History YMMV / HowNotToWriteANovel

* PetPeeveTrope: While it's hard to disagree with most of the advice given, some of the tropes mentioned are more mild annoyances the authors have rather than ones you should actively avoid to not be seen as the worst writer ever, such as the PetsHomageName and their heavy discouragement of Post-Modernism.

* ShockingSwerve: "Dear Penthouse Letters" is when a sex scene occurs without foreplay, while "'And One Ring to Bind Them!' Said the Old Cowpoke" has a GenreShift happen near the end of the novel [[DeusExMachina with no buildup]]. In both instances, it effectively ruins the mood.
--> This type of ending is a special instance of ''deus ex machina'', known as the ''folie adieu'', which is French for "Are you ''FUCKING'' kidding me?"

* HilariousInHindsight: In the chapter about how not to pitch a novel, they warn against trying to sell fanfiction to a publisher, instead advising writers to "go back and change all the names". Three years later, ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'', a novel which originated as ''{{Literature/Twilight}}'' fan fiction, changed all the names and [[AscendedFanfic was published]] to massive commercial success.

* DudeNotFunny: "Voice in the Wilderness" is about expressing an opinion that is so inflammatory that you will most likely be absolutely alone in it. The passage in question is [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust a Holocaust denialist story]], describing a Nazi soldier trying to care for a Jewish prisoner and lamenting how the Allies are probably going to "misinterpret" the "desperate" conditions and use it to fuel propaganda. It... certainly gets its point across that, if you do something like this in a submitted manuscript, [[MoralEventHorizon there will be no chance of anyone unfortunate enough to read it ever forgiving you]]. The knowledge that this passage, just like every other, is loosely based on something that the authors actually encountered in their editing work [[FridgeHorror is depressing and infuriating]].
-->''Whether you are expressing a private conviction or [[RefugeInAudacity just being shocking]], you will never make it to the shelves. An editor might sit up and take notice, but only because he knows that while it only takes a minute to reject your novel, he will be dining out on the story of how repellent you are for years to come.''

* PetPeeveTrope: While its hard to disagree with most of the advice given, some of the tropes mentioned are more mild annoyances the authors have rather than ones you should actively avoid to not be seen as the worst writer ever, such as the PetsHomageName and their heavy discouragement of Post-Modernism.

* DudeNotFunny: "Voice in the Wilderness" -- the name picked in the sense of "if you say this, you are going to be absolutely alone in doing so" sense -- is both this in an invoked scale ''and'' a YMMV scale. The passage in question is [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust a Holocaust denialist story]], describing a Nazi soldier trying to care for a Jewish prisoner and lamenting how the Allies are probably going to "misinterpret" the "desperate" conditions and use it to fuel propaganda. It... certainly gets its point across that, if you express an opinion like this in a submitted manuscript, [[MoralEventHorizon there will be no chance of anyone unfortunate enough to read it ever forgiving you for being so vile]]. The knowledge that this passage, just like every other, is loosely based on something that the authors actually encountered in their editing work [[FridgeHorror is depressing and infuriating]].

* DudeNotFunny: "Voice in the Wilderness" -- the name picked in the sense of "if you say this, you are going to be absolutely alone in doing so" sense -- is both this in an invoked scale ''and'' a YMMV scale. The passage in question is [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust a Holocaust denialist story]], describing a Nazi soldier trying to care for a Jewish prisoner and lamenting how the Allies are probably going to see the "misinterpret" the "desperate" conditions and use it to fuel propaganda. It... certainly gets its point across that, if you express an opinion like this in a submitted manuscript, [[MoralEventHorizon there will be no chance of anyone unfortunate enough to read it ever forgiving you for being so vile]]. The knowledge that this passage, just like every other, is loosely based on something that the authors actually encountered in their editing work is depressing and infuriating.

** Their slam on ShownTheirWork throws in a whopper. The biologist mentions sexual reproduction's origin in algae 2.7 ''million'' years ago. That error is off by a factor of about a thousand.[[note]]To put that in perspective, it's like saying the distance between UsefulNotes/LosAngeles and UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity is three miles.[[/note]] We don't have a common ancestor with algae at this time; any common ancestor between humans and algae would have lived long before this. Due to StylisticSuck, it's impossible to tell if the authors were sneaking in one more example of how important research is, including a little bonus, or [[{{hypocrite}} failing biology forever while telling authors they cannot afford to make such mistakes themselves]].

* " In his years of incarceration, however, he had earned the sobriquet "Uncle Milty" for his piscine amatory habits."[[note]] Male fish spray sperm, or "milt" over a large area. [[/note]]