I always enjoy reading books about writing, although I don't know if I shall ever get around to writing a novel myself. I found this book by Dick Perry amongst my father's collection. I thought it extremely good, although sadly it seems to be long out of print.There are many excellent suggestions for writing novels, in this book. Many of these suggestions are somehow followed by the author in this non-fiction book. Apparently he has written some novels but I can't find anything about him anywhere online.
In this book, the author writes about planning, creating characters, plotting, writing and editing. It's all written from the point of view of a somewhat clinical and highly organised routine. It which pushes writers from the 'might write a novel one day' group into the much smaller subset of people who actually send off manuscripts with a fair chance of acceptance.
The writing is good, and as 'one way' to write a novel, it seems to be excellent.
Not that I took his advice. But maybe one day...
Highly recommended to anyone with even a slight interest in writing.
1 comment:
Hi Sue - just a note to tell you that I met Dick Perry a couple of decades ago. I was in the midst of writing my first sci-fi novel and was using his book (One Way to Write Your Novel) as my guide. I wrote a letter to him via the publisher and he called me. We had many phone conversations and he helped me tremendously. I arranged for him to be a speaker at the now defunct SW Writers Conference in Houston, TX. We loved him. He passed away several years later, but I feel blessed for knowing him.
Dawn Ireland
www.dawnireland-writer.com
dawnireland1@yahoo.com
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