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BOOK REVIEW
How
to Write a Damn Good Novel
A practical, systematic, witty and wise approach to writing a novel that
will be published, will be read, and will be enjoyed. Perfect for beginners
and professional writers who need a crash course in the basics of storytelling
(5 stars).
Hardcover: 174 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.74 x 8.55 x 5.81 Publisher: St. Martin's Press; ISBN: 0312010443; 1st Ed. edition (December 1987)
@Book Review
Review: Letter
to a Novelist
by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Author of "This is the Place" And "Harkening: A Collection
of Stories Remembered"
Dear
Fellow Novelist:
My son gave me "How to Write A Damn Good Novel" by James
N. Frey as a gift. I thought that he might be trying to tell me something
about my work; because I am a professional novelist (meaning I have had
one published, I suppose), I listen to criticism. That is how one really
gets to be a professional novelist and I am practicing.
I have to admit I wasn't expecting to learn a whole lot from this book.
Call it pride or even high falutin' hubris, but I have a shelf of how-to
books, have taken classes in novel writing, have attended writers' conferences
and generally immersed myself in any of the how-tos ever created for a
writer. Still, if someone-especially a handsome, smart someone like
my son was trying to tell me something!
Besides, at the moment I have a bad case of novel-block. Not writers'
block, mind you, (which I've never had) but an intense, abiding unwillingness,
inability and/or general malaise about starting another novel. I
can't tell you if "Damn Good Novel" will help me with that problem
(I just finished it), but I can tell you that even if you know your
craft reasonably well (or even damn well), I am pretty sure you'll find
a new tidbit or new perspective in this book that will make it worthwhile.
Occasionally Frey uses a stale simile of the same sort against which he
vociferously warns his readers. It is well worth the ennui you will
feel when you spot these in order to find other writing tidbits within:
terms like "homo fictus" or "crucible" or "insistence
versus resistance." Maybe you haven't yet run into Artistotle's "peripety"
yet. You may also remember a concept you've forgotten.
I feel absolutely certain that most novelists-new or otherwise--won't
be sorry they read Frey's damn good how-to book.
Copyright © 2002 Carolyn Howard-Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's novel "This is the Place" was
given its publisher's highest award for sales, was awarded Sime-Gen's
Reviewers' Choice Award for mainstream literature last spring, and was
named Top Ten Novels in the Preditor and Editor's Readers Poll for 2001.
Carolyn also was given NUW's Award of Excellence. Find out more at www.TLT.com/authors/carolynhowardjohnson.htm
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Author of the awards-winning novel This is the
Place, and the soon-to-be published Harkening: A Collection of Stories
Remembered For More information and the author's FREE promotional
cookbook go to:
http://www.tlt.com/authors/carolynhowardjohnson.htm
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