YMMV / How NOT to Write a Novel

• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: "The Fig Leaf" mentions how some authors will describe a titillating scene in salacious detail, then apologize for it by having the protagonist express their distaste. The book recommends against this, and suggests that if exploitative scenes are to be shown, the author should embrace sleaziness wholeheartedly.
• Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory: Discussed in "The Reading Group Guide" in regards to the synopsis, in that you should only bring up facts, lest the synopsis ends up longer than your novel.
• Genius Bonus
  • Their slam on attempting to shoehorn in Shown Their Work 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 Los Angeles and New York City is three miles. 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 Stylistic Suck, it's impossible to tell if the authors were sneaking in one more example of how important research is, including a little bonus, or failing biology forever while telling authors they cannot afford to make such mistakes themselves.
  • Other such bonuses show up everywhere. In "The Long Runway", in a moment not related to the subject they're demonstrating, Reynaldo mentions cancelling his pangolin lessons. While "pangolin" certainly sounds like the name of some sort of musical instrument (the fictional author likely meant "mandolin"), a pangolin is an animal vaguely resembling an armadillo.
• Nausea Fuel: "The Unruly Zit" is this intentionally. It's part of an example saying that making one scene disgusting is okay if that was your intention, but discourage making the entire novel like that, since no one likes being disgusted.
• Squick: Nearly all of "Special Effects and Novelty Acts—DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME".
  • The "half a kitten" analogy.
  Giving a reader a sex scene that is only half right is like giving her half of a kitten. It is not half as cute as a whole kitten; it is a bloody, godawful mess.
  • " 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.

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