thedailychannel.com — recommended books

How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them by Sol Stein

Icy Reward

Three climbers strained on the slope, but not upward. A storm had caught them late in the day, at altitude, four hundred yards above the last safe camp.

Igor gripped the icy rope with both hands, his huge black gloves overlapping Eva's red ones on the lifeline. Under his breath he mumbled but each word still came through. "What if I don't want to write a novel?"

The taut rope vibrated under a barrage of wild gusts. The two of them slipped and dug in, then let the rescue toboggan down, just another inch or maybe two.

Her teeth clenched, Eva strained at the rope. "Why not try a web page, Igor," she said. "The same ideas as novels work for web pages too, you know. Only it's a lot harder but the pay sucks."

Sol's gift to you

Have you ever considered writing a novel? If so, Sol Stein has prepared a treat for you: a book that looks and reads like a novel.

Except it isn't a novel. It just tells how to write one. A good one. The one you want to write: a book your readers will pick up and won't be able to put down until they surface, shaking off the dream, hundreds of pages later.

Writing this book was a labor of courtesy, craft, consideration, even love. It had to be. How could the market for a book of this type begin to approach the sales of a best-selling novel? Why would a best-selling novelist, editor and publisher of many more, back off on the throttle and write a how-to book?

Because he loves you, that's why. I don't think there can be any other reason, when you come right down to it.

In his own words, Sol Stein is a writer who cannot NOT write. His advice is concise. His examples are interesting. He gives you "before and after" improvements from a lifetime of authorship and editing.

Another reason or two

But since you probably don't plan on writing a novel, at least at the moment anyway, let me cite another reason you might enjoy reading this book. It describes and defines literature.

But maybe the best reason to read this book is that it gives you a guide to creating an experience for someone. You might not want to write a novel, but there are plenty of ideas here for planning other kinds of user experience that might be equally absorbing.

If I were going to play one of those disingenuous pedagogical tricks on someone, I might make a list of the books Sol Stein draws examples from, say "read this first," and then recommend that they read the book. Imagine the strength and depth of your insight if you had already read the novels that Sol Stein refers to in this book. You'd know exactly what he was talking about.

In the meantime, you have to pay attention to a publisher who gave Jimmy Hoffa a good strong elbow in the ribs. Maybe too strong?

Some of the books...

The Magician by Sol Stein
America America by Elia Kazan
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Trial by Franz Kafka
1984 by George Orwell
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Rashoman, by Akira Kurosawa, from 2 stories by Ryonosuke Akutagawa
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
The Eagle has Landed by Jack Higgins
'Twas the Night Before by Jerry Jenkins
Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Matador by Barnaby Conrad
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
A Life by Elia Kazan
The Assassins by Elia Kazan
The Arrangement by Elia Kazan
The Rising Tide by John M. Barry

Will Igor and Eva rescue Toni? Will they find happiness? Will they get back together again? Heck, will they even get back to the last safe camp?? We'll have to get back to you on that one. In the meantime, plot, rewrite and scrawl your way over to www.amazon.com for your own copy of How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them by Sol Stein

Reviewed Saturday April 6, 2002