Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level

Writing the Breakout Novel is clearly a book that every aspiring writer should consider reading.As far as to say that Donald Maass is a definitive source or this is a definitive work would be presumptuous.There are quite a few definitive ideas in here that I believe every writer should know. And I believe it is presented with an entertaining and authoritative air.I must admit that I made the mistake of reading The Fire in Fiction first and I don't believe that it is quite as informative as this book is. It in fact reads mostly like mini reviews of some of the author's favorite book.What Writing the Breakout Novel has is both a readers and an agents eye view of necessary elements in writing to entertain your readers and keep their interest.I think the best thing that I came away with, from this reading, was something I'd already suspected. That is that when as a writer I struggle to rein myself in as regards purple prose, showing rather than telling, writing active as opposed to passive, and other such nonsense; I have to keep in mind the ideal of balance in all these areas.I think that his book makes it clear that these are all stylistic parts of writing that can either enhance or detract from the story and that as with many other things there is a time and place for everything.Yes there are things an author should try to do to be more marketable and those are covered here, but Donald is in no way preachy about these ideas. I believe Donald is quite clear that there is a need for balance and his notion is not to make all writers write the same- but, to make them all write better.I'm not sure that my writing will ever reach the level of respectability that he holds out for, but I think I can easily see where I need to improve and that's what counts as to how this book works as a tool.I will definitely recommend this along with other tools to all of my friends and even those who help me edit my work.I especially like the notion I was able to take away that when questioning things like POV (point of view) and tense that it is not as some would try to make a person believe ; too difficult and not recommended for a new author to go down such a path; but it's more likely that the style around what the author is trying to do just needs to be focused to make it more readable.And Donald Maass gives examples and ways for this to be accomplished.It the difference that you see when trying to do a do it your self task at home and someone comes and says."You are going about that the wrong way." Then they walk away.They could have at least shown you the right way- but maybe they don't know the right way.What Donald Maass says here is let me show you how to make that work.Two thumbs up.J.L. Dobias

I found this book very helpful. As a starting point, understand that this is not a book on the craft of writing superb sentences with excellent grammar. This outlines the broader picture, plot, character development and other concepts. Some readers consider this book encouraging merely a commercial pursuit and not art. Personally, I'm attempting to write a novel that will grab readers and hold their attention. This book fits my goals. As an exercise, I went through some of my favorite books, including a couple of the classics. While the authors might not have sat with Mr. Maass' guidelines in front of them, they did cover nearly all the points he suggests are key.The book itself. First, the "you can do it, Rah Rah" section required to start this type of book is relatively short and painless. In the book Don Maass takes concepts that are known to all authors and he organizes them well. One of the distinctions about this book is he explains why the concepts are important and he provides guidelines to achieve the desired result. He provides numerous examples, and although I didn't agree with every example, the process of evaluating the examples was part of the learning experience. Each chapter ends with a summary that feels like a checklist.The book feels a little bit like a "recipe" ie, follow these instructions and use these checklists and you will have a breakout novel. Obviously breakout novel writing can't be that easy as I don't believe Mr. Maass would consider any of his own novels as breakouts. I personally like that recipe / textbook feel and organization, others might find it to feel contrived.My writing skills increased dramatically from reading this book and I actually use the chapter summary to remind myself to build deeper characters, create conflict etc. An unexpected bonus from reading this book is that my own enjoyment of reading went up as I was able to more fully appreciate the work that goes into a good novel.I recommend reading the book and challenging your own writing with the concepts. This is the most helpful book on writing that I have read.

There is a ton of great and useful info in this book. Maass does a great job of breaking down each element to novels which have broken out. Everything from characters, to time and place, to theme, and finding your voice as author just to name a few. My only complaint with the book was that which he uses multiple examples from novels in each of his sections, rarely is the same novel cited for another section. For example, he will show how one novel does a great job of establishing a setting, but then it is never mentioned again.For me, Maass was making the case that a breakout novel *must* accomplish all the sections in the book, but then he doesn't cite one specific novel for each part. It would have been easier to follow if it was narrowed down to one (or two or three) and then I could go out and buy the novel that he laid out piece by piece why it was a breakout and see for myself what a breakout novel looks like. It seemed to defeat the purpose by citing multiple books for the purposes of his guide, but then not breaking down one novel in depth.But, overall, I feel that I learned a lot about my own writing and what I need to work on to improve (settings and time and place) and to hopefully breakout one day myself.