ARA Review by davidmwpowers of How to Write a Novel in 20 Steps
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ARA Review by davidmwpowers of How to Write a Novel in 20 Steps
[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, How to Write a Novel in 20 Steps.]
This book is written for someone like me, by someone like me!
Adam van Susteren is a member of a San Diego writers group, and indeed the foreword is written by the leader of that writers group, which has played an essential role in Adam developing his skills and publishing this book - and his previous four novels. If your e-book reader takes you to the opening chapters "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path", it probably is worth you skipping back into the front matter for a bit of context.
I am also a member of a writers group, and have also published four novels. Thus the "five parts" and "twenty steps" are by now quite familiar to me in one form or another. But really it was not written for me now, after reading dozens of books on writing, and critiquing and reviewing many more. It was written for me, for you, as a budding novelist with some ideas for a book that have not yet come together into a properly written, published and marketed novel. This is the writer that Adam identifies as his target audience (that target audience identification process being one of the twenty steps, and the only one I'll give away).
But even for those of us who are further along the track, it contains some helpful reminders. Adam also aims for it to be short and sweet and more cost effective than the many more expensive books and much more expensive courses on the market - not that you shouldn't consider those too.
It is worth going into some detail on the "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path", which is actually included in full as part of the "sample" on Amazon. Each of them is given about a page of explanation, but in short they are: I. Write; II Read; III: Review; IV: Edit; V Market. These relate to the "Novelist's Path" not to any particular "Novel". And the key point is that you need a team of people around you to support you, including ideally a writers group. You have to refine your ability to Write, and the best way to do that is to Write - and get critique. But it is also necessary to Read: Read in your genre and Read to help others - which in turn leads to Review. In a writers group it is critique and be critiqued, and beyond the writers group read books and review, good books and bad, whether on Amazon/KU or Goodreads or Reedsy or OnlineBookClub - or preferably all of the above and more. This then leads you to Market not a particular book or idea but yourself: your reviews are part of this, and so are contests and challenges and writers/readers/publishers conferences, and maybe a blog.
This is possibly the most important part of the book, and perhaps really Step 0: Prepare your Path. The remaining 20 steps are not really so much steps to take in order, but stepping stones you need to make sure you negotiate carefully - because stumbling on any one of them can lead to failure.
Adam doesn't feel that he can afford professional editing, but has put together a team with a variety of editing skills. Still there are a few things that have escaped them, including a predilection for run on sentences that don't end up quite grammatically correct. But half a dozen of them doesn't mar the book beyond redemption. On the contrary they serve to emphasise the points that he makes under Step 17.
The book is priced at the lower boundary of Amazon's pricing window, is available in Kindle Unlimited, and has the "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path" available in the sample. It is only about 80 pages, and each of the "Five Parts gets about a page, while each of the steps gets about three. This makes it short and sweet - and means it can serve as a quick reference as you jump straight to the relevant chapter and read just those few pages.
Or you could if the Table of Contents were hyperlinked or there was an NCX index, both of which are lacking. Mention of this would be good to include. If you use Headings in Word and insert an automatic index, Amazon's automated eBook generation will generate both of these. When I generated my books for Smashwords (five years ago) I had to do that manually for it to work. But the world has moved on and I haven't tried the Draft2Digital converter yet (the two companies have merged but retain their separate platforms, while Amazon took over CreateSpace. Some discussion of the e-publishing process, processing, pitfalls, and tricks would have been useful - and it would be nice to have a publishing step involving these mechanical aspects.
Incidentally, Adam went the self-publishing route and didn't have any success finding an agent let alone landing a publishing contract (Step 18), and is only just getting started on Marketing (Step 20).
All in all, I think 4 out of 5 stars is about right for this. It is appropriate for a would be novelist near the beginning of their journey, and is a very fast read, with just a few pages for each of the 20 steps. Take it as snippets of helpful advice, and stepping stones that don't necessarily have to be taken in the order set out, illustrated with a running example of a putative novel with two Jekyll and Hyde like variants (thriller vs romance).
***
View How to Write a Novel in 20 Steps on Bookshelves
This book is written for someone like me, by someone like me!
Adam van Susteren is a member of a San Diego writers group, and indeed the foreword is written by the leader of that writers group, which has played an essential role in Adam developing his skills and publishing this book - and his previous four novels. If your e-book reader takes you to the opening chapters "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path", it probably is worth you skipping back into the front matter for a bit of context.
I am also a member of a writers group, and have also published four novels. Thus the "five parts" and "twenty steps" are by now quite familiar to me in one form or another. But really it was not written for me now, after reading dozens of books on writing, and critiquing and reviewing many more. It was written for me, for you, as a budding novelist with some ideas for a book that have not yet come together into a properly written, published and marketed novel. This is the writer that Adam identifies as his target audience (that target audience identification process being one of the twenty steps, and the only one I'll give away).
But even for those of us who are further along the track, it contains some helpful reminders. Adam also aims for it to be short and sweet and more cost effective than the many more expensive books and much more expensive courses on the market - not that you shouldn't consider those too.
It is worth going into some detail on the "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path", which is actually included in full as part of the "sample" on Amazon. Each of them is given about a page of explanation, but in short they are: I. Write; II Read; III: Review; IV: Edit; V Market. These relate to the "Novelist's Path" not to any particular "Novel". And the key point is that you need a team of people around you to support you, including ideally a writers group. You have to refine your ability to Write, and the best way to do that is to Write - and get critique. But it is also necessary to Read: Read in your genre and Read to help others - which in turn leads to Review. In a writers group it is critique and be critiqued, and beyond the writers group read books and review, good books and bad, whether on Amazon/KU or Goodreads or Reedsy or OnlineBookClub - or preferably all of the above and more. This then leads you to Market not a particular book or idea but yourself: your reviews are part of this, and so are contests and challenges and writers/readers/publishers conferences, and maybe a blog.
This is possibly the most important part of the book, and perhaps really Step 0: Prepare your Path. The remaining 20 steps are not really so much steps to take in order, but stepping stones you need to make sure you negotiate carefully - because stumbling on any one of them can lead to failure.
Adam doesn't feel that he can afford professional editing, but has put together a team with a variety of editing skills. Still there are a few things that have escaped them, including a predilection for run on sentences that don't end up quite grammatically correct. But half a dozen of them doesn't mar the book beyond redemption. On the contrary they serve to emphasise the points that he makes under Step 17.
The book is priced at the lower boundary of Amazon's pricing window, is available in Kindle Unlimited, and has the "Five Parts of the Novelist's Path" available in the sample. It is only about 80 pages, and each of the "Five Parts gets about a page, while each of the steps gets about three. This makes it short and sweet - and means it can serve as a quick reference as you jump straight to the relevant chapter and read just those few pages.
Or you could if the Table of Contents were hyperlinked or there was an NCX index, both of which are lacking. Mention of this would be good to include. If you use Headings in Word and insert an automatic index, Amazon's automated eBook generation will generate both of these. When I generated my books for Smashwords (five years ago) I had to do that manually for it to work. But the world has moved on and I haven't tried the Draft2Digital converter yet (the two companies have merged but retain their separate platforms, while Amazon took over CreateSpace. Some discussion of the e-publishing process, processing, pitfalls, and tricks would have been useful - and it would be nice to have a publishing step involving these mechanical aspects.
Incidentally, Adam went the self-publishing route and didn't have any success finding an agent let alone landing a publishing contract (Step 18), and is only just getting started on Marketing (Step 20).
All in all, I think 4 out of 5 stars is about right for this. It is appropriate for a would be novelist near the beginning of their journey, and is a very fast read, with just a few pages for each of the 20 steps. Take it as snippets of helpful advice, and stepping stones that don't necessarily have to be taken in the order set out, illustrated with a running example of a putative novel with two Jekyll and Hyde like variants (thriller vs romance).
***
View How to Write a Novel in 20 Steps on Bookshelves
