the delivery can be just as echoic as reusing the word “said.” Here’s another bad example from the book:
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Article comments
1 - Jennifer Bogart
With the rapid rise of self-publishing it seems that this could be a much needed title on the reference shelves of authors to be. Entertaining review, thanks for the excerpts!
2 - Lisa Damian
Great review. I found this book to be one of the most helpful and entertaining writing manuals (or how not-to manuals) on the market today. I recommended it to every writer I know.
3 - James
Thanks for the feedback.
4 - Joanne Huspek
This is a good review and I hope to pick this book up so that I won't make those mistakes!