HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL 200 MISTAKES TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS IF YOU EVER WANT TO GET PUBLISHED PB B F – HOWARD MITTELMARK-SANDRA NEWMAN

There are many ways prospective authors routinely sabotage their own work. But why leave it to guesswork? Misstep by misstep, How Not to Write a Novel shows how you can ensure that your manuscript never rises above the level of unpublishable drivel; that your characters are unpleasant, dimensionless versions of yourself; that your plot is digressive, tedious and unconvincing; and that your style is reliant on mangled cliches and sesquipedalian malapropisms. Alternatively, you can use it to identify the most common mistakes, avoid them and actually write a book that works. Guardian Award shortlisted novelist Sandra Newman and veteran editor Howard Mittelmark have distilled 30 years of teaching, editing, writing and reviewing fiction into a hilarious and liberating guide that is the perfect read for anyone who s ever laughed at a badly written piece of prose and for anyone who s ever penned one – and doesn t want to do it again.