History Literature / HowNOTToWriteANovel

* WriteWhatYouKnow: Unusually for a guide to creative writing, these tropes are averted; since MostWritersAreWriters, the authors observe that "Write what you know" results in an abundance of novelists writing about authors. That said, they encourage extensive research about topics with which the author is unfamiliar, and they also note that unskilled writers who stray too far from writing about the sorts of people they know end up basing their characters on stock characters and archetypes which may unintentionally offend (such as the MagicalNegro or CampGay). [[invoked]] The idea the authors promote is not "Write what you know," but "Know what you write."

** Yet the authors of this book themselves made a mistake in the examples used, "everybody knows that knights don‘t carry guns", and then going on about less immediately obvious mistakes which can still break immersion. However, historical medieval knights did in fact use guns. Not in the earlier parts of the era, of course, but by the late middle ages knights in full plate armor and early guns coexisted, and some knights (German imperial Reiters, for example) used wheel-lock pistols instead of lances at the beginning of a charge.

* ArtisticLicense: Discouraged. They are unusually adamant that any novel which makes use of some form of specialized knowledge (especially historical novels) must be an accurate depiction.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Encouraged for historical settings; see PoliticallyCorrectHistory below.

-->"[[NoJustNoReaction No. Absolutely not]]. [[{{Squick}} Under no circumstances. He cannot]]."

* CaptainErsatz: Alluded to after a long speech on why not to try to sell fanfic which ends with "now go back and [[SerialNumbersFiledOff change all the names]]."

* CheaterGetsCheatedOn: The novel encourages this if you're going to have the protagonist cheat on their significant other with someone else. If a writer doesn't do this, they run the risk of the significant other looking UnintentionallySympathetic. The writer has to make sure the significant other is clearly worse than the protagonist, and having them cheat first is a good way to establish how awful they are.

* CrapsackWorld: "The Diane Arbus Retrospective". They discourage the [[TooBleakStoppedCaring excessive]] application of this trope where everybody you meet is a miserable degenerate.

* DefenestrateAndBerate: Deconstructed in "Prince Charming Doesn't Deserve Me" (''Wherein [[DesignatedVillain the bad boyfriend]] is [[UnintentionallySympathetic more sympathetic]] than [[DesignatedHero the protagonist]]''). Melinda cheats on Joe and throws his clothes out on the lawn for the heinous crimes of "not wanting to help with her mother's taxes on their anniversary" and "buying her the wrong colored roses". The example paints Melinda as petty and vindictive, tormenting Joe at the slightest provocation rather than giving him his just deserts.

* InMediasRes: "The Waiting Room" advises that this can be used to provide chunks of exposition [[SlowPacedBeginning without delaying the plot.]]

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Discouraged under "Voice in the Wilderness." Editors will ''not'' pick up your novel that's controversial just for the sake of being controversial.

* RomanticFalseLead: Discussed in "Prince Charming Doesn't Deserve Me": They don't recommend against the trope ''per se'', but they do caution against making the False Lead too UnintentionallySympathetic or the protagonist too UnintentionallyUnsympathetic in the process. They also recommend that the nice-but-dull variation can be traded in for a better model, but only if the protagonist shows an appropriate amount of remorse rather than glee.

* TotallyRadical[=/=]TwoDecadesBehind: "I, Youngster" suggests that older authors do their research and apply common sense when writing a young, hip character, and not make clichéd assumptions about youth culture. They also suggest the practical alternative of writing a novel about young people [[WriteWhatYouKnow at a time when the author themselves was of that age]], for purposes of accuracy and realism.

* VanityPublishing: Discussed, with the subsequent ProtectionFromEditors not necessarily being a good thing.

* NoYay: "Last Tango in Santa's Village".[[invoked]] (Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.) If you have a non-sexualized character in your story, for the love of God, give them some sex appeal ''before'' making them hook up with someone. Otherwise, your readers will just be bored, confused, and/or disgusted with the relationship.
-->''"At last she saw past superficialities to understand that it was Santa, with his warm and loyal heart, who was the real man - not cobalt-eyed, washboard-abbed Blade at all! SantaClaus was always her best friend - could he be something more?"''
-->"[[LittleNo No]]. [[{{Squick}} Absolutely not]]. [[BrainBleach Under no circumstances]]. [[NoJustNoReaction He cannot.]]"

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: [[invoked]]Discouraged in "Gibberish for Art's Sake". They say that the belief that difficult-to-understand writing is artistic is "analogous to the belief that [[NemeanSkinning the warrior who dons the pelt of a lion]] [[SympatheticMagic thereby acquires its strength and cunning]]." (And the lion thing doesn't work either, by the way.)

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Averted with "Voice in the Wilderness"--editors will ''not'' pick up your novel that's controversial just for the sake of being controversial.

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: Averted with "Voice in the Wilderness"--editors will ''not'' pick up your novel that's controversial for its own sake.

* AnimalDetective: Discussed. The writers observe that unless the protagonist's cat Bartok is the one solving mysteries, Bartok should receive about as many words in the narrative as the couch he is sitting on.

* AuthorFilibuster: "The After-Dinner Sermon" (''[[InWhichATropeIsDescribed in which the author wields a mallet]]'').

* PuritySue: [[Invoked]] and discussed in "Too Good to Be True", noting that it's usually an attempt to make a character sympathetic but which has overshot the mark and made them nauseatingly perfect instead. Naturally discouraged, as being in the presence of perfection tends to breed not admiration but resentment.

* PuritySue: "Too Good to Be True" — ''Wherein an attempt to make TheProtagonist sympathetic overshoots the mark.''[[invoked]]

* IJustWriteTheThing: Discouraged in "The Fig Leaf". You usually don't have to include your AuthorAppeal in your work. But if you're going to include it, then at least be up front about what you're doing, since no one's going to be fooled anyway. The example demonstrates this by having an author, who clearly enjoys visiting strip clubs but equally clearly doesn't want anyone else to know this, combine a lovingly detailed description of the club and the strippers working there with a viewpoint character who sniffily declares how beneath him he finds everything as much as possible.

* DefenestrateAndBerate: Deconstructed in "Prince Charming Doesn't Deserve Me" (''Wherein [[DesignatedVillain the bad boyfriend]] is [[UnintentionallySympathetic more sympathetic]] than [[DesignatedHero the protagonist]]''). Melinda cheats on Joe and throws his clothes out on the lawn for the heinous crimes of "not wanting to help with her mother's taxes on their anniversary" and "buying her the wrong colored roses". The example paints Melinda as petty and vindictive, tormenting Joe at the slightest provocation rather than giving him his just desserts.

* DefenestrateAndBerate: Deconstructed in "Prince Charming Doesn't Deserve Me" (''Wherein [[DesignatedVillain the bad boyfriend]] is [[UnintentionallySympathetic more sympathetic]] than [[DesignatedHero the protagonist]]''). Melinda cheats on Joe and throws his clothes out on the lawn for the heinous crimes of "not wanting to help with her mother's taxes on their anniversary" and "buying her the wrong colored roses". The example paints Melinda as petty and vindictive, tormenting Joe at the slightest provocation rather than giving him his just deserts.

* WallOfBlather: The front cover, with the background text being some sort of proto-''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' Vampire Romance.

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: A literal example — the writers observe that unless the protagonist's cat Bartok is the one solving mysteries, Bartok should receive about as many words in the narrative as the couch he is sitting on.