Book Log 10/2014 - Donald Maass: Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

[jacey]

I confess I should have read 'Writing the Breakout Novel' before going on to the workbook. That had been my intention all along, however it was thwarted by putting down WTBN and not being able to find it again, so I picked up the workbook first. What an excellent and concise book with short, apposite chapters using a number of examples from 'breakout' books, both genre and non genre to illustrate techniques for deepening character, layering plots, finding the right first and last lines. Each chapter contains an explanation followed by an exercise.

This is not a book offering shortcuts, in fact it encourages authors to go back through their finished manuscripts and revise a lot of the things they already thought were pretty darn good -- because they can always be better. It's not offering a formula. There is no formula, there's just hard work and many, many tweaks to bump up the quality of your book. In fact there are 34 worksheets, each one asking you to consider one aspect of your novel, pull it out, tweak it and slot it back into place.

Yes it's going to take time to do all that and no, I didn't do the worksheets, but I did find points where I thought, 'I can do that right now!' I certainly applied some of the principles to the book I was just on the point of delivering to my publisher and will have it all in mind while writing the first draft of the work in progress. I hope to have time, then, to apply some of the principles in more depth as I go through the editing process.

Comments

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I went to his workshop some years ago, back when it was just a weekend long. I may go to the longer version at some point. Don't know.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have that book, but I did read Writing the Breakout Novel before I started it and then just took the principles from the book and never actually got around to working through the Workbook.

But now you've reminded me that I've got it, that might be a good way to get back into one or other of the incomplete novels I was working on a few years ago.