THE ICE PICK

How to Write and Sell Your First Novel, by Oscar Collier with Frances Spatz Leighton. Rev. ed. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997. $12.95.

"The whole purpose of this book is to take the fear out of writing your first novel." Updated from the first edition, this revised classic is a great book for both beginners and more advanced writers.

The first half of the book takes you step by step through the process and challenges of writing a novel. Collier and Leighton begin by helping you decide what type of novel you would like to write, and then go on through character creation, viewpoint, plotting, working with dialogue, handling flashbacks and foreshadowing, and the all-important task of actually getting started. Even if you already have most, or all, of that down pat, their advice on establishing a writing routine that will work for you and that you can live with, and setting reasonable goals and quotas that will help you finally finish that novel you’ve been working on is worth the price of the book.

Their system of what they call "loose outlining" really worked for me. Take a sheet of paper and make a list of the scenes or "actions" that you want to have take place. Count them. That’s the approximate number of chapters you’ll have. Use a manila folder for each chapter and put in it any ideas, pictures, background information, questions or notes to yourself, scraps of dialogue or description you’ve jotted down for that scene, etc. When you start writing the chapter, all the material is ready for you.

Next, they lead you through editing and marketing your manuscript, explaining about agents and contracts and telling you what to expect.

The second part of the book is devoted to the stories of seventeen first novelists. Most of these stories are exciting and inspiring. You may find some of them a bit depressing because of the amount of sheer luck involved or the number of rejections before final success. But the message is to not give up hope.

If you’ve been writing short stories, and would really like to try working on a novel, but have been afraid to start; or you’ve got half a dozen novels half-finished, or finished, but lying in your file drawers, this book may give you the confidence to get moving.

"Nobody was a famous writer before writing that first novel. . . . Everyone has to start somewhere." This book is a good place to start.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Feb. 2001. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Jan. 2006}