Howard Mittelmark - How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

Congratulations! If you have been following along, you should now have progressed from being merely an unpublished novelist to being a novelist who is completely invulnerable to publication. Clad in the armor of incomprehensibility and offensiveness, you can laugh at the threat of publication! You can sleep at night secure in the knowledge that not a single soul you are not related to by blood, marriage, or fraternal bond will ever read your work, let alone publish it.

You could hold both Harper and Collins hostage without a chance of their employees ever agreeing to print a book on which your name appears. If Mr. Random were desperate to sleep with you, Mr. House would still step in and make sure he did not publish your novel. You could be a full-blooded NorsemanEric the Red himselfand the editors of the Viking Press would still rather set off for Valhalla in a flaming longship than publish you.

Etc.

And now, free from any threat of scrutiny by readers, you will be able to fully develop the majesty of your natural voice. The sacred true-ness of your visioning will never be sullied by the grimy paws of commerce.

We hope that you have come to see us as more than writing-manual hacks; we hope that we have been your liberatorsthe Spartacuseses, the Che Guevarae, of writing-manual hacks.

However, if you have perversely refused to use the lessons offered in this book as we intended, and instead avoided each of the mistakes we describe, perhaps you now find yourself a published author. In that case, our follow-up book, How Not to Make a Living Wage , will be indispensable. We offer step-by-step instructions in how to steal toilet paper from public restrooms; we revive the lost Depression-era art of subsisting on free ketchup and sugar packets; and we list the very best tactics for borrowing money on a first date. Attempting to live on the advances paid by publishers, you will find our chapter on which cardboard boxes are best suited to your states specific climate a real life-saver.

But whichever path you choose, the lonely high road of the unpublished or the craven compromised path of the in-print, our good wishes go with you.

Vaya con Pollo! Arroz con Dios! We wash our hands of you! Or, as our parents said to us as they sent us off to college, We are sorry to inform you that your manuscript does not suit our needs at the present time.

Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

Amis, Martin, 69

Arbus, Diane, 198

bad guys

But He Loves His Mother, 8687

character and, 8597

The Fearless Expos, 9293

Im Melting, 9192

Inside the Mind of a Criminal, 8586

A Novel Called It, 8990

The Retirement Speech, 8788

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served in Public, 8889

The Riddler, 9091

Beattie, Ann, 120

beginnings

The Deafening Hug, 1819

The Gum on the Mantelpiece, 1416

The Long Runway, 911

The Lost Sock, 57

Oh, Dont Mind Him, 1617

plot setups and, 520

Radical Surgery for Your Novel, 11

The Red Herring on the Mantelpiece, 1920

The Vacation Slideshow, 1213

The Waiting Room, 79

Words Fail Me, 1314

Bright Lights, Big City (McInerney), 161

Calvino, Italo, 161

de Cervantes, Miguel, 28

character

bad guys and, 8597

Channeling the E! Channel, 58

essentials, 5559

getting to know your hero and, 6170

The Joan Rivers Pre-Novel Special, 59

The Kodak Moment, 5758

lackluster, 5354

The Man of Average Height, 5556

as setting, 19798

sidekicks and significant others, 7184

style and POV of, 15354

What Color Am I?, 5657

Collins, Jackie, 69

complications. See also pacing plot pacing and, 2139

A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole), vii

David, Larry, 236

The Deafening Hug

Alice in Lapland and, 19

The Mayfly Fatale and, 1819

unintended love interests and, 1819

Were Going to Need a Bigger Closet and, 19

deus ex machina, 43

dialogue

And Thats When the Vaginal Thrush

Returned, 14850

Asseverated the Man, 13133

But, Captain!, 14748

The Convention of the Invisible Men, 13941

The Court Reporter, 14142

Dont Mind Us, 14244 Doublespeak, 14445

El Foreigner, 15052

Fuck You! He Said Profanely, 13536

Hello! I Am the Mommy!, 14546

Ironically, We Said, Ironically, 13637

Said the Fascinating Man, 133

Said the Man Who Had Just Returned from Three Months on an Arctic Expedition, 13435

Sock Puppetry, 13739

style and, 13152

Di Franco, Ani, 217

endings

And One Ring to Bind Them! Said the Old Cowpoke, 4345

But a Meteor Could Land There, Right?, 4143

endings,

Goodbye, Cruel Reader!, 4748

The Manchurian Parallax of the

Thetan Conspiracy Enigma, 4849

Now with 20% More Homily!, 5051

plot, 4151

The Underpants Gnomes, 4547

Faulkner, William, 126

Fitzgerald, Scott, 208

heroes

The Average Day, 6162

character and getting to know your, 6170

The Child Is Father to the Digression, 6263

Compassion Fatigue, 68

I Am Expressing My Sexuality, 6970

If There Must Be a Cat, Do Not for the Love of God Name It, 67