How Not to Write a Novel: A Book review, or Save the kitten!

I have a lot to say about writing these days, but my thoughts are a muddle. So I'll start with a summary of a writing book I read.

I took out this one--How Not to Write a Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark--because it seemed like something I could pick and choose my way through, but I liked the premise so much, I decided to speed-read the whole thing.*

Oddly enough I didn't realize til now that this was the same book my friend Swissgirl had photographed for me in London years ago cause the cover was funny. The library edition didn't have this great cover.

The premise: Every writing book tells you different, contradictory advice. But if you locked those authors in a room with slowly rising water, and no chance of escape until they reached a consensus, this book would be the result. <--This is the funny. (Except I wrote it more concisely because their writing, though funny, is oddly stilted at times.)

Here's more of the funny: 

In re using your book to blab about Stuff: "The unpublished novelist should remember that his potential readers are people just like the friends and co-workers who didn't want to hear this stuff in person."


In re a setting where 100% of the characters are white and middle to upper class unless it's rural Sweden: "This will eventually give the reader an eerie feeling that some form of ethnic cleansing has taken place."

In re sex scenes: "Giving a reader a sex scene that is only half right is like giving her half a kitten."

In re sex and comedy and postmodernism: "Any of the following crimes against fiction can prevent the publication of your novel. Committing several will prevent the publication of anyone whose name is similar to yours, just in case."

You'll be entertained, even as you're shamed for your literary crimes. Now here are...

The kind of advice they give, not shared in other writing books:

* When every passing mood is lovingly detailed--a play by play of your protagonist's every passing emotion. Romance genre authors do this a lot. I get Le Tired of hearing what people are thinking over and over. Especially as they think about the same problem over and over and over. I'm all: Georgette Heyer never did this to me.

* Excitedly sharing everything you learned while researching. I learned this in high school when I read Lace II. At the time I thought the author was showing off, but Newman & Mittelmark are right it's probably just excitement. My favie Connie Willis does this cause she's a research goddess. (Mind, it didn't stop her from just winning her 7th Nebula. That's 10 Hugos and 7 Nebulas, boys-who-read-sci-fi-but-have-never-tried-Connie-Willis.)

* Characters who laugh disproportionately at each others' jokes. It's best, they advise, to err on the side of caution. So very true. I have a friend who has sworn off one particular author because she can't stand all the snickering that goes on over witticisms that just aren't witty. Mind you, this is hard when you're writing, because sometimes you need to show your characters bonding by laughing at something together. And then you re-read your own scene and you're all: "This sounds lame." Easier in a first person book when you can write "And then we laughed like loons" and your readers can always pass it off as an unreliable narrator.

* Don't sneak in a propaganda pitch for your idée fixe: Daylight savings time is bad, or the tenure system is bad, or root canals are bad, or whatever. Ya this one happens a lot in what passes for entertainment by political radicals. Sometimes you come across a political comic or graphic novel, and you know it's meant to be funny because somebunny radical has written a review saying it's the biting satire, but really it's so unfunny I'd rather go do a little dusting. It's not good satire if you're just coming out and making your point. Don't encourage these people.

Things I could identify with:

* Introducing characters for no good reason, or for one reason only, or as a big family mass, or because you think you need to show that the character has a mother so there's a "Hi dear how are you" phone call scene. <-- I've had to catch and fix varieties of these in my writing.

* Poorly rendered non-native English: My last book has French-speaking and accented characters, so I had to work very hard to find the right way to tackle it.

* Character's thoughts transcribed for no reason, usually taking stock of his life while watching the sunset or cleaning out the closet. lol lol and lol. Because I was writing a sweet romance, which I don't even like, I made myself do things I don't even like, like Too Much Inner Monologue. There are no sunsets, but my heroine does unpack a box. Shiver.

* Poor renderings of other classes: In my case it's rendering Other Ethnicities, because my heroine is half Mohawk and half Nuu-chah-nulth. I see failure as inevitable and something to be humbly accepted her, but I have to aim for the most respectful failure possible.

Points I didn't agree with:

* Their view on animals was basically don't do them, unless the animals are the ones solving the mysteries. So ridick. They're clearly haters. Might as well say don't write toddlers, because they play about the same role in comedy books as animals. Besides writers like Jennifer Crusie and Jilly Cooper who write wonderful animal characters, the Georgia Nicolson series wouldn't be half as funny without the Angus the Cat terrorizing the neighborhood, and Georgia's sister Libby, who dresses up Georgia's Jesus statue and says it's Barbie's cousin Sandra. Just shows you can't take all writing advice books as gospel.

The only person who can wrap Angus around her finger is Libby.

* They had a weird bit about "the protagonist is not allowed to [romantically] settle for less" like the nice neighbor best friend. They followed this up with a better worded point, that the love interest has to be sexually attractive in some way. I would nix their earlier point, but agree with this one. As decreed in the Tao of Steve: Be excellent in her presence. Everyone is sexy once you see them doing something they're good at, whether it's witty insults, canoeing, caring for someone sick, or speed accounting. To go from Best Bud to Hero, he (or she) needs to show excellence at some point. That can be the neighbor or best friend.

Bottom line:

Oh you want to borrow or buy this book. It's a gas and will prevent any authors with similar sounding names as yours' from getting rejected.

Their next book:

_____________
*I didn't understand speed-reading until I became a Poli Sci major at a university where the profs all believed in huge reading lists. (Unusually so, if people from other schools were to be believed.) The only way to survive was to learn how to skim a reading, figure out which parts you really had to read, and which parts you could skim--usually the examples, and anywhere the author repeated him or herself. That's when you learn that most non-fiction books (outside of histories) are 20% argument, 40% examples, and 20% repetition. Really bad ones are 20% examples and 40% repetition. And REALLY bad ones have a big font, are slim, sold in a glossy hard cover, charge $40, are called Business books and promise to make you a millionaire. #1 Lesson From University: Always read the article version of something if it's available, rather than the book form.