Laurie Henry nurtures writers throught the long and sometimes lonely task of writing a novel. Her 115 imaginative journal activities offer ways to approach every stage of the process from creating characters to shaping the story, from exploring themes ro revising and polishing. She helps writers develop a schedule, conduct research, benefit from bad days, even think of a title.
There is a page in The Novelist's Notebook for figuring out what keeps you from beginning your novel, and one for imagining your characters 20 or 40 years after your story ends. Author Laurie Henry offers paths for finding a subject, and for reaching a story's dénouement. Perhaps you hunger for a simple writing exercise ("present the mood of a crowd"), or to enrich the writing you are already doing. "Think of the least likely action you can imagine any of your characters doing," Henry suggests, "and then make them do it." These writing exercises are all over the map, but somehow the book seems to work.
Thoughts on fiction writing from a range of novelists round out the book. James D. Houston, when asked how long it takes him to write a novel, usually responds that it takes a year, or even a few. But the real answer, he says, "is that it takes your entire life. I am forty-four, and it took me forty-four years to get this novel finished." Larry Brown likens the toil of writing to that of house-building. "After the house is finished, no matter how tired your muscles have been on all those other days, the memory of the work is something that goes away." And the eminently quotable Ernest Hemingway drives home the isolation of the writer's work with--surprise--a sports analogy. "They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher," he says. "A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him." --Jane Steinberg

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

found scribble inside:

The book arrived with some bumped corners, and I found some scribble on a page. These are not mentioned in the description, and I'm quite disappointed.

A first-aid kit for novelists:

"The Novelist's Notebook" is a neat idea. It's a journal (there are blank spots on pages where you're supposed to write things) in which you play with exercises and ideas in an effort to improve and aid your novel-writing. It's broken up into six sections: Planning, Beginning to Write, Necessities, Possibilities, When You're Stuck, and Double-Checking and Revising. The table of contents helpfully lists out every exercise, so you can find whatever you need at a moment's notice. Even the shortest chapter has... more info

No Lollipop:

This book was so so . I have seen and read it before and frankly it wasn't worth the money.
It also would have been nice if they had quoted a few more GREAT writers instead of current "pops" whose main thing was to tell us all their belly aches. Who cares if Anne Rice "lost" her Catholic faith? She never had it any way if mere death could do it -- there would be NO Christians!!
Ditto for the others.
This is more like a shrink in a book and the readers are the sounding boards.
Don't waste your... more info

Not your traditional writer's workbook.....:

So if that sort of thing scares you, check this book out anyways.
Let me start out by saying that I loathe the 'How To Write' books that give you corny exercises that have absolutely nothing to do with your book. You know, the "If my character was a flavor of ice cream, he would be ____" type things. Ugh. I can't see myself working for hours on insipid exercises that have nothing to do with the story I want to tell.
That's mostly the reason why I love this book. It's chock full of exercises, but of the... more info

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