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A review by twocents
Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level by Donald Maass
5.0
I received this book as a gift after NaNoWriMo. It's a bit dated, but that didn't antagonize me as much as it clearly bothered some other readers. I liked that he didn't really make a formula, but talked about what worked and gave a lot of examples. Could you figure it out on your own? Yes, maybe eventually. But reading hundreds of stories takes a lot of time, and doesn't give you the depth and breadth of reading that Mr. Maass has a result of being an agent.
Also, I think the fact that he isn't the most well-known novelist in the world is completely irrelevant to his overall points, which is that making the best story you can is the best pitch you can have to convincing other people to read your book. He defines breakout novel, not as being the best selling book to ever exist, but as a marked increase in your success. I found the overall message very encouraging as a wannabe novelist. I look at my current novel in the works and I can see why it's so broken now. But it's fixable, and now that I know why it doesn't work, I can fix it. That's uplifting.
The only downside of this, is that it's become more obvious to me why something doesn't work in a story anymore. So instead of having a small niggling feeling of "something about this story is blah" I find myself going, "ah, they didn't build enough tension, the plot isn't remotely plausible, etc." But critical reading is a generally good thing. If only you learned how to do critical analysis that matters in school, rather than writing essays on why the drapes were blue.
Also, I think the fact that he isn't the most well-known novelist in the world is completely irrelevant to his overall points, which is that making the best story you can is the best pitch you can have to convincing other people to read your book. He defines breakout novel, not as being the best selling book to ever exist, but as a marked increase in your success. I found the overall message very encouraging as a wannabe novelist. I look at my current novel in the works and I can see why it's so broken now. But it's fixable, and now that I know why it doesn't work, I can fix it. That's uplifting.
The only downside of this, is that it's become more obvious to me why something doesn't work in a story anymore. So instead of having a small niggling feeling of "something about this story is blah" I find myself going, "ah, they didn't build enough tension, the plot isn't remotely plausible, etc." But critical reading is a generally good thing. If only you learned how to do critical analysis that matters in school, rather than writing essays on why the drapes were blue.