Thomas Monteleone - The Complete Idiots Guide to Writing a Novel

Table of Contents

This one is for all my new friends, who will read this book and go on to create great novels.
Its been fun Keep it that way.

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Copyright 2004 by Thomas F. Monteleone

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eISBN : 978-1-440-69471-4

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Foreword

I wish this book had been around when I started writing. It would have saved me a great deal of guessing and wishing and hoping and praying, and otherwise stumbling around in the dark.

When I first began to write, it was in a complete vacuum. I didnt know there were such things as writers groups (either the in-person kind or the online variety) or books about how to write. I had never met a real, live, honest-to-gosh writer. I thought that authors were all famous people who lived in big houses, like Stephen King and Ann Rice; or who, when they werent writing, hung around the Algonquin Hotel drinking martinis and saying incredibly witty things, in the manner of the late Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker.

I was about 99 percent wrong on the whole deal, a victim of media hype and the understandable fantasies of a fledgling author.

The part I was right aboutand the part that I didnt mention previously because it never occurred to me when I first startedwas that writing turned out to be something that gave me a great deal of satisfaction. I found that I took pleasure in stringing together words in a way that was sometimes clever, sometimes heart wrenching, and (hopefully) always made sense.

I was lucky enough to sell my very first novel fairly quickly so there was no long series of rejection slips with which to paper my walls. Of course, it didnt sell for very much, but it was sold to a bona fide New York publisher. Nothing gave me as big a thrill until the next year, when I finally held my first paperback in my hot little hands.

The book youre holding right now will give you a much better chance, as a first-time novelist, of actually seeing printand getting paid for it.

Between these covers, Tom Monteleone has authored a completely accessible, fun to read, nuts-and-bolts book. It covers everything from what kind of font you should use in your manuscriptand other things you never think about until you actually sit down and face that blank screento punctuation, building characters, setting hooks, writing cover letters, marketing, and beyond.

And also, he demonstrates how to keep a sense of humor about you at all times.

Ellen Recknor

Ellen Recknor has authored upwards of 35 novels under her own name as well as a variety of pseudonyms. She is a two-time winner of the Western Writers of Americas Spur Award, has won the Willa Cather Literary Award, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Introduction

Who am I?

And why you should listen to me?

Listen, Im just a guy who likes to write, and has written a lot of stuff including 25 novels.

Ive spent most of my adult life writing and avoiding all the grown-up-people jobs. During that stretch of time, Ive learned a lot of thingsmostly self-taughtthat helped me get better at what I do. Self-taught means a lot of rumblin-stumblin-fumblin my way through the world of writing and publishing. It means trial and error, frustration, and rejection.

I hope I can help you avoid much of that sort of thing. In fact, Im going to make you a promise to be informative and entertaining. If you want to spend your time writing a novel, I believe it should be fun , not work. If you want work , go get a gig in a pie factory or selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door.

I want you to move through this book with a growing confidence that will come from familiarity with me and a belief in your own abilities. Theres no magic or secret knowledge in the writing of a novel. There are techniques, guidelines, and even a few tricks to make it a rewarding endeavor; but youll see, as we move from topic to topic, its not much harder than making a six-foot model of the Statue of Liberty out of Lego blocks.

Just different.

Anyway, before we get started, a little more about me, which should help you believe what Ill be telling you, and a few words of coach-in-the-locker-room inspiration before we go rushing to our keyboards to kick serious butt. I figure the easiest way to get started is tell a little story, so here goes

Picture this: Im at a party, a barbecue, a wedding, or just about any other kind of social gathering and Im meeting people for the first time. As is the custom of grown-up people, they will, soon after meeting you, ask what you do. Meaning: How do you make your money? Inevitably, when I tell them Im a writer, they ask what Ive come to call the Three Stupid Questions , and thus give me a chance to have a little fun at their expense.

Stupid Question No. 1: Youre a writer?Oh, have you ever had anything published?

People are surrounded by the printed word every day, but apparently it never occurs to them that someone actually must write the words before they can be put into print.