THE ICE PICK

How to Grow a Novel : the Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them, by Sol Stein. New York, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999. 240 p. $14.95. Includes "Glossary of Terms Used by Writers and Editors." ISBN: 0-312-26749-5.

"A writer is someone who cannot not write." But "who will judge the writer’s work? Who will cast the decisive opinion to accept or reject? The answer," says Stein, "is terrifying."

"In the past the decision on which books to accept and which to reject was made by editors and publishers who were book people . . . steeped in the literature of both past and present, to whom reading is an act of discovery, and to whose abode books are as necessary as walls." Now unfortunately, sales and marketing people, who rely less on taste and quality than on celebrity names and what sold well last year, are usually the deciding force as to whether a book is published or not.

Sol Stein, who has been an editor and writing instructor, as well as a successful writer, explains how you may be able to make the cut in spite of those odds and get your book published, by avoiding or overcoming common mistakes made by writers seeking to sell their work. He spells out the responsibilities of the writer in rewarding the reader with memorable scenes and characters and in "never taking the reader where the reader wants to go," but of "leaving the reader hanging."

The first chapter is full of his practical tips for planning and revising scenes and for creating affection for your characters, and he asks questions you can answer for every scene to help improve your story.

In the chapter on conflict, Stein demonstrates that conflict in a scene need not be a fight or even an argument, but simply the minor adversarial exchanges of human nature.

Openings, he says, may "begin with a flash fire" or "a situation that is slowly alarming," but what "entices the reader in the first few paragraphs of a book [is] most often . . . a character one wants to get to know better." And Stein proceeds to give examples from successful novels to show what he means.

He discusses how to make your story come alive through the use of particular details that illuminate your scenes and how to make your characters "stand out in a crowd."

If you are having difficulty turning ideas into stories, Stein tells how to take "any everyday occurrence and with a flick of your imagination turn it into horror" or into "more-realistic plot lines drawn from something that may have happened to someone you know, or that you fear might happen to you."

He explains how dialogue differs from everyday speech and the hazards of using dialect. "Think of dialogue exchanges," Stein says, "as confrontations or interrogations," which will add tension to your scenes. And, to aid in characterization, he shows how you can use "oblique" dialogue, in which your characters send the conversation off in different directions.

He covers the advantages and dangers in handling different viewpoints, gives hints on solving common problems, and discusses at length the process of revision and how to avoid mistakes or correct them.

The last few chapters are devoted to the realities of the publishing world and what we can expect to experience there.

The first appendix is a summary of "little things that damage the writer’s authority" and "sabotage the reader’s experience." The second appendix is a listing of books, websites, and software that can provide help to writers.

I wish the book had an index, but it is still an excellent, practical guide for writers, and I recommend it highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2004.}