I read the second book about a decade ago when I was a brand new writer (the library didn't have the first book. Obviously one should only buy the last book in a series, as evidenced by all the unread finales of trilogies that littered their fantasy shelves). When my friend wanted to rehome the first and second books, I took them in and I'm giving them a reread with ten years of experience and nearly as many novels.

The best I can say about this book is that it's not wrong. Many of the principles that Frey talks about are valid and important. Pacing, characterisation, and plotting are all covered here. I don't think you'll walk away from this book having learnt a load of bad habits about writing that you'll need to unlearn, so there's that.

Why the two stars, then? Firstly, this was written in the 80s and it reads like it. All the examples of female characters are highly stereotyped. They're mothers, wives, sex objects and secretaries, while the men are detectives and criminals and doctors etc etc. That's not going to hurt your ability to learn writing from this book, but as there are thousands of writing manuals out there, this is probably a good reason to skip this one.

Second, Frey is really opinionated. If you don't want to write his way, you're not going to make it as a writer. Allegedly. I actually agree with a lot of what he says, but it's just so ... 80s power male in how he tells you and it really made me grit my teeth.

Third, in my opinion many of the examples that Frey writes as being "good" examples are pretty horribly written. I understand he's sold many novels, and I know there are plenty of people out there who just wanna tell a great spy story and don't care how attractive the words are, but still. Be aware.

All in all, if you want to learn how to write and this book falls in your lap for free, then sure, go ahead and read it. It's short and it contains useful examples from famous novels (A Christmas Carol and Madame Bovary are two of them). It did help me think about the "premise" of my current novel. I don't actually think most of my favourite novels can be boiled down to a single premise (maybe because they're all 1000 page multi-threaded tomes?) but it can be a useful exercise, especially when considering a cover letter or synopsis.

If you're seriously wanting to improve your writing and get a wider perspective and different methods, I recommend firstly checking out to see if your favourite authors have written blogs or have interviews on their site/Youtube, and secondly heading to www.writingexcuses.com and listening to the podcasts. They're awesome, only 15 minutes, and you can skip the ones that don't apply to you. :)

Yazmaya yeni başlayanlar için ve yazmayı seven ve kendini geliştirmek isteyenler için iyi bir rehber kiteliğinde bir kitap Keyifle okudum.

Корисна і наповнена змістом книга. Мінімум "води", максимум корисного навантаження. Особливо сподобалось, що кожен розділ теорії підкріплений реальними практичними розборами текстів ("Старий і море", "Мадам Боварі", "Мобі Дік", "Лоліта", "Різдвяна пісня в прозі", "Хрещений батько ", "Над зозулиним гніздом", "Шпигун, що прийшов з холоду"). Тому в двох словах: маст рід.

How-to for Beginners

Frey, James N. (1987). How to Write a Damn Good Novel. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

I’m cautious about any how-to book that bills itself as “no-nonsense,” implying that comparable books are full of nonsense. In fact this book has quite a bit of nonsense, from the author’s strained sense of humor, to the fact that it was written in 1987 (“Keep a thesaurus by your typewriter”). Nevertheless, it covers the basics of storytelling and its breezy style makes it an easy read, appropriate for beginners.

Frey’s writing method is derived from Aristotle’s Poetics, probably the main source for most writing methods. Frey emphasizes building well-motivated characters, who encounter and deal with conflict, leading to a climax. If you didn’t know that’s how it’s done, then this is the book for you.

His discussion of a story’s premise (basically, the “moral” of the story) was helpful, but I often disagreed with his analysis of examples. “…Lolita proves that ‘great love leads to death.’” Really? That’s not how I read it. In fact, that seems way off base to me. Several comments like that made me question the veracity of the whole book.

There isn’t much discussion of the nuts and bolts of writing craft, such as choosing the point of view (which Frey annoyingly calls the “viewpoint”). The chapter on writing good dialog made a useful distinction between direct and indirect dialog, but the examples of indirect were nothing more than smart-alec tough-guy talk from a cheesy detective novel, not at all helpful. The section on rewriting and editing was weak.

Overall, if you are a raw beginner, this book will get you quickly pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, even though this is an international bestseller, I’d say look elsewhere.

For Mother's Day I received my first digital SLR camera, with an extra zoom lens. I've had lots of fun relearning my SLR techniques, the various zooming and focusing and framing.

I was given Damn Good Novel as a gift when I started whinging about being unable to write. This quickly read, easily accessible book was almost like automatic focus. It wasn't that I have no skills, it's that I was focusing on things that were not helpful at the time. Who knows when I would have adjusted my vision on my own.

All in all, it's been a great year for gifts, and I appreciate being given this book as sort of a love-punch of encouragement.

8/10

Good for beginners.
Not great for advanced.

His tone is a tad condescending.

It was my first book on how to write. A tad boring, but nice and small and I have taken some pointers away with me.

Life Changing.

There seem to be about two broad categories of writing book. Some are inspirational/visionary/literary. Others focus on reader interest and organising your writing so that it might sell commercially. I like both kinds and expected this one to fall into the second category, which it did.

When I pick up a book about writing, I don't necessarily expect anything earth-shattering because I've read a fair number of them. What I expect is an opportunity to reencounter ideas in a fresh way that for some reason makes them resonate anew. Intellectual understanding is not enough to further my writing, so I hope a writing book will give me further insight, even if the change is not exactly measurable. I'm not even begging for insights necessarily. A few glimpses over the horizon is often enough.

This book covered a lot of the familiar bases: character, conflict, viewpoint, flashback, etc., but I've just seen it done better or more in depth. He used a few familiar books for his examples, like Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, but the execution was perfunctory. His simplistic presentation of premise or theme and its controlling influence struck me as possibly incorrect. I prefer Stephen King's advise in On Writing, which was to revise for theme after the first draft.

One line on p. 162 almost made the whole book worth it: "Being an unpublished novelist has about as much social acceptability as being a shopping bag lady."

Bu tarz kitaplar hakkında çok da tecrübeli değilim, birkaç atölyeye katıldım ve iki üç kitap okudum. O yüzden çok da makul eleştiriler yapamayabilirim.

Kitabı genel olarak beğendim. Kaliteli bir yol haritası çiziyor, yazım sürecinde en çok dikkat edilmesi gereken hususlardan bahsediyor. Genel bilgiler vermenin yanında, çok özel ve kolay kolay sağdan soldan edinilemeyecek, tecrübe kokan minik bilgileri de okura koklatıyor.

Ayrıca benim en çok beğendiğim yanı, gerçekten günümüz edebiyatının elini kolunu bağladığını düşündüğüm imgesellik, soyut anlatım gibi daha "elitist" yaklaşımlara acımadan saldırması. Her şeyin kıvamında olması gerektiğini, edebiyatın aşırı elitist olmaması gerektiğini çatır çatır hiç acımadan söylüyor, aksini savunanlara ise oldukça sert çıkıyor. :)

Yazarın üslubu çok keyifli. Kendisini daha önce hiç duymamış olsam da çokça yazıp çizdiği belli. Akıcı ve anlaşılır bir üslupla, herkesin anlayabileceği bir şekilde bu yol haritasını sunuyor. Eh, bize de bunlara uymak kalıyor.

Kitap çok iyi bir tempoda başlasa da ikinci yarıda bana kalırsa tempo kaybı yaşıyor. Ben takip etmekte sonlara doğru biraz zorlandım. Bu yüzden ağır topların ilk yarıda harcandığına inanıyorum. Başka da puan kıracak bir husus yok sanırım. :)

Özetle, bu işlere ilgili olan insanların keyifle okuyacağına inandığım, keyifli bir yol haritası bu kitap. İlgilisine öneriyorum. Yazmakla ilgilenmeyen arkadaşlar okurken biraz sıkılabilir.

Helpful and short.

How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques for Dramatic Storytelling, How to Write a Damn Good Mystery: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide from Inspiration to Finished Manuscript.

Джеймс Н. Фрэй, писатель и педагог известен своей обучающей нехудожественной литературой, в которой рассказывает все тонкости писательского искусства. Я решил написать сразу про три его книги, ведь они очень похожи, да и рассказывать тут особо нечего.

Это блестящая литература, если хочется побольше узнать про написание романов и детективов, увидеть как прямо на ваших глазах создают произведение с нуля, разбирают его по косточкам и рассказывают про каждую его деталь (книга про детективы). Также вы сможете прочитать про различные тонкости и получить очень дельные советы, пусть некоторые из них и довольно очевидны. Зато есть целые куски текста, повествующие о том, что делать после завершения работы, и это прекрасно.

Плюс ко всему, всё это завернуто в легкий, невероятно приятный стиль автора, да приправлено изрядной долей юмора и иронии, что делает чтение не только полезным, но и интересным и даже забавным.

Однозначно стоит читать, если писать книги — это одно из ваших самых сильных и сокровенных желаний.