How Not to Write A Novel

reviewed by Carrie Bailey

If you've been to a club or watched a comedy routine where insulting the audience equals absolute hilarity, then you can cope with this book.  Just realize before hand that this writing manual has only one audience member.    

Writer and editor, Howard Mittelmark, and author Sandra Newman provide no less than 200 common mistakes for the writer serious about being published. "How Not to Write a Novel" exaggerates and dissects unintended and unwanted glimpses into an author's psyche through grave errors of writing.

I'm particularly fond of the sections titled:

"If there must be a cat, do not for the love of god name it..." and "You'll have to go through me: Wherein the fact that a character has senses is paramount." and "'Fuck you!' he said profanely."

But the reason is because I don't make those mistakes.  I've never been tempted to use this formula to name a cat: Mr. + adjective + anatomical feature.  Maybe, I've dallied on sensory input without advancing my plot at times, but I avoid most empty shock value traps. 

The mistakes I do make were all painstakingly detailed by the authors in Part IV: STYLE - Perspective and Voice.  Here their examples made me cringe and not for lack of humor.  Consider for example:

Every Breath You Take: Wherein every passing mood is lovingly detailed:

"I'm getting the mussels verbiage," he said, smiling at me in that way he had.

I smiled back, feeling a little wistful.  "I think I'll get the fracas medallios," I said.  I put down the menu, the wistfulness giving way to gratitude for his presence.

He reached out and took my hand, sending a wave of love through me.  "Still want to go to that hotel? he asked.

I felt a slight tension, perhaps even anxiety...

I want my characters to smile and be happy, is that so bad?  Shouldn't I tell the reader?  Ouch!  They hurt me with this one.  Of course, my writing doesn't resemble the exaggerated passages in this manual, but the theme of this error struck a cord.

Whether the desire to replace the word "said" with the aid of a thesaurus or forgetting characters present in a scene until its end, mistakes happen to every writer for the same reasons.  It's like learning to drive, you can't expect to just hit the gas petal and go.  Within that metaphor, "How Not to Write a Novel" would be the combined effect of many tickets, jerks on their horns, and calls to your insurance all conveyed in one small manual.  If you take that sort of abuse personally, don't buy this book.

Though they offer useful insight on a full range of rejection worthy errors, it's witty cultural references guarantee it's irrelevancy within five years or less.  I would recommend to buy it, use it, but then pass it off to a friend.  Or just reserve it from the library, but don't consider it for an edition to a home library or your writing reference collection.  That is, unless you collect fine works of ridicule and masochism.