Product Description

Author Chris Baty revs up the tradition of The Artist's Way, Bird by Bird, and Writing Down the Bones with his singular guide for high-speed novelistic access. Founder of National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo - Baty shares the secrets for knocking out a novel in no time. With week-specific overviews, pep "talks," and essential survival tips for today's word warriors, this results-oriented, quickfix strategy is perfect for people who want to nurture their inner artist and then hit print!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39535 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

About the Author
CHris Baty is a freelance writer and writing coach whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Village Voice, SF Weekly, and Lonely Planet guidebooks. He lives in Oakland, California.

Customer Reviews

Not a writing handbook, but an effective kick in the backside.
I'm not 100% convinced that I should be giving this book five stars, as it has the potential to be misleading as to what you can expect from it; but given the number of times I've read it in the past year, the number of times it has made me laugh out loud, and so on, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. (And maybe it'll balance out a certain gent who gave it one star when he'd not even read it ;))

This book is emphatically NOT a writing manual, style guide, whatever. It does exactly what it says on the tin: gets you trying (and in many cases succeeding) to write a shortish novel in 30 days. The quality of said novel might be a little ropey, depending on talent, time, etc, but quite literally thousands of people have found to their surprise and delight that it works.

This isn't a book about how to write the perfect, finished novel; it's about getting a rough draft down on paper so you have something to work with, - and many, many people continue to prove that, yes, you can do that in the space of a month.

It's also not really about producing something that can necessarily be edited into a publishable script. This is sometimes a happy side effect, but it isn't the main point of the book: this book approaches writing the same way most non-professionals approach golf, dancing, music - novel writing as recreation, rather than potential job.

This book is about getting people writing fiction and getting them over the first hurdle, NOT about producing finished, publisher-worthy books in a month. A small but significant number of nanowrimo participants go on to get their polished up book-in-a-month efforts published - a couple of such success stories are mentioned in the book whose books are widely available - so it undoubtedly can be done, but it isn't really the intended end result for all nanowrimo books.

This book won't suit everyone's needs, but it's a great, entertaining little bundle of encouragement, amusement, and blackmail designed to stop you saying "one day I'll write a novel" and say instead "I'm going to write a novel and I'm going to do it now".

If you're looking for detailed ways to plan your novel, grammar guides, style, exercises, etc, this book is not for you (or certainly not on its own). If you're an accomplished writer who has no problems with motivation, similarly, this book may not be what you're looking for (though some established writers have successfully used NaNo as a springboard to reinvigorate their writing or get them over writer's block). If what you need is a kick up the backside to get you writing and get your novel off your chest, then it's certainly worth your while, because that is exactly what this book plans to deliver, and it does it exceedingly well and in an entertaining fashion.

I'm currently mid-wrimo, after starting late and continuing my story post wrimo '07. I've written more in the last year than I ever have in my life on any one project (indeed, possibly just more than I've ever written: 55K and counting) and more in the last 10 days (nearly 20K) than I have ever written in a time frame less than months... largely due to the inspiration, encouragement, and sheer blackmail tactics of nanowrimo and this book. If your creative side needs kicking into gear, then I personally cannot recommend this highly enough.

update: I won NaNo on the 28th, and boy did it feel good.

For anyone wondering if something worthwhile can come out of a rough draft put together in one short month... I have recently found out that Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen's New York Times bestseller, currently in production as a Hollywood movie, started out life as a nano novel. Need I say more?

Motivation with bells on
If you're teetering on the edge of starting a novel, I highly recommend this book.

It's a fun read, but what you take away from it is the realisation that it really doesn't matter that much WHAT you get on paper in the first draft, as long as you get the story down. You realise that there's no point in agonising over beautiful prose at this stage - all you need to do is pour a nice glass of vino and bash the story out. The time for refinements and polish comes later.

The book's a great kick up the a*se if you're procrastinating about starting a novel, and it's responsible for me getting 50,000 words on paper in six weeks, which says a lot.

Funny, brilliant, best
Chris Baty's guide to writing novels is simply the best available today. It is written specifically for those who try (dare) to write a 50,000 word novel during National Novel Writing Month. But his hints and insights into the creative process behind writing novels hold true even if you allow yourself a bit more time. Baty's fun and immensely encouraging book has guided me to my own first draft novel, and I found that, in every part of the way, his advice was spot on. Highly recommended!