How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II: Advanced Techniques For Dramatic Storytelling

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Editorial Review:

"Damn good" fiction is dramatic fiction, Frey insists, whether it is by Hemingway or Grisham, Le Carre or Ludlum, Austen or Dickens. Despite their differences, these authors' works share common elements: strong narrative lines, fascinating characters, steadily building conflicts, and satisfying conclusions. Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel is one of the most widely used guides ever published for aspiring authors. Here, in How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II, Frey offers powerful advanced techniques to build suspense, create fresher, more interesting characters, and achieve greater reader sympathy, empathy, and identification.How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II also warns against the pseudo-rules often inflicted upon writers, rules such as "The author must always be invisible" and "You must stick to a single viewpoint in a scene," which cramp the imagination and deaden the narrative. Frey focuses instead on promises that the author makes to the reader--promises about character, narrative voice, story type, and so on, which must be kept if the reader is to be satisfied. This book is rich, instructive, honest, and often tellingly funny about the way writers sometimes fail their readers and themselves.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

What I expected, but...:

Ok, I enjoyed the book...
It gave me a new understanding of writing...
However, It would have been nice to create examples of good writing instead of relying (and referring) to books written 20 to 30 years ago that most people today probably haven't read (and don't want to read.)
The Scarlett letter, Red badge of courage, etc...
No complaints otherwise...
MJL

Worth Many Times the Price:

I've read many books that give advice on writing novels. None are as good as this one. "How To" are the operative words here. Frey deals in specifics, gives you a step-by-step approach to telling a story, and reinforces it all with entertaining examples and narrative.
This book is worth many times the price - packed with so much valuable information, I'm reading it for the third time.
Frank Allan Rogers

as good as taking a writing class:

Can't believe the guy who posted a review 16 days ago and didn't know the difference between James n.Frey and jame frey the disgraced writer are two different writers. Didn't he read the info, didn't he see the photos. Too bad that Amazon is not reviewing reviews as this is damaging to James N. Frey whom I've just sent an email to alerting him to this situation.
Back to the reason for this review. What a great book on writing. I've a very long shelf of books on writing and the used book store is now... more info

Review:

When I realized that this is the guy who fooled the know-it-all Oprah with his book, I figured he must know about writing a "Damn" good novel!

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