How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

by Howard Mittelmark

If, by chapter 3, you have only two characters playing a role in the plot—Chapter One, they meet; Chapter Two, the first date; Chapter Three, first kiss—your novel is probably suffering from a bad case of monogamy. Even if it is a light-hearted romance set in the bistros and boutiques of Manhattan, there’s something Twilight Zone–ish about it. The only real people in it are your two main characters, who do not interact in any significant way with anybody but each other. There are many problems with this. Some of them—tedium, boredom, monotony—are merely symptomatic. But one in particular makes it fatal. It does not feel like real life. However obsessed Annabel is with dating Ronald, she still has to go to work, deal with her family, score the painkillers to which she has been addicted since high school. In a monogamy plot, friends and relatives only ever call the protagonist in order to have long conversations about Ronald’s behavior on dinner dates. In real life, friends and relatives only call to have long conversations about themselves.