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

by Howard Mittelmark

The central dilemma of a novel should be important enough to change someone’s life forever.

If a problem is worth creating, it’s worth hanging on to long enough to make the reader care.

This particular blunder is known as deus ex machina, which is French for “Are you fucking kidding me?”

This type of ending is a special instance of deus ex machina, known as the folie adieu, which is French for “Are you FUCKING kidding me?”

The Reader Will Not Like Your Hero Just Because He meditates He is in the middle of reading your own favorite authors He listens to your favorite bands and knows the liner notes He is a frustrated writer/artist/singer-songwriter He drives a quaint vintage car, which he has named He can whip up an amazing omelet from quirky ingredients He has green eyes

liquor He never touches the stuff He lives in a state of bohemian disorder He goes to Burning Man He stopped going to Burning Man when “they went commercial” Although he is a longshoreman, he shows a remarkable love of Art Although he is a classical pianist, the longshoremen accept him as a regular guy His maid is a: like a best friend b: an unpaid consultant in his detective business His grandma is the coolest person he has ever known

It’s not necessary to make the best friend into a stud. But he must be attractive on some level, not just safe. We get enough of that kind of compromise in real life.

He had been emancipated from the penitentiary for three weeks, and now his restless peregrinations had conveyed him to this liminal place, seeking compurgation in the permafrost of the hyperborean tundra, which was an apt analogue of the permafrost in his heart. He insinuated himself into the caravansary with nugatory expectations, which were confirmed by the exiguous provisions for comfort. But then the bartender looked up from laving the begrimed bar, his eyes growing luminous as he ejaculated, “Milt!”

Sorry; this is not writing. This is showing off, and nobody likes a show-off.

saying “incredulous” when you mean “incredible” is the prose equivalent of walking into a meeting wearing your underwear on the outside.

She was as pretty as he pictured, with a body so great you could bounce her hindquarters off it. She was the apples and oranges of his eye. Herbert, or Herb, tried not to give in to his urgent, but she was a piece of no resistance, and his masculine whiles were no match for her cat’s meow.

He looked away at the sky, which had broken out in the blotched acne of sunset.

oh my word!

Ever back, to the chthonic quagmire of yesterdays that ate yesterdays in monarchic succession, like crocodiles held vassal to a Pharoah of loss.

*guffaw*

metaphors that compare the protagonist’s suffering to a set of rosary beads baked into a cake that goes uneaten, does not of itself make your writing art.

As I said the words a deep relaxation swept through me. It was a mingled feeling of love, fear, despond, and salacious flusterment, with perhaps just a hint of restless leg syndrome.

*snort laughed*

Generally, emotions should be shown indirectly, through some combination of thoughts, stage directions, and descriptions of physical sensations.

the conventions of postmodernism poorly handled are the quickest route up one’s own ass.

So true!