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How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling
by: James N. Frey

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.3
EAN: 9780312010447
ISBN: 0312010443
Label: St. Martin's Press
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: December 15, 1987
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Sales Rank: 7347
Studio: St. Martin's Press

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Written in a clear, crisp, accessible style, this book is perfect for beginners as well as professional writers who need a crash course in the down-to-earth basics of storytelling. Talent and inspiration can't be taught, but Frey does provide scores of helpful suggestions and sensible rules and principles.

An international bestseller, How to Write a Damn Good Novel will enable all writers to face that intimidating first page, keep them on track when they falter, and help them recognize, analyze, and correct the problems in their own work.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Simple and excellent
This is a simple to read book, with excellent advice and direction. A very good start to writing a novel for a beginner. Read it before you start writing!

Rating:

- You gotta outscore the other team! Coaching your novel to victory.
My temptation is to rechristen this easy-reading book, _How to Write Pulp Fiction_. Frey's tone is a bit like a crew cut football coach. "You wanna win? Do ya? You gotta play hard! You gotta block. You gotta give a hundred and ten percent! Be a man." Of course, the content is different. It's more like: "Give yer characters personality! Spice up your dialogue! You're not gonna win if you don't have rising tension! You wanna get published? Get a premise!" I get the sense the man's had ten thousand mediocre writers pass through his courses. He's sick of it. He's fed up with the dumb mistakes.

Frey's approach is obnoxious, macho, and blustery. No doubt innumerable great novels would flunk his tests. His advice could ruin countless gems. You could see him screaming at Jane Austen, Joyce Carol Oates, or Albert Camus. They did well ignoring such advice. But would you?

... Read More

Rating:

- If you write novels, don't miss this one!
I've read a lot of books on fiction and novel writing. There are a lot of good books available on the subject. You can read more and better advice on writing than you could a few decades ago, when there was little to be had.

James Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel is exceptionally good. He points out subtle but quintessential aspects all of us in the fiction writing field need to know. Most books on Amazon.com dealing with this area of skill cover the elements of fiction in helpful ways. But Mr. Frey interrelates key aspects together so that they not only make sense, they also come across with the force of brilliant insights, which indeed they are.

And if that isn't enough: The bits of zany humor here and there in the text make it also an entertaining read. Better than some portions of Saturday Night Live.

I've read half this book in 3 days, in spite of a bunch of writing, ... Read More

Rating:

- "It Does Help To Follow Proven Formulas/Guidelines"
"How To Write A Damn Good Novel", James N. Frey, St. Martin's Press, NY, 1987. ISBN: 0-312-01044-3, SC 174 pgs. Contents 3 pgs 8 ½" x 5 3/4".

Author Frey, a well-published novelist also taught novel and fiction writing courses at Univ. of Calif., Berkeley.

Like other authors, Frey developed and writes with strong witty prose that reinforces many of the ideas he shares with his students. Unlike some teachers on novel writing, he delves deeply into the essence of story-telling, back to the time of Aristotle and hammers home the essentials of dramatic writing: Homo fictus, character building, do's and don'ts, bonding, inner conflict, premise, storytelling, climax & resolution, viewpoint, dialogues, rewriting and Zen of becoming a novelist. Knowing essential elements of a novel clarifies for the would-be novelist those parts which are indispensable and those which are superfluous for a DGN. ... Read More

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