This was one of the first books I read on writing a novel that showed how to work through what was needed step by step. Unfortunately I don't think I paid as much attention to Mr Frey as I should have - although I kept the book on my shelves for probably another thirty years - and it's taken me a long time to realise that writing as a 'pantser' isn't the ideal, even for me, who finds that method very appealing.

Grāmata pilna noderīgu padomu un iedvesmas, lasīju ilgi, bet cītīgi. Parādās arī pāris pretrunas un apgalvojumi, kuri nesakrīt ar manu uztveri - kā jau katrā darbā. Kopumā - lieliska, asprātīga, precīza, aizraujoša grāmata.

I just can't get enough of James's books. I highly recommend this one for both beginners and professional writers. There are some amazing tips that most writers need to know before starting their novels.

Useful book about the art of writing.

Hab keine Lust mehr auf Literaturratgeber. Besserer Stil als kreatives Schreiben aber die Prämisse, dass man eine Prämisse haben müsse (eine These, die man veranschauliche) halte ich für nicht zutreffend 1. und 2. auch häufig verkehrt, weil der Roman dann schlichtweg wie eine Stellungnahme wirkt, ohne fähig zu sein Argumente zu liefern. Will man etwas erklären oder kritisieren, soll man gefälligst Wissenschaft treiben und keinen Roman schreiben.

It's the best book you'll ever read on REVISION.

I love this book, but a lot of people miss what it's about, because the author himself seems to think it's about first drafting. But very few people ever draft with the massive amount of preparation Frey suggests: a beat sheet, character interviews, a character's ruling passion, a premise, a defined crucible, a defined denouement and setup...

Most people start writing with only a few of these elements in mind, and discover along the way. Stephen King doesn't know how his books will end, which is probably why he's so effective at scaring us, because he can really empathize with the clueless characters. Most people discover character traits as they go, writing their character through some pre-created situations, watching their character take a different turn, etc. Few people can start from a pre-created premise, because the things you care about change as you put them on the page.

All Frey's tips--premise, ruling passion, beat sheets, defined crucible, falling conflict, creating indirect dialogue--happen in revision, when you look as a first draft and start pulling some order out of what your brain dumped on the page. Make a list of all Frey's elements and see if your book really can meet those requirements. Use his tips on indirect dialogue to improve what you've got.

It's no surprise that one gushing review on the back says "I wish I had found this book during my fourth rewrite of my novel."

It's about REVISION!

If you're reading a lot of craft books, you're not going to get a lot out of this. I highlighted a few passages, but most of it I'd already picked up from other sources or was just flat outdated.

I ended up skim reading it, because I found it quite dated.

The third chapter on the necessity of a premise was the most useful. The first two chapters also had good suggestions: creating character bios and step sheets. The final chapter on the zen of writing was also good. Definitely useful.

Iets te stellig over de methode (als in: dit is het het moet!). Maar er staan genoeg goede tips in.

Meh--

Having read a few books on writing (Stephen King's On Writing, Jerry Cleaver's Immediate Fiction, Renni Browne and Dave King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, and John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist), I found James Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel rather narrow-minded, lacking in detail, and even trite.

Every time Frey gives advice, he comes across as dogmatic; it's as though he thinks his method is THE right method and other methods are inferior in themselves. But that's just plain wrong. While he does give good advice, the reader should be aware that there are many more methods out there (see Cleaver's book on this) that may or may not work for a particular writer. Frey's method may very well work for himself, and maybe for many others, but just as there is no one way of telling a story, there simply is no one way of writing a novel. As long as Frey's method works for you and gets you to write better prose and dialogue and story, then fine, stick to it and keep writing. But if it doesn't work for you, then you might want to pick another book on writing and try another method out. The point is to find a method that suits you.

So insofar as he doesn't really allow for other potential methods, he is pontificating, and I didn't like it. He has a workable method, sure. You do XYZ in order and voila, you got your novel.

But it doesn't work like that for everyone.

Not everyone can come up with 50 pages of a character's biography without getting into the story. Not everyone can come up with the whole plot without actually writing and letting the characters play it out. Stephen King doesn't even know what'll happen next; he's a big believer in intuition and letting things happen and fall in place. Frey's method has no room for such a method. He has to know the characters and know exactly what will happen in the story before even writing a word of the story.

Not everyone works like that.

So that's why the book gets the rating it gets. It was OK because though it was being narrow-minded in my opinion, it did have some good nuggets of advice.

I did learn a few things, but mostly Jerry Cleaver's Immediate Fiction covers all the crucial information Frey provides, and does it better and a lot more comprehensively. So I recommend reading Jerry Cleaver's book first.

Things I learned:

1) Character biographies can be useful, although not necessary;
2) How to use flashbacks and foreshadowing effectively;
3) How to make dialogue gripping; and
4) How to write description with a flair.

That's about it. Other major things are described in more depth and range in Cleaver's book and King's book (both of which are excellent, btw).

So overall, meh, it was OK.

Premises and much more than the humorous and somewhat dusty presented.

Please note that I put the original German text at the end of this review. Just if you might be interested.

Most likely one could speak of a structure-finding primer along with a motivational explanation of a writer. This is peppered with passages from works of classical literature such as "The Godfather, Lolita, A Christmas song in prose, Madame Bovary, The old man and the sea" as vivid examples of techniques explained in the book.
Alone this integration of significant works to illustrate particular fields of application of individual techniques in their highest perfection could be found even more frequently in the guidebook literature. It allows good visual possibilities. Given the relative brevity of the book, sheer numbers of subject blocks are worked through to ensure a good overview. However, a more in-depth study of individual areas requires a grasp of further and more specific literature.
It is realistic and praiseworthy for the work that one can imagine, only with the same equipped, to deliver a reasonably acceptable first novel. Everything about armor is available. Although it is sometimes criticized that it lacks in a claim, but the conclusion of a narrative is merely a milestone for a budding author. Regardless of how it is achieved.
Moreover, this should be easier and more achievable with simple, predictable stories about stereotypical characters in cliché-dripping environments than complex and sophisticated themes and narrative structures.
After all, stylistic improvements and more complex background stories usually come about with practice. Opponents accuse the work of precisely this simplification as a primary point of criticism, with the needs of aspiring authors being wholly ignored. These just need simple instructions in order not to be overwhelmed at the beginning with the writing and no brimming with technical terms and high standards works.
Other, well-founded criticisms are also found. Thus, the explanations about perspective do not sound well-founded and may be partly wrong. If the instructions are followed precisely, the results may be quite similar. This entails the danger of only working according to a defined pattern without a healthy balance concerning creativity. Even why the premise is so over-emphasized about other, essential components, does not open up entirely and real stylistic tips and assistance are in short supply.
The author knows how to polarize and divide the readers into two extreme camps who either praise him or portrays him as an arrogant steam talker. Whether the writing style says something about the personality, is deliberately chosen for promoting the sales provocatively or all passages are seriously meant that way, is an open question. It is clear that Frey has written not only a guide to a novel but also a cranky and entertaining book and never claims to create profound literature.
On the contrary, he repeatedly points to the meaning and purpose of his work for creating average novels. In this respect, he is both in the choice of his teaching methods as well as stylistically consistent and faithful to himself and deserves purely subjective somewhat respect than scolding. For example, for the intolerances that he takes out and uses as a deliberate provocation. However, what benefit draws a reader from a politically correct but bone-dry guidebook?
Ultimately, judging a book can not only bring subjective impressions into the foreground. Instead, the usefulness of the respective group of readers should be elevated to primacy rather than one's preferences to be able to make objective and otherwise useful judgments.
In the end, the result and benefits count, and Frey believes that this promise is for entrants and writers in particular, with no more than the demand to entertain.

Prämissen und noch viel mehr als das launig und etwas angestaubt präsentiert.

Am ehesten könnte man von einer Strukturfindungsfibel samt Motivationserklärung eines Schriftstellers sprechen. Diese liefert mit Passagen aus Werken der klassischen Literatur wie „Der Pate, Lolita, Ein Weihnachtslied in Prosa, Madame Bovary, Der alte Mann und das Meer“ gespickt anschauliche Beispiele für im Buch erklärte Techniken.
Alleine diese Einbindung großer Werke zur Veranschaulichung konkreter Anwendungsgebiete einzelner Techniken in ihrer höchsten Perfektion könnte noch wesentlich häufiger Eingang in die Ratgeberliteratur finden. Ermöglicht es doch gute Anschauungsmöglichkeiten. Es werden angesichts der relativen Kürze des Buches schiere Mengen an Themenblöcken durchexerziert, so dass ein guter Überblick gewährleistet, ist. Jedoch wird für eine vertiefende Beschäftigung mit einzelnen Bereichen ein Griff zu weiterführender und spezifischerer Literatur notwendig.
Realistisch und für das Werk löblich ist es, dass man sich durchaus vorstellen kann, nur mit selbigem gerüstet einen halbwegs akzeptablen Erstlingsroman abzuliefern. Alles an Rüstzeug ist vorhanden. Auch wenn mitunter von Kritikern moniert wird, dass es an Anspruch fehle, ist schlicht der Abschluss einer Erzählung für einen angehenden Autor ein Meilenstein. Ganz unabhängig davon, wie er erreicht wird.
Und dieser dürfte mit schlichten, vorhersehbaren Geschichten über stereotype Charaktere in vor Klischees triefenden Umgebungen leichter und eher zu erreichen sein als mit komplexen und anspruchsvollen Thematiken und Erzählstrukturen
Denn mit Übung stellen sich in der Regel auch stilistische Verbesserungen und komplexere Hintergrundgeschichten ganz von selbst ein. Gegner werfen dem Werk genau diese Simplifizierung als Hauptkritikpunkt entgegen, wobei die Bedürfnisse angehender Autoren gänzlich ausgeklammert werden. Diese brauchen eben einfache Anleitungen um am Anfang mit dem Schreiben nicht überfordert zu sein und keine vor Fachausdrücken und hohen Ansprüchen strotzenden Werke.
Andere, durchaus begründete Kritikpunkte finden sich hingegen auch. So erscheinen die Erläuterungen über Perspektive nicht ganz fundiert und dürften teilweise falsch sein. Bei genauer Befolgung der Anweisungen dürften sich mitunter recht ähnliche Ergebnisse einstellen. Das birgt die Gefahr in sich, nur mehr nach festgelegten Schema ohne gesunde Ausgewogenheit hinsichtlich Kreativität zu arbeiten. Auch warum die Prämisse im Verhältnis zu anderen, wichtigen Komponenten derart überbetont wird, erschließt sich nicht ganz und konkrete stilistische Tipps und Hilfestellungen sind Mangelware.
Der Autor versteht es zu polarisieren und die Leser in zwei extreme Lager zu spalten, die ihn entweder hochpreisen oder als arroganten Dampfplauderer darstellen. Ob der Schreibstil wirklich etwas über die Persönlichkeit aussagt, bewusst den Verkauf fördernd provokant gewählt ist oder alle Passagen ernsthaft so gemeint sind, sei dahingestellt. Fest steht, dass Frey nicht nur eine Anleitung für einen Roman, sondern auch ein kauziges und unterhaltsames Buch geschrieben hat und niemals für sich in Anspruch nimmt, tiefsinnige Literatur zu schaffen.
Er weist im Gegenteil mehrfach auf Sinn und Zweck seines Werks hin. Insofern ist er sowohl bei der Wahl seiner Lehrmethoden als auch stilistisch konsequent und sich selbst treu und verdient rein subjektiv eher Achtung als Schelte. Etwa für die Intoleranzen, die er sich herausnimmt und als bewusste Provokation einsetzt. Denn welchen Nutzen zieht ein Leser aus einem politisch absolut korrekten, aber knochentrockenen Ratgeberbuch?
Letztendlich kann man zur Beurteilung eines Buches nicht nur subjektive Eindrücke in den Vordergrund rücken. Sondern sollte die Nützlichkeit für die jeweils angesprochene Lesergruppe anstelle der eigenen Präferenzen zum Primat erheben, um objektive und für andere nutzbringende Beurteilungen tätigen zu können.
Im Endeffekt zählen Resultat und Nutzen und dieses Versprechen hält Frey vor allem für Einsteiger und Schreiber mit nicht mehr als dem Anspruch zu unterhalten.