Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5456 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Synopsis
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!

Customer Reviews

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!

30 days?!
First things first, I haven't read this book.

However, I am a novelist with nine completed novels under my belt, and I can tell you two very important things. The first is that you're not going to write anything like a novel in 30 days, not unless you can dedicate yourself to the task for 12 hours a day or more for the whole of that time. If you have a full-time job, forget it. I work full-time and it takes me four or five months to write a first draft of a novel. Then the work really begins.

Secondly, 50,000 words isn't a novel. Not at all. I've seen another reviewer talking about writing something this length in 30 days after reading this book - well, great, but if you work on an average of 300 words per page then a paperback copy would be 166 pages. Not a novel in my book - more like half. A nice little novella. Go and have a look in your local bookshop and find a normal looking paperback. Count the words on any page. Multiply it by the number of pages in the book. It won't be 50,000. I work to a guide of 100,000 words.

Writing a novel is tremendous fun and very rewarding, but you need to go into it knowing just how much work you have to put into it for the result to be any good. It's not a question of spending an hour or two a night for a month and then having it finished - it will be a long hard slog, and that's just the first draft.

Wish I could give 4-1/2 stars
This book was created by National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) founder Chris Baty. It is an excellent book for an aspiring writer regardless of whether you participate in NANOWRIMO or not. It gives clear instruction on the key elements of novel writing and also proves to be a great cheerleader for the cause of getting that first draft finished. I enjoyed it thoroughly and found it very encouraging. Since this book is very basic and mostly targeted at the novice writer, it deserves more than 4 stars, but not quite 5 stars. This book would be a good addition to any new writer's library.