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How Not to Write a Novel
How Not to Write a Novel | Sandra Newman, Howard Mittelmark
"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.
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RaeLovesToRead
How Not to Write a Novel | Sandra Newman, Howard Mittelmark
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#two4tuesday @TheSpineView
Thanks for the tag @The_Penniless_Author

1) Personally, I would tend to use author to describe somebody who had either been published independently or obtained a certain degree of commercial success with their writing.

2) I'm a writer who aspires to author-dom.

TheSpineView Good luck on your journey to being an author! Thanks for playing! 3y
RaeLovesToRead @TheSpineView Thanks! I mainly write poetry but have been trying to branch out for a while 😊 3y
43 likes2 comments
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RaeLovesToRead
How Not to Write a Novel | Sandra Newman, Howard Mittelmark
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Day 1 and I'm MINUS 16,000 words, because I looked at the 16,000 words I'd already written and decided they were tripe. So here I am! Back to square one. Let's try to breathe some life into this mess...

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo and already falling into despair?! 😵

Branwen I'm doing like a Nanowrimo hybrid! 😂 Instead of focusing on a number of words each day, I'm just working on developing the habit of sitting down to write for an hour each day. This is much better for my anxiety! 😁 3y
RaeLovesToRead @Branwen That's a really good idea! What sort of thing are you writing? I figure that if I write any words at all today, it's more words than I wrote yesterday. And yet, it's so disheartening looking back on my work and thinking "nope, start again!" ? 3y
JamieArc I am, and doing something similar to @Branwen I won‘t be focusing on writing a coherent story, but will just try to write something every day, whatever comes to mind, just to build a habit of writing every day. 3y
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BookBelle84 I have a similar plan as @Branwen I'm just trying to get into the habit of progress everyday. My focus is more on editing than adding more words. 3y
RaeLovesToRead @JamieArc Yeah, I'll try to relax a bit and just get down a bit each day! 3y
RaeLovesToRead @BookBelle84 I thought about editing what I already had but I wasn't happy with it so I'm starting over! 3y
Yuki_Onna Good luck! You GOT THIS!!! 👍🧡 3y
RaeLovesToRead @JamieArc @BookBelle84 Good luck with your projects too 😊 3y
RaeLovesToRead @Yuki_Onna Thanks for the vote of confidence! 😁❤ 3y
Yuki_Onna Sure! 🤘 - Btw, Ben Jones is on TV again... 😊 3y
RaeLovesToRead @Yuki_Onna My future husband 💕 haha. Maybe for NaNoWriMo I should write a romance about an adorable Welsh police sergeant who falls madly in love with a neurotic doctor from the East Midlands... bound to be a bestseller 🤣🤣 3y
Yuki_Onna Oohhh, how I'd love to read that! 👏🤣 3y
BookmarkTavern Only got in about 800 words today! 😂 3y
RaeLovesToRead @ozma.of.oz I did 600... hurray for AlmostWriMo 😄🙂 3y
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FourofFiveWits
How Not to Write a Novel | Sandra Newman, Howard Mittelmark
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Haha

Riveted_Reader_Melissa 😂😂👏👏 8y
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The_Literary_Jedi
How Not to Write a Novel | Sandra Newman, Howard Mittelmark
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This book is fun and informative in a way most 'how-to's' are dull and laundry list like. It livens up the act of editing to become something a writer looks forward too instead of dreads. Very helpful!

The_Literary_Jedi #augustphotochallenge #day28 #feelgoodbooks #augustofpages - I love to read style guides and inspirational writing guides like the ones pictured. They make me feel good about writing, they help me reach my students the craft and art of writing well, regardless of genre or assignment. 8y
TheWordJar I love this whole shelf!! 😍 Coming at it from the editorial side of things, I really enjoyed How Not to Write a Novel. How many editors are kicking themselves for not writing it first?? 8y
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