How to Write a Damn Good Novel

"Damn good" fiction is dramatic fiction, whether by Hemingway or Grisham, Le Carre or Ludlum, Austen or Dickens. Despite their differences, these authors' works share common elements: strong narrative lines, fascinating characters, steadily building conflicts, and satisfying conclusions. James N. Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel is one of the most widely used guides ever published for aspiring authors who wish to write dramatic fiction. Now, in How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II, Frey offers powerful advanced techniques to build suspense, create fresher, more interesting characters, and achieve greater reader sympathy, empathy, and identification. Frey also warns against the pseudo-rules often inflicted upon writers, rules such as "The author must always be invisible" and "You must stick to a single viewpoint in a scene", which cramp the imagination and deaden the narrative. He focuses instead on promises that the author makes to the reader - promises about character, narrative voice, story type, and so on, which must be kept if the reader is to be satisfied. Honest, and often painfully funny about the way writers sometimes fail their readers and themselves, How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II should be on every fiction writer's shelf.