Writing the Breakout Novel | Donald Maass

Writing the Breakout Novel | Donald Maass | Ten Stars!

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Writing the Breako...

	Writing the Breakout Novel Donald Maass Writers Digest Books, 2002 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nice Book

I've read many books on writing, and Writing the Breakout Novel is right there at the top of the list. The book is pleasant and easy to read, and full of practical and challenging advice. Whether you are a seasoned writer, or green as a can of spinach, I would add this to your pile of writing books to digest.

Maass walks us through the bitter reality that, without proper time spent on key elements of your plot, story and characters, your "classic" is probably just another forgettable 90,000 page snoozer.

Chapters include insights into crafting the backbone of the novel: your premise; examples of how to "raise the stakes" and make your novel stand out; information on time and place; building intriguing, believable and unique characters; plot and contemporary plot techniques; advice viewpoints, voice, subplots and endings; a chapter on advanced plot structures; and step by step theme building.

A must read for the serious writer.

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Ten Stars!

Perhaps the best book I have on how to write. I can only read a portion of each chapter before I have to stop reading and ponder the points given. Excellent, forces you to think of your novel and the direction you are going with it.

Donald Maass is the Emeril Lagasse of Books. Kick it up a notch! If some is good, more is better.

Who cares if he doesn't have a breakout novel, his clients do. He can read their drafts and see if they will sell or not. What else do you want?

Single best book on novel writing

This is the single most useful book I've found on the complex task of novel writing. Even experienced fiction writers will find this book useful as a basic checklist of elements that all good storytelling requires. (Yes, I know, sometimes you can break a rule or two, but only if there's good reason in a particular creation.) If I were teaching Novel Writing 101, this would be the textbook.

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Misleading Title

The book is titled "WRITING the Breakout Novel," but the author acknowledges that in order to apply the book's principles and techniques, you'll *already* need to have a completed manuscript or at least a work-in-progress to refer to.

As a writer of short fiction, the title made me expect to see more process-oriented material for developing and managing longer and more complex stories. I was disappointed that you had to already have completed a considerable amount of the writing.

I do like that he mentions other genres and literary fiction besides the usual mysteries, thrillers and romances, and I'm still keeping the book, but I think of it as "REVISING the Breakout Novel."

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A good motivational book

"Writing the Breakout Novel" is a generally good book about what it takes to write a satisfying novel. The whole book revolves around creating characters and a plot so that an average reader will want to continue reading. Yes, the point of this book is to help the writer create "commercial" fiction, but in the current publishing climate, commercial fiction is the only fiction that will get into bookstores.

Mr. Maass has written "Writing the Breakout Novel" in an engaging style, which tells me that he does know a thing or two about writing. Only a few things bothered me about the book: 1. Maass overemphasized his status as an agent. It's important for the reader to know that he's an agent, as that lends credibility to his writing. But, he seems a little too proud of his job. 2. He uses Anne Perry, one of his clients, in too many examples in this book. This comes across as being somewhat self-serving in that he seems to be promoting one of his clients heavily in this book. 3. In the last chapter, Maass implies that an agent who doesn't live in New York isn't a good agent. I personally believe that the relationship between an agent and a client is more important than where that agent chooses to set up an office. In an age when just about anything can be done electronically from any distance, having an agent in New York is not necessary. If the agent is doing a good job selling a client's work, then location doesn't matter (as an example, I work about 1600 miles away from my supervisor's office, and the work still gets done).

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, and it helped motivate me to start writing my next manuscript.

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