On Writing Romance

Leigh Michaels’ book On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells is a good starting-point for someone interested in writing in this genre, but it also has a few problems that make it a book I can’t recommend.

The book begins with a description of the various sub-genres of romance—and includes gay and erotic romance, which I liked. Michaels goes into detail how to research romances, especially those which depend on a background authors might not be familiar with, and I enjoyed reading this.

The chapter on characterization didn’t offer anything new, though I didn’t disagree with it until I read the list of questions at the end, intended to help writers “get to know” their characters.

What astrological sign was he born under? What kind of music does he enjoy?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never found this kind of “what’s her favorite color” list useful, unless the story will involve colors in some way.

The chapter on conflict was great; I especially liked how Michaels differentiated between the short-term problem which brings the hero and heroine together, and the larger picture which keeps them apart. Not to mention the ways a writer can (inadvertently) sabotage the relationship.

What sank the book for me, though, was the section on dialogue, titled “The Battle of the Sexes”. Well, at least it gives fair warning. This is how you’re supposed to “make your heroine’s dialogue more realistic if you’re a male writer”, because us female writers have that down pat, so we get the section on how to write the hero’s man-talk instead :

Check for aggressiveness (bolding in the text—Marian). Women tend to be indirect and manipulative; even an assertive woman usually considers the effect her statement is likely to have before she makes it. Can you add questions to her dialogue, or add approval-seeking comments and suggestions that masquerade as questions?

When I read this, I turned to the start of the book to check if it was published in 1980. Nope, 2007.

Can I push my assertive, direct heroines into some shy, mealy-mouthed mold? I’m trying to imagine Captain Lera Vanze in my novel The Highest Tide (out from Samhain next year, yay!) saying, “If Seawatch finds out you coerced a seventeen-year-old operative of theirs into a dangerous mission where he was captured and murdered, no one in Dagran waters will be safe. So if you don’t mind, would it be all right if I tried to rescue him?”

Maybe if she was being sarcastic. Lera doesn’t need anyone’s approval. Nor do Yerena, Miri, Alex or any other heroines of mine.

But apparently, what’s self-confidence and competence in a man is aggressiveness (such an unattractive quality!) in a woman.

Check for emotions. Women tend to bubble over with emotion, with the exception that they’re generally hesitant to express anger and tend to do so in a passive or euphemistic manner. If you need your heroine to be angry, can you give her a really good reason for yelling?

My heroines don’t yell. They draw their blades, summon a great white shark out of the ocean, learn to use magic, or figure out other people’s secrets and exploit those ruthlessly.

Just finding these sections to quote annoyed me all over again. Which was a pity, because the last chapter, on revising a manuscript, is helpful and I didn’t notice anything too sexist there. So if you can ignore the part on dialogue, or if it doesn’t bother you, this book could be useful. For my part, though, On Writing Romance won’t be joining my keeper shelf.

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Passionate Ink

I like reading books about writing, and erotic anything is a hot genre these days, no pun intended. So when I saw Angela Knight’s Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance, released by Loose Id, I had to give it a try.

This book is ideal for writers new to the erotic romance genre. The author explains the distinction between romance (which relies heavily on sexual tension) and erotic romance (where the characters are having sex, and plenty of it). Under those circumstances, something else will have to keep the characters apart—either their own personalities or some external conflict, or both.

There are plenty of examples from the author’s books, with the author adding notes throughout to show what she was trying to do in terms of intensifying conflict and deepening the relationship. I also appreciated the warning about what can happen if you tease your readership too much. The more you build up the anticipation leading to the sex, the better that needs to be.

The example given here is of one book where this buildup lasted for hundreds of pages. When it finally did happen, it didn’t last very long (due to the author, not due to the hero) and the impression that gave was of an author who wasn’t really comfortable with writing about sex. Hence the protracted teasing which lead up to a fizzle. Personally, I’m fine with fade-to-black in novels like Gone with the Wind, but yeah, if I pick up a hot romance I want heat.

Another such EroFail is when the sex is too emotionally heavy—for insstance, one of the characters is severely scarred from rape. This can work great in other genres. But in erotic romance, the reader expects lots of exciting sex. If the sex comes off as difficult or heartbreaking because of the characters’ physical/emotional wounds, this might be tough to pull off.

One thing I didn’t like about this book was the author’s heavy reliance on alpha males—basically, 200-pound guys who sweat testosterone, who are always ready for “a fight or a fuck”. Even if these are common in erotic romance, I would have loved to see more nuances here. I’m not asking for a man who’s shy or passive. I just want to see someone who would rather outthink the villain than outfight him.

But I did appreciate the her suggestions for how to write an erotic novella or a short story. There really isn’t much room here for the hero and heroine (or other hero) to meet for the first time, so it helps if they have a past history, especially a past romantic history. I used to wonder about whether a romance could be compressed into a short story a la Ellora’s Cave’s Quickies, and this went far towards answering that question.

The book also includes notes on fight scenes, medieval battles, the difference between plate and mail and why the designs of swords changed—which I wasn’t expecting. It’s an unexpected bonus in an erotic-writing book.

From a physics standpoint, a gun that could send somebody flying would also send you flying in the opposite direction when you fired it. So resist the urge to knock somebody through a plate glass window with a bullet.

But it looked so amazing in Blade Runner!

Finally, there’s an appendix of non-fiction books dealing with sex, BDSM, etc. I didn’t go through this in any detail, but that’s because this is a very comprehensive book that covers a lot of angles, which meant I needed to finish it quick and return it to the library. Not a gotta-have-it-forever keeper, but definitely an engaging and useful read.

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Writing Irresistible Kidlit

I like checking out how-to books on writing, and Writing Irresistible Kidlit is by (former) literary agent Mary Kole. Although I don’t write MG or YA, I felt sure there would be ideas and techniques that would apply to adult fiction as well.

Well, there are, but I’d definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to write for children or teenagers. It’s a great resource. One chapter is devoted to understanding the mindset of these readers. What level of complexity are they looking for when they read? What themes would be too heavy to introduce directly into MG, and what to do under those circumstances? Male or female protagonist?

The book describes the “big ideas” behind some of the most popular YA fiction, cliché openings, grabby openings, characters and plots, along with input from other agents and editors giving examples of what didn’t work for them. Kole even makes a good stab at analyzing the elusive “voice” – how the words used, the emotion in them (or lack thereof), dialect and even repetition of certain words contributes to a highly individualistic result.

Voice for kidlit readers needs to be fresh, electric and immediate, in order to reflect their lives. Never let passive construction (“The party was being attended by teenagers”) sneak into your work.

What I enjoyed most, though, were the quotes from novels. I don’t read a lot of YA and MG, but with this book I got an intriguing cross-section of the best of them (nothing with vampires or werewolves, too, which was a plus for me). This book made me curious about Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls, and that’s one novel well worth reading. I’m also going to check out Jenny Downham’s Before I Die, although I usually don’t read books about cancer. This one just sounds too intriguing.

So if you’re thinking about writing for children or teenagers, check this book out. It’s a great starting-point.

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Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet

What I like most about Stacia Kane’s Be a Sex-Writing Strumpet is that it desensitized me. Completely and utterly popped my mental cherry. After you have read the word “cock” a hundred times, even a Catholic upbringing in a Muslim country can’t make you feel awkward about your sex scenes.

Of course, there’s much much more to the book than that. But the most important thing about it, for me, was that it got me over that hump. No pun intended.

The book is a collection of 24 essays originally published on Stacia’s blog, and although I believe they’re still there, I wanted a copy in physical form. Plus, someone who writes such helpful material deserves to have her book bought. So I got a copy for Christmas last year and it was the best present ever.

I also like how sex-positive this book is. It might seem really obvious that a book with this title would be pro-sex scene, but I’ve come across a lot of writing advice urging people not to describe sex in any detail. Fade to black, summarize, describe it in terms of elegant metaphors, but don’t mention body parts and all that crude unpleasant stuff.

Well, if you want to write a hot or erotic romance, you won’t get very far with that approach. Instead, Stacia shows how to keep the sex scenes an integral part of the relationship and the story—while still being explicit and spicy. The essays even include lists of different words for the sex organs, which was really helpful. It was the first time I’d seen such a list presented seriously, instead of in an amusing collection of purple-prose terms from romance novels (not that there isn’t a time and a place for that too). Plus, I like the discussion of graphic vs. mild and how this needs to be reflected in the story as a whole.

The mechanics of sex, the tone of the writing, even symbolism—it’s all covered here, with detailed examples from Stacia’s work to illustrate points. I think my favorite was the list of unusual places her characters have had sex, because those inspired me to try to be more creative.

If I had a complaint, it would be that this book doesn’t cover enough. I would have liked more discussion of menages, BDSM, etc. A few less-than-positive reviews on Amazon also mentioned the style, which is very breezy, informal and personal (i.e. there are several mentions of Stacia’s preferences in sex scenes, which works for a blog but not so well for a book). But on the whole I enjoyed the book—and I keep it on hand if I ever need help with a sex scene.

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The Writer’s Essential Tackle Box

When it comes to books about writing and publication, Lynn Price’s The Writer's Essential Tackle Box is a great all-rounder. I’d recommend it to any new writers, and some chapters would be interesting to those of us who have been around the block a few times as well.

The book is divided into four sections—interviews with industry professionals, the submission process, publishers and troubleshooting problems in manuscripts. My favorite section was the first one, which showed the perspectives of the numerous people involved in getting a book from its writer to bookstore browsers. If you ever wondered what a book shepherd did, how professional cover designers pick colors or how distributors accept clients, this is the go-to book. Also, just a couple of the familiar names in the interview section were Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware and Laurie McLean of Larson Pomada Literary Agents, so this is quality information.

The second section covers query letters, pitches, log lines and synopses, but the most entertaining part was, as always, the what-not-to-do chapter. The SASE that was actually an empty coconut, the chocolate that melted in the envelope and the flower-scented envelope that had little hearts dotting the i’s.

It felt inherently wrong to put a rejection letter into something so frilly and fluffy. This was a happy envelope that should hold happy things… I swear I could see its little paper edges begin to curl and the little hearts deflate.

If I had a complaint, it would be that I’d read the horror stories about the dark side of publishing before, on Lynn Price’s blog, but there’s something to be said for a book that gathers them all together and adds plenty of new material. I thought I’d read her "Punctuation Beerfest" before as well, but it was fun to see this for a second time, and to have it close at hand in this book. I might not call this book “essential”, but it was a lot of other e’s – educational, energetic and entertaining. For everyone.

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Rotten Reviews and Rejections

A lot of writers have read Pushcart Press’s Rotten Reviews and Rejections… or if they haven’t, they might like to. If literary greats like Emily Dickinson and John le Carre could receive rejection letters, it could take the sting off the polite refusals in a hopeful writer’s inbox.

So I enjoyed reading most of the entries. Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth was turned down with the comment,

Regret the American public is not interested in anything on China.

“The what Luck Club?”

Then then there are the rejections that just don’t make sense, such as the one which seems to mistake George Orwell’s Animal Farm for a story about animals. I once did that too, but I was eleven at the time.

On the other hand, some of the rejections are understandable. If a book is 350,000 words long, it’s very unlikely to be published (and if it is, it'll need a marketing push to make up for the higher price). Many of the entries are also rejections or reviews of older books and classics. So this book is still well worth a look, but I wouldn’t take it as evidence that the publishing industry is dying, that editors don’t know a good book when they see one, etc.

Finally, my favorite rejection was the one for Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere's Fan.

My dear sir,

I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.


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Spunk and Bite

I like discussing and critiquing characterization and plot devices, but it’s much more difficult to do the same with style. That’s not just individual, it’s incredibly flexible. It’s influenced by several factors, including the author, the concept, the genre, the time period during which the story is set and so on. And very often, books on writing will warn you what not to do – e.g. no head-hopping, no adjectivitis – without giving you an idea of what you can do, who’s tried it before and how it worked for them.

Enter Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style.

If you ever wanted to play with punctuation, coin new terms and push the envelope right out of the ballpark, this is worth a look. It’s crammed with information that I might have found dry and scholarly in another context – much as I love writing, I find terms like “enallage” and “catacosmesis” a bit difficult to remember. But the author, Arthur Plotnik, always provides vivid examples, not to mention quotes ranging from Walt Whitman to Harry Potter.

Catacosmesis delivers statements in descending order of importance, often ending with a surprising triviality : I ask for peace, prosperity, and a bagel with cream cheese.

I still think whoever coined that term could have come up with something easier to remember, but to balance it out I learned miniphor - a subset of the metaphor. The chapter on colors is a paintbox in prose, with figures of speech like “an orange dress the color of a mussel’s lip”. It’s like a more fun version of a thesaurus. And there are quizzes at the end of each chapter.

Adverbs, tenses, semi-colons, onomatopoeia, neologisms, dialogue tags or the lack thereof - I knew before I started that chapter it would reference Cold Mountain - dangling modifiers and “the poetry of lists”... this book has it all. Rather than a dry, do-this-don’t-do-that guide, it’s a jostling crowd of fascinating factoids which makes it clear that writers, on paper at least, can get away with (almost) anything.

Will Write For Shoes

I like books which get into the specifics of writing for a particular genre, so I picked up Cathy Yardley’s Will Write for Shoes, which is subtitled How to write a Chick Lit Novel.

The book discusses the various types of chick lit, including its history from Marian Keyes (I loved Watermelon) and Bridget Jones, to Sex and the City. I didn’t know there were such subgenres as Tart Noir, Widow Lit and Christian Chick Lit.

While this is a short book, it touches on nearly every topic a beginning writer might have questions about – even the elusive “voice”, which IMO is very difficult to dissect and pin down. I also like the stress placed on conflict, though I’m not certain that every scene has to end in disaster, i.e. with a character not getting what they want.

The reader may still be invested in finding out if your character still achieves her overall story goal, but they’re probably thinking, “She’s okay for now,” which is dangerous. Why? Because that means you’ve given them a rest stop. They can now put the book down and do something else.

I would be careful about applying this advice, because a character who fails over and over and over again is more painful than fun to read about. If every scene ends in disaster, it’s also predictable. Another thing to be aware of is that this book was published in 2006, and there have been changes in the publishing industry in the years since then.

On the other hand, my favorite part of the book was the discussion of how to outline. Outlining tends to be a controversial topic on discussion boards, because some writers (like myself) swear by it and others work best with a seat-of-the-pants approach. But the author was given a six-month deadline to complete the second book she sold, and she needed a system in place to complete it.

So in conclusion, this was a quick read, taught me some things about chick lit that I didn’t know before and would be a help to new writers. Plus, if you ever wanted to see an outline that’s both carefully constructed and flexible, and which can be applied to any work-in-progress, I recommend this book.

How Not To Write A Novel

There are many, many informative books on what to do when it comes to writing and publication. In its own way, this is one of them – but it sets off its good advice with deliberately terrible faux-excerpts, biting sarcasm and hilarious commentaries.

How Not to Write a Novel, by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, contains more than 200 mistakes made by writers. Each has its own little section with a title and subtitle e.g. A Novel Called It : Wherein an abusive parent exists or Assembly Instructions: In which the sex is drained of sex. It’s then followed by an Atlanta Nights-esque example to illustrate the issue and a little description of why this is a problem and how it can be corrected.

This is something of a PG-13 book and contains a few four-letter words, but if you don’t mind that, it’s blunt, accurate and hilarious. It draws on examples from Anton Chekhov to South Park, and is never dull. When I read books on writing, I tend to skip any sections on spelling and grammar, but I read this from cover to cover and tried not to laugh out loud on the subway.

There are also little sidebars such as “The Reader Will Not Like Your Hero Just Because” (he meditates, he has green eyes, his maid is an unpaid consultant in his detective business, etc). But my favorite is the pop quiz on characterization. Select the answer most likely to reflect your work:

The teenager took

A. our burger order
B. a gateway drug
C. umbrage at the teacher’s assertions about the Balkan situation
D. his turn flensing the giant.

Revealing his nefarious plot, he spoke

A. in a German accent
B. German
C. germanely
D. to his hand puppet, Popo.

You can probably tell that A and B answers are stereotypes and D answers have the opposite problem. This book would be a great addition to any writer’s library. Whenever I get stuck on a manuscript or take it all too seriously, I flip this open, read a section like “Failing the Turing Test” and feel a lot better.

The Art of Fiction

There are three types of people to whom Ayn Rand’s The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers will be of value.

1. Objectivists

2. Writers who enjoy the novels of Ayn Rand

3. Critics of Ayn Rand

I fall into the second category, but found myself skipping several sections at the start of this book where Rand describes her philosophy of life (much as I did in Atlas Shrugged during John Galt’s speech, now that I come to think about it). It’s one thing to have controversial views on modern art or modern literature, but readers may be turned off by Rand’s views of Gertrude Stein or James Joyce.

…he uses words from different languages, makes up some words of his own, and calls that literature.

I wonder what she would have made of Tolkien.

The book does have its good points, though. Rand discusses using concrete terms and actions to convey abstracts such as character. She also shows the importance of theme, how this ties in to plot and how scenes can be constructed to express both.

For instance, two of her protagonists have a love scene just after a great and controversial achievement which has joined their careers. Both their success and the culmination of their attraction unite to give the scene even more impact. It was a good example of how to structure a plot to bring out drama.

My favorite part was the section on characters. Rand has been criticized – sometimes rightly so – on her characterization skills, but here she demonstrated an interesting technique. She rewrote the dialogue between two characters in The Fountainhead to show how much can be conveyed between the lines, even though the characters were in effect saying the same thing. The subtly altered dialogue gave an entirely different impression of the people involved.

There’s also good advice on using a present object or present event at the start of a long flashback, and then mentioning that object or event again at the end of the flashback. It should signify to the reader that the story is back in the present. But there were other suggestions with which I disagreed.

Do not use obscenities – and never mind all the arguments about “realism”.

There’s a time and a place for all terms, even four-letter ones.

By “journalistic references”, I mean the names of living authors, political figures, song hits – any proper names which pertain concretely to a given period. The rule is: Do not use anything of this nature more recent than a hundred years.

Two words: Stephen King. Rand’s argument is that the use of brand names and actual people will date the story, will anchor it too much in a specific time and place. But sometimes that’s the point. I don’t want to feel, when I pick up a Shopaholic novel, that it might as well be taking place in 18th century Tanzania. The setting, the historical figures, the styles, all those contribute to a spirit of place.

I like the abstract quality of Rand’s work, but I like the brand names in the Gossip Girl series too. That would probably have made me anathema to Rand, but so it goes.

Another problem is the frequent referring to Naturalistic vs. Romantic literature, and woe unto you if you’re on the wrong side. Rand’s novels, on the other hand, are portrayed as more or less perfect and consistently held up as examples of what to do, which can get a little wearying. A couple of exceptions, though: this book deconstructs two beautifully written descriptions by other authors and does so well.

In conclusion, The Art of Fiction isn’t for most people. On page 12, Rand even goes so far as to claim, “If to any extent you hold the premise of nonobjectivity, then by your own choice, you do not belong in literature, or in any human activity, or on this earth.” If you can overlook that kind of thing, and if you liked her novels or her philosophy to begin with, you might enjoy this book.

For everyone else, there are other books on writing where the authors don’t vote you off the planet.

Interesting coincidence, by the way: I’d wanted a copy of this book for some time, and I finally bought one on April 14. Later I read that on April 15, 1943, the first edition of Rand’s The Fountainhead hit the presses (after rejections from twelve editors).

******

Update on promotion:

Day 13 (April 18) : Created a profile on LibraryThing.

Day 14 (April 19) : No promotion. Hematology practical exam.

Day 15 (April 20) : No promotion. Hematology final exam.

And now the semester is done. Champagne all around!

78 reasons why your book may never be published

…and 14 reasons why it just might: a review



Why is it so hard?
Because it is supposed to be. Being a novelist is the best job in the world, so it is – rightfully – the hardest job to get.*

I’d heard about this book before, but the numbers in the title intrigued me, possibly because they don’t give whole numbers when divided by 5.

That, and Pat Walsh, the author, clearly didn’t mind the possibility that some writers might be discouraged by the many reasons why their book wouldn’t be published. On the other hand, Mr Walsh is an editor, so he’s familiar with discouragement on both sides of the desk. 78 Reasons turned out to be an entertaining and mostly helpful read.

This book debunks a lot of myths, such as the idea that you need to have connections to be published. Much of the advice is great for writers who are starting out, and the section on finances, which explains managed risks and profit-and-loss statements, would be useful to anyone.

Mr Walsh is also blunt but clear on matters which won’t earn him popularity votes, such as certain topics just not being currently hot in publishing even if they are very important to writers (e.g. cancer). He stresses that all writers are not great at their craft and that no one has the right to be published.

That may reduce the book’s audience a little, but I enjoyed the direct style and especially the anecdotes on life in publishing. For instance, there was the writer who could have had a manuscript endorsed by a Pulitzer prizewinner, but spent so much time first editing and poring over the manuscript that the Pulitzer prizewinner died.

Not to mention the manuscript with many strange references which (the writer explained) were in-jokes about Samuel Johnson, who had nothing to do with the story. No, I couldn’t figure that one out either.

Great writers... know that biting criticism can hurt, but misguided praise can harm.

The advice is divided into sections based on writing skill (e.g. “You Have a Tin Ear for Dialogue”), publishers, agents and just plain bad luck. Finally, though, there are the 14 reasons to keep trying. Not for the overly optimistic or for anyone who prefers the easy validation of vanity publishing, this book is a good addition to a writer’s library.

*Then again, no cool-sounding job ever lives up to expectations. I once met someone who told me she worked for the circus. I asked, wide-eyed and eager, What is that like?

There is a lot of paperwork, she said.

Hey, it’s just like writing!

*****

Update on the giveaway : The winners of the giveaway for Glorious are Ebon Star and BookMarc Blogpants. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Update on promotion: Day 10 (April 15): Submitted an application to the Red Room.

Woe is I

I thought the only book on grammar that I would ever need was Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (Original Edition). It probably still is, but there’s another that I just plain want, and that’s Patricia T. O’Conner’s Woe Is I.

This book is filled with useful advice and examples, but is also a breezy, amusing read. I like the wrongly constructed sentences such as “Already housebroken, the Queen brought home a new corgi”. Other examples draw on characters from both P. G. Wodehouse and The Simpsons.

If a sentence has a smaller sentence within it (surrounded by dashes or parentheses), don’t use a period to end the “inside” sentence: When Apu made him an offer – “I could use some help around the store” – he accepted.

The book also discusses grammatical rules which may no longer be in effect (e.g. “never split an infinitive”) and includes a section at the start about why English is so complicated compared to languages such as Esperanto. It would be a good addition to a writer’s bookshelf – and a great gift to someone who needs help with grammar but doesn’t want anything dry or didactic.

Because a book with sections titled “Metaphors Be With You” and “Comma Sutra” is anything but.

******

The title “Woe is I” sums up how I’m feeling right now. I caught what hopefully isn’t the flu last week and am trying to recover before classes start again on Monday… and before the Anatomy practical test on Tuesday. So NaNo (and pretty much everything else) is on the shelf right now.

Five more books about writing

1. How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction
edited by J. N. Williamson

This is a collection of over 20 essays by different writers. Ray Bradbury, writing in his unique, evocative style, tells how he used lists of nouns to spark his imagination and come up with stories like “A Sound of Thunder”. William Nolan provides examples of opening lines which don’t just hook the reader – they reel him in to be scaled and filleted. The historical model for Conan the Barbarian, how to make suspense as tense as action, the background of a fantasy series inspired by the ancient Middle East… they’re all here.

The only difficulty with obtaining this book is that it was published in 1987 and is out of print, but I found it at two local libraries.

2. How to Write Best Selling Fiction
by Dean Koontz

This book was published in 1981, when Dean Koontz was still writing taut, good horror like Midnight and Whispers. I’d recommend it to new writers because there’s a lot of basic advice, but it’s also got excellent examples of some of the techniques and tactics Koontz used at that time to build suspense and flesh out backgrounds. There’s also the story of how he produced a set of intriguing titles from the single word dragon. I never get tired of reading that one.

I also like the simple, entertaining description of the business of selling books, even though this is a short section towards the end. Until I read this book, I didn’t realize that stores could return unsold books to publishers for full refunds.

Unfortunately, this book is out of print. Another caveat is that Koontz tries – with the best of intentions – to stress the importance and potential of mainstream fiction over genre fiction. If you’re a genre writer, you might not agree with this, and given the popularity of some genres these days, it may not apply.

3. The First Five Pages
by Noah Lukeman

I thought this book would be about how to polish the first five pages of a manuscript, but Lukeman knows that there’s not much point in a manuscript that starts like a rocket and ends like a squib. As a result, this book covers hooks but also deals with mistakes in dialogue, pacing, focus and so on. I especially like the section at the start about the different sounds produced by alliteration, resonance and even punctuation marks. The tiniest, unnoticed details can make quite a difference.

The only thing that didn’t work for me is that some of the examples seem… basic, for lack of a better word. Most writers can tell that when John says hello, Mary and Mary says hello, John and John says how are you, Mary? and Mary says very well, thank you, John, and yourself?, this is poor dialogue. I’d have liked to see more subtle mistakes.

4. The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference
from the editors of Writer’s Digest books

This is a collection of information (mostly anthropological and historical) which will probably be helpful to new writers of fantasy. I like the diagram of a medieval castle and all the different types of weapons, though this is by no means an exhaustive list and I’ve learned almost as much from Wikipedia. The section on magic is extremely detailed, and lists about thirty different ways to predict the future. The usual fantasy races get basic descriptions, but this does not go into biological or cultural depth.

As a reference book, this deals mostly with worldbuilding, and specifically with the normal, historically accurate type of worldbuilding that’s likely to be found in traditional, heroic and epic fantasy. Then again, the scope of fantasy is almost unlimited these days.

5. The Art of Fiction
by Ayn Rand

While I enjoyed most of this book, it’s not for everyone. I would recommend it to writers who like Ayn Rand’s novels and who are experienced enough to recognize which parts of the book won’t work for them.

The best section for me was the one where Rand rewrites a pivotal scene in The Fountainhead with slightly altered dialogue for a character – dialogue that says the same thing in principle but has a completely different tone and which made the character different as well. I like it when writers illustrate their points like this. There is also advice on plot and character that I found helpful.

Where the book falters is in its discussions of style, especially Rand’s advice to writers never to use four-letter words or brand names (two words: Stephen King). That’s one reason I wouldn’t recommend it to new writers.

Five good books about writing

In no particular order…

1. How Not to Write a Novel
by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

A bitingly funny collection of 200 mistakes that writers make, with descriptions thereof, and supplemented with sidenotes. Blunt and comprehensive, rather like a beating applied to every body part, but some of the jokes still make me laugh, even though I’ve read this about three times over now.

May not be suitable for some beginners; contains several four-letter words and explicit descriptions of sexual situations (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

2. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
by Renni Browne and Dave King

Contains dozens of examples of what can and should be edited in writing, and some of these are subtle mistakes that are easy to miss. It’s also a workbook, since each chapter ends with sample passages that need correction. Practical and extremely useful.

3. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
by Orson Scott Card

There are a lot of books I’d recommend to anyone starting out in speculative fiction, but this would be at or near the top of the list. It was written in 1990, but the advice still rings sound; Card has an excellent grasp of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to magic, alien species, creating another world and keeping it all plausible. And his description of how he came up with Hart’s Hope is wonderful to read. I wish a few other authors would write “the making of” descriptions as well.

The only thing I disagree with is his caution at the end against coffee or other drinks which contain caffeine, which is more due to his religious beliefs than to any evidence that caffeine (in moderation) negatively impacts writing.

4. Writing to Sell
by Scott Meredith

A good how-to guide for beginners. Plenty of tips and examples on the basics of plot, characterization, style and so on. Plus, if not for this book, I would never have known that plot cards or plot wheels existed.

The only thing I’d warn a new writer against is the bit at the end where Meredith defends the practice of fee-charging among agents.

5. Characters and Viewpoint
by Orson Scott Card

Have you ever had an experience where something was explained, perhaps in only a sentence or two, and yet when you heard it, something else suddenly made perfect sense? Sort of like the “It’s a cookbook!” moment of “To Serve Man”, except that in Characters and Viewpoint, it was much more pleasant an experience.

When I first read this book, I realized that Card’s refusal to physically describe Ender in Ender’s Game had led to me thinking of Ender as physically small and dark-haired – much like myself, in other words. And because of that, I identified much more closely with him than if Card had described him. That was eye-opening. And the book is crammed with examples of what’s effective and what’s not, to back up the sound advice. The sections on humor and Romance vs. Realism can get a little complex for beginners, but on the whole I’d recommend it to anyone.