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

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.

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!

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.

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,[...]

A book made from selected articles from the magazine in a fat A5 book format with 14 outof 77 articles being also on the frst edition. I hence suppose these articles must be classical . As with the WD mag articles most of them are very informative mostly deserving as food for thoght instead of just eady to do guidelines . Most columnists are specialists in this field

THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF NOVEL WRITING is a collection of 77 articles and talks with writers. I saw a copy a friend of mine had, borrowed it, and decided I wanted my own.I impulsively bought two and gave one as a gift. I'm involved with the NanoWrimo 50,000-word challenge (look it up online), and this book has helped me keep going past the bumpy parts. There are so many topics about fiction writing here, that I can't imagine what another one would be. It's a reference book by fiction writers for aspiring fiction writers. The wide range of experiences and ideas from professional writers sets it apart from most other books on the craft. Yes, I recommend it!

A great Book to get those ideas on paper, not a text book but a book that can give one the info when needed or allivate any doubts that may occur during the writing process...

Another Writer's Digest book on writing. (What else?) One of the problems I find in books written to instruct writers - and I read a lot of these - is that the author is often a BAD writer. You know the old saying, "those that can, do. Those that can't, teach."This excellent overview of novel writing and publishing really does cover the subject in some depth. I rate it highly because it was not one of those decent little helpers that are written specifically on order for Writer's Digest - and often seem forced and poorly written - but a compendium collected from a wide range of authors who have written helpful essays in the area of their personal expertise.Excellent writers writing excellent articles, covering the subject well.

Useful tidbits of advice, but the aspiring writer really just needs to sit down and write.