History Fridge / HowNOTToWriteANovel

* The co-authors are primarily editors by trade and have admitted that each example they give is from an actual manuscript that they had a hand in rejecting. Just let that sink in.

[[AC:FridgeHorror]]
* The book features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such... Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's ''not'' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds its way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...

** Not necessarily. Depending on how the scene is done the reader might be able to follow by seeing which line comes first and picking up details of the speakers by the quirks of their dialogue.
*** Of course, that would require that the writer of such a book be sufficiently talented that the quirks of the characters' respective dialogues would become immediately recognizable to the reader over time, and if they ''were'' that talented, they probably wouldn't need to read a book like ''How Not to Write a Novel'' in the first place.

* ''Literature/HowNotToWriteANovel'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such... Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's ''not'' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds its way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...

* One of the rules is simple enough. Don't write a {{fan fiction}} then go through and Find and Replace the characters' names and expect to get published. Three years later FiftyShadesOfGrey. Yes, I am going to leave this under FridgeHorror.

* ''Literature/HowNotToWriteANovel'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such... Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's ''not'' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds it's way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...

* ''{{How Not to Write a Novel}}'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such... Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's ''not'' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds it's way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...
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* ''{{How Not to Write a Novel}}'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such... Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's '''not''' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds it's way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...

* ''{{How Not to Write a Novel}}'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book. Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this. And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such...
Seriously, though, the sad thing is, it's '''not''' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds it's way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...

* ''{{How Not to Write a Novel}}'', a book about 200 mistakes you need to watch out for when writing a novel, features a lot of examples of bad writing. While these examples are often useful, there's sure to be some examples that make you think "Well, yeah; of ''course'' I'm not going to do that. It's obviously not a good way to write a book." Only after a while will you realize that the authors of the book have worked as editors, and have seen a lot of fiction, and since they want to make their book as useful as possible they must make sure to include the most common mistakes people make. Meaning that the example of bad writing you just discarded as an obvious bad idea has been somebody's idea of good writing, and not just once, but so many times that it was necessary to include it in this book.
** Anyone who reads {{fan fiction}}, on the other hand, will already know this.
*** And some of the authors even don't consider it important to clear their works from grammatic errors and such...
** But the sad thing is, it's '''not''' limited to fanfiction. One cannot imagine the amount of bad writing that finds it's way into even regular books (past the editors), not to mention VanityPublishing and such...