How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

Howard Mittelmark · Sandra Newman

Mar 2009 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted.

"Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'"

"But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly.

"It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!"

Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published.

In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

Ratings and reviews

At the risk of hyperbole, this is the greatest book ever written on writing a novel. It is also hilarious. Unlike books that "nurture the creative spirit within," this book will help you find flaws in your writing, fix them, and get published. Stop wasting your time and money at expensive writing workshops where you learn to cherish your inner artist, and buy this book. If you have written your story already, this book will help you make it better. If you have yet to start writing, this book will help you avoid common errors, and you're pretty much guaranteed turn out a better first draft that won't make your friends cringe and editors toss your manuscript into the recycling bin. I have read it four times, and it has entertained me every time.

If you're a decent writer working to improve, this book won't really help you. Most of their examples of what NOT to do are pretty obvious, though one or two might strike an unfortunate chord with your own style. However, this book can help bad writers learn why they are terrible people. Either way, it's still a pretty fun read.

I expected to be informed by this book, but I didn't expect to enjoy it. If anything, I experienced the latter more! It's written in a very entertaining way and I think most less experienced writers would be very lucky (or in denial) to not recognise a few of theirs writing tics in this.

About the author

Writer and editor Howard Mittelmark's book reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Hollywood Reporter, Writer's Digest, and other publications. He is the author of the novel Age of Consent. Sandra Newman is the author of the novels The Men, The Heavens (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), and The Country of Ice Cream Star, longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and NPR, as well as several other works of fiction and nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s and Granta, among other publications. She lives in New York City.