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How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling (How to Write a ...
James N. Frey

St. Martin's Press, 1987 - 192 pages

average customer review:based on 89 reviews
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   highly recommended  highly recommended






Informative and Practical

James N. Frey has provided the aspiring novelist with an invaluable guide for improving both content and style. Frey's rich experience in the field is inspirational. He writes with clarity and energy and each chapter is replete with positive advice. Frey leads the reader through the complete writing process, from an idea's inception to its ultimate flowering. Some examples worth citing are:

Structure (Chapter 2); 'Try to avoid predictability. Start at the middle, then do the end and finish with the beginning.'

Language (Chapter 3); 'Avoid cliches like the plague. They make all writing dull as dishwater. If you use mixed metaphors, you are skating on thin ice and could end up in hot water. An inclination towards hyperbole, or exaggeration, is a million times worse than any other problem. Don't confuse tenses because publishers will rejected manuscripts that have been containing obvious errors. Don't use a big word when a breviloquent one can be just as effective. And finally, never start a sentence with a conjunction and punctuate correctly?'

Editing (Chapter 6); 'Revise your work at lest five (6) times before you sended it to a agent or an publisher.'

If you follow the steps that Frey has so carefully detailed in this book, your unpublished days will be numbered. Around 15,000.


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Loved this book

I have always wanted to write a novel and this was just the book to get me started. It was informative and to the point and a quick easy read. It provided me with a lot of good tips and I highly recommend it.









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A Damn Good Guide to Writing a Novel

I have recently purchased several highly rated books on writing and this is the best. Frey gives enough specifics of how to write a novel to get you started but doesn't provide a cookbook approach that stifles creativity. He thoroughly covers character development, defining your premise, providing conflict, telling a story, viewpoint, and other topics. I found this book very helpful and highly recommend it to others.


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Excellent guideline!

If you can't write, this book won't make you an author. What it can do, is to help you to understand the essentials. I read it after I had written my first novel 'The Deity' ISBN 974100609, and there were are number of things I could have paid more attention to. Very recommendable if you want to know about writing or you want to write yourself.
One hint for the aspiring author: the difference between a great writer and a bestselling author is at least 1 million dollars in marketing budget!


A useful book on writing

I've read around half a dozen books on how to write fiction and this book was very useful. Lots of tips, tricks, do-this and don't-do-this. Clear and concise explanations why you shouldn't use certain writing styles and in addition he presents solutions, for example how to create good characters and how to avoid stereotypes etc. Frey is detailed and focuses on problem solving and the actual handcraft, rather than being arty. The book has a practical approach and it's a damn good one.

You might want to combine this book with Stephen King's "On writing", which has fewer tips, but is worth reading anyway.


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