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How Not to Write a Novel

How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs If You Ever Want to Get Published by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

I enjoyed this book a lot. I laughed out loud while reading it. Many times. Was it valuable? That's hard to say. Much of the content is aimed, I choose to think, at poorer writers than I. But, boy, was it fun to read.

"How Not" was written by a couple of editors who have seen the same mistakes over and over again. Every tip they give is illustrated with a sample, written atrociously with great wit, which will have you smiling, chuckling, or howling out loud.

Much of the book deals with fairly blatant, glaring mistakes. Don't start the novel with a long, detailed, pointless description of a place or of somebody's childhood. Don't lecture your readers about the evils of whatever it is you dislike. There isn't much real value there to a writer who isn't a hack, except for entertainment value.

Toward the end of the book the tips become more advanced and the tone changes. The early stuff has a "skewer the morons" tone. Later on, there are some serious discussions of writing. Parts of it are actually thought-provoking, instead of laugh-provoking.

Overall I didn't get a huge amount from the book. I'm not making most of those novice mistakes. It is, however, a readable and insightful tome, and I recommend it to beginning and intermediate unpublished novelists.

Novel Voices

I approached "Novel Voices" by Jennifer Levasseur with a lot of enthusiasm. The premise is terrific. The authors interviewed 17 award-winning authors and gathered the collected wisdom and insights into one book.

I was quite disappointed. The problem for me is that the novelists were all literary authors. I hadn't heard of a single writer. I didn't recognize anything they'd written. Their bibliographies listed volumes of poetry and collections of short stories along with a few novels. In short, they wrote the kinds of things I don't read and don't write.

I suppose this book has a lot of value for those who aspire to write literary fiction, but my tastes and interests are quite commercial, and I found the book irrelevant and unhelpful. There is nothing wrong with the book itself; I am simply not the target audience.

I'm afraid I can't offer anything specific. I read the book five or six days ago and I remember almost nothing. It wasn't long before I was skimming, looking for something I could relate to, and failing to find it.

O Brave New Blog

I will be taking this blog in a bold new direction in 2010. Some bloggers might worry about alienating their loyal readers with such a move, but I, of course, have no readers.

I have been writing on assignment for Whitesmoke during 2009, creating the same kind of content that I've been posting to this blog. It's a scramble to find enough to write about for Whitesmoke. I don't have enough topics to blog as well without repeating myself. Plus, I'm getting a bit bored with this stuff, since I'm writing about it all the time now. So, I'll be taking "Writing Tips" in a different direction.

Starting immediately, the focus of this blog will be the lessons I learn as a fiction writer who is close to breaking into publication. There will be reviews of books on writing, writing resources, and general insights that I glean as an author.

Since readership quite literally can't get worse, I'm confident that this step is a move in the right direction.

Are you reading this? For the love of God, post a comment.

Thanks,

Brent

Bugs and Words

Etymology - the study of words and their origins
Entomology - the study of insects

Better spelling wonted

Today's fun word that looks like an error but isn't is: Wont!

A wont is a habitual way of doing things. He went to school in the morning, as is his wont. There are also adjective and verb forms. He went to school, as he is wont to do.

Your spellchecker can deceive you. Don't trust it.

Caring Less

If you really don't care at all about something, then you couldn't care less. If you say, "I could care less," then you are saying "I care at least a little."

You can still proscribe drugs

Today's fun word that looks like an error but isn't is: Proscribe!

To proscribe is to condemn or forbid.

Your spellchecker can deceive you. Don't trust it.

Expansive and Expensive

Expansive - very large. Containing a broad expanse.

Expensive - very costly.

Confident and Confidant

"Confident" is an adjective. To be confident is to be certain or sure. It is often used to describe someone who is sure of his ability to handle any situation.

"Confidant" is a noun. A confidant is someone you are willing to tell secrets to, someone you confide in. "Confidant" is masculine. The feminine form is "confidante."

Cant Spell This

Today's fun word that looks like an error but isn't is: Cant!

A cant is a secret language. Examples include Thieves' Cant and Shelta, also known as the Cant, used by Irish Travellers.

Your spellchecker can deceive you. Don't trust it.

Revising and Rewriting

Give your writing a rest before you go back to review it. How long a rest? That depends on what you've written. If it's a paragraph, wait a few minutes. If it's a novel, wait at least several weeks.

It also depends, of course, on whether you face a deadline.

Check your manuscript with a fresh eye. Ideally, leave it alone for a while and then revise it again.

Look at the document macroscopically and check to see if the organization makes sense and the message is clear. Check sentence by sentence and word by word, being picky about grammar, spelling, and word choice. Check every pronoun and ask yourself if it can be misunderstood.

If you have a lot of trouble with spelling and grammar, consider going through the document backwards. This will help you focus on each word and sentence.

If possible, get someone you trust to look over what you've written. Often something that seems perfectly clear to you will be ambiguous or confusing to another reader.

The most important part of revising and rewriting is knowing when to stop. Some writers will literally invest months trying to get the first page perfect, and never move on to the second page. There is a fine line between high standards and thundering idiocy. Be careful not to cross it.

Advice versus Advise

"Advice," rhyming with "spice," is a noun. You give advice and receive advice.

"Advise," rhyming with "wise," is a verb. You advise someone by giving them advice.

Don't be confused by the ‘s’ in "advise." It is pronounced ‘z.’

Show Don't Tell

This one is for the fiction writers out there. This is one of the most-repeated rules in fiction writing, but it's not an easy rule to understand and follow.

Show, don't tell. Telling is easy and simple. Showing is much harder. Showing takes more work and more words. Showing also works much, much better.

I grew up reading the Hardy Boys, the classic stuff published in the 60s. In pretty much every novel, Frank and Joe would get the same sentence of description. Frank was the serious and thoughtful one, while Joe was more impulsive. How much better it would have been to craft a scene that would demonstrate these traits and give us a chance to get to know the characters on our own.

Imagine if the Sherlock Holmes stories began by telling us that Holmes is brilliant, moody, and eccentric, while Watson is an earnest and not as bright. Anyone who has read a few of the stories knows exactly what Holmes and Watson are like. We don't have to take the author's word for it. We've seen the two men in action.

There are, of course, pitfalls to the rule of showing and not telling. We can indicate an emotion in someone by describing their body language. Someone might stiffen, sneer, or clench their fists. However, sometimes it is better to be succinct. Sometimes it is better just to say that a character is annoyed, rather than running through a list of twitches and clenches.

phase/faze

Phase - a noun; a part of something measured in time. He is going through a phase. Do you know the phases of the moon?

Faze - a verb; refers to being disturbed or upset. When the car broke down it didn't faze me.

Averse/Adverse

People are averse, when they have an aversion to something. I am averse to eating Brussels sprouts.

Conditions are adverse. There is a blizzard. I don't want to hike under such adverse conditions.

complement, compliment

Compliment - Something nice you say about someone. Pay someone a compliment.

Complement - Something that makes something complete. The fort has the full complement of troops. That tie is a complement to that suit.

Weeding Out Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Usually (but not always) it is better to eliminate the adverb. Instead, choose a better word to replace the word being modified.

"He ate his food quickly" could be "he bolted his food" or "he wolfed down his food." "She said loudly" could be "she screamed," "she shouted," or "she bellowed." The version without the adverb is actually more descriptive, as well as stronger.

Adverbs that modify adjectives are equally suspicious. "Very small" could be "tiny." "Fairly fat" might be "chubby." An adverb that is modified by another adverb can probably be replaced. "He fights extremely well" is not as elegant as "he fights superbly."

Not every adverb needs to be removed. Consider the above example, "he fights superbly." There isn't a good verb that means "fight superbly." Sometimes the adverb should be left alone.

Adding Variety to your Sentences

If your writing becomes monotonous, you may need some variety among your sentences. If you use the same sentence structure more than twice in a row, your readers may become bored. You can mix things up by adding a particularly long sentence, allowing your prose to flow and swirl as you explore an idea in depth, but what can you do after that? Sentence fragment! Break the rules to give your paragraphs some zip.

Use vs Utilize

Don't use the word "utilize." It's just a pretentious way to say "use." There isn't anything really wrong with the word utilize, but it makes your writing clumsy and less clear.
In Britain, "utilize" is spelled with as "s." Don't use "utilise" either.