The Complete Handbook Of Novel Writing: Everything You Need to Know About Creating & Selling Your Work Second Edition

As a reviewer and reader, I subconsciously knew some of the material here, after reading thousands of good and bad books.Writer's Digest has gotten the best writers to discuss their art, then boiled it down to a wonderful book that had me going "YES! YES!" every few pages. Especially some of the "things not to do" discussions. For example, introducing the main character early on. The Silmarillion might be a great novel, but introduces a few hundred characters at the start. Not recommended.The morning routine cliche, or the phone-answering cliche -- no. After looking through thousands of novel starts, I suppose I've gotten used to spotting signs. This handbook gives me new things to look for, but will also help me to be more forgiving.One book I loved, Horker's Law, a free book, establishes an interesting set of rules at the start, then uses a short chapter to establish the entire world, then follows up with a fascinating character moseying through a typical town. Reading through the chapters of the Handbook, everything in Horker's Law seems to have been done correctly for keeping a fickle reader like me turning the pages. Many of the other books, movies, and stories I've loved seem to follow these rules of the writers.And the books I've hated or couldn't get into -- they tend to make mistakes the writers advise against.Highly recommended. If you're a reader, you'll like this.EDIT -- The highlights being selected for this book are excellent.

By far - this is one of the best resource books available to new and experienced authors everywhere. After publishing a paranormal historical fiction series Midnight Omen Déjà vu, I still refer to The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing for tips and guidelines to better my skill as a writer.I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a comprehensive book with catalogued subject matter (contained in chapters) specific to genre, composition and style. It's a must-have for all writers!

Great book. It was largely a compilation of well-known and widely published "tricks of the trade," but it also provides good insight from quality writers. It was also well-written, interesting, and fairly fast-paced, so it was less of a text/reference book and more of a pleasure read. Really helped to inspire me to get writing after a long dry spell. Good for well-versed veterans and newbies alike. Great one to have on the shelf.

It had to much delail .it was confusing to understand.I prefer simpler text information. I shall give it to the library for those who prefer mor information in debth.I could not comprohind the debth of information. thank you..claudine bigelow

...I have to raise a minor point. First about the content. The wide scope of wisdom, interviews with people who have gotten writing right, and the organization of that valuable information is excellent. In between all the gems that you already know--what you've read in other books and online--there are diamonds of original perspective in this collection of essays. I recommend it highly to anyone who is not already James Patterson.Now, about that minor point: why was it so poorly edited. half of the sentences begin with a lower case letter. There are other spacing and punctuation issues as well. You'd think that a book meant for writers would be edited with greater scrutiny, but this isn't even up to par with most self-published works. I'm glad I read it, but at times, these errors were very distracting.

Very insightful, put-your-feet-on-the-ground kind of book. Writer's Digest works never fail to please. A must for budding writers and creatives looking for real world advice and inspiration.

It's a well written book, composed of a variety of authors' advise. Very thorough, funny at times, and quite insightful. Definitely worth the read if you have any interest in publishing a novel in the future.

An excellent book for writers at all levels. As a new novelist myself, I found the book extremely beneficial and refer to it often. You might also be interested in,[...]