Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34727 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Synopsis
A collection of articles from Writer's Digest and the Market books. The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing covers the basics of a best-selling topic: novel writing. From crafting a story and using descriptive language to breaking through writer's block, mastering genres and getting an agent, this book addresses the spectrum of issues pertinent to fiction writers. Readers will find a number of pieces by best-selling authors, including Janet Fitch, Terry Brooks, Sue Grafton, John Updike, Richard Russon, Evan Hunter, and J. A. Jance, and interviews with others, including Kurt Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood. Both novice and experienced writers will find advice in this book that speaks to their dreams of getting their novels published.

Customer Reviews

Excellent tips and packed with information
This Handbook consists of 55 distinct topics and contains a wealth of tips from experienced and successful writers.

If you're setting out on the marathon task of writing a novel, then this title will be most useful. You'll have to write your own book in your own style of course, but this 'Complete Handbook' will make you stop and think about your style of writing, your structure and the general ingredients that go into creating a good novel.

Every writer has their own technique and 'voice' and no doubt thinks their own work is brilliant; however, there are a number of considerations to think about. These are set out in this book.

The best way to study novel writing is probably to analyse existing texts in your chosen area, but we can never stop learning about the arduous art of novel writing.

Really Good
This book is made up of short articles covering all aspects of writing and publishing. This layout is good as it allows you to choose how you read it, i.e. dip in wherever the mood takes you or just read from front to back. I dipped in as i have kids and so don't really have long free periods.

I really liked the different styles of different authors and found most of the info to be either usefull or at least not condescending or too obvious. All the authors are listed in the index so you can skip straight to your favourite ones to see what they have to say on thier given subject.

I bought a couple of similar type books and this was the one that i kept.

Well worth a look if you want insight into novel writing etc and full of little tips that can help get the fingers going again. I really liked it.

A very interesting book
This book tackles novel writing in a helpful, positive way. Each chapter addresses one element, eg how to create characters. It sets out the issues the writer should be thinking of, points out the errors the novice novel writer typically makes, and explors how to avoid such pitfalls. Examples are given to illustrate the point. It is a very readable book and flows well despite the large number of different authors who contributed to its writing.