We found this review on the website for Chinese Paladin Online, a popular role-playing game. Translation by google. 

Veteran point of writing fiction writers can not afford to make mistakes 

Love written by authors who have big dreams, but I take infinite pains taken to the famous publishing house knew just dart back edge, automatic return.Where exactly the problem? Difficult book to write the novel, the representative of the worst in 1969 is none other than Seoul American writer James (John Kennedy Toole), because no one is willing to publication of his novel “The fool alliance” (A Confederacy of Dunces), the last suicide. 4 to sell his mother did not give up, and finally a book. God knows well received book, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. 

“This is not to write fiction” book video 

The bloody lessons of the former, the young people to write the novel can not miss the two veteran writers: shadow writer米泰玛(Howard Mittelmark) and Newman University Writing (Sandra Newman) jointly co-authored the book “fiction is not the case write “(How Not to Write a Novel), the burden of proof that fiction can not afford to make the 200 error, a listing on the Web Bookstore, got the British bestseller list. 

Typically an essential element of bad novels that according to the book are: the circumstances of absurd or unintelligible muttered; role annoying feature; full of cliches and the author of bias. “Writers need to do is to keep readers page.” Priority cases, regardless of emotional move, or move about reserving intellectual aspirations, can not wait to let readers know how the next.Benign circumstances such as redundant, no one to see through the follow-up to put the development of justice, and no injuries removed. 

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While there is no sure-fire formula for a good novel, there are mistakes you should avoid. That is the principle on which our book was based. But every rule has at least one tutelary genius; an author who triumphs despite - or because of - having run roughshod over it. Ulysses is baffling, over-written, and plotless. Tristram Shandy takes a long time getting started (the hero isn’t born until Volume III). Others include:

1. Candide: Almost every writing guide will tell you that the plot should be driven by the protagonist’s actions; s/he should not be passively batted around by fate until fate’s arms tire and the happy ending results. Of course, that is Candide in a nutshell.

2. The Brothers Karamazov: Here Dostoevsky continually halts the plot while one character after another recounts his dreams, concept of sacred love, or the plot of a long prose poem he wrote as a teenager. Not only does Dostoevsky get away with it, his most celebrated passage is the bit about the prose poem.

3. Lolita: Writers should avoid using obscure words or ornate prose purely for the sake of using obscure words and ornate prose. If those writers are writing in a second language, they are likely to be headed for a humiliating garble. In Nabokov’s hands, though, words like “leporine” and “matitudinal” are a sensual pleasure.

4. To the Lighthouse: It is easier for the reader if the novelist does not hop merrily from one person’s point of view to another, from head to head like a summer cold, guided by mere proximity. Unless you are Virginia Woolf, in which case this creates a fascinating compound view of life, sort of like the spider’s-eye view in old horror movies.

5. Watership Down: The vast majority of aspiring writers should not write a 500-page novel from the point of view of a rabbit.

Reposted from the Times.

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Unlike certain “dignified” writers, we read every word written about us by every person anywhere in the world. We believe that if people are going to take the trouble to write about us, they deserve to be dismissed each on their individual merits. This has led us to become experts on the reasons certain people hate us. It is not just because those people are demented and obscure, although they are, and furthermore, they have no taste.

We are going to share with you an interesting thing that has emerged from our reading. They do not call us “interesting” for nothing, and in fact they do not call us interesting, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s interesting, and both here and there, is that people hate us differently in the UK and in the US.

In the US, we repeatedly hear that we are vulgar, that we use foul language, or as they often put it, “unnecessary language.” In general, there is too much “crudity” in our book. Alas, how much more crudity there was in the original HOW NOT TO WRITE A FUCKING NOVEL, FUCKING FUCK. Our cutting room floor is so awash in crudity that we have given up using that room, although the dog is in there day and night. And we will have our critics know that in that humble smelly crudity someday beautiful orchids and chrysanthemums and those other flowers, the blue ones with the little pom-poms in the middle, will grow!
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  Penguin’s UK edition of How Not To Write A Novel will be available on January 29. Although the text will be unchanged from the US edition, time and context have made the UK edition even funnier and more!!! useful, so you’d be well-advised to stock up on both. Don’t believe us? Check the book section of the Times, where you’ll find us extensively quoted.  

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It has oft been said, and we will say it again, oft; our book is not for everyone. Yes, it is for men and women of all genders, creeds, and sleep numbers. It is for the hot and the not, the tomato and the tom-ah-to, the hokey and the pokey. Whatever your favorite color, there is a home for you at How Not to Write a Novel.

Still, some have come to us and said “How Not to Write a Novel is not for me, for I have an MFA: I have achieved mastery of fine arts. I have wrestled fine arts to the ground, and they have cried like a little girl. I–I–am their master! What use do I, the literary novelist, have for How Not To Write A Novel?”

Nonetheless, we as people and writarians, are for everyone, even if our book is not. (It can be bought by anyone, though, here. A CRAZY bargain!!) It has oft been said that Howard and Sandy are the kind of people whom you either love or hate. How true that is, except for the love part. But those who hate us need our help far, far, more than those who love us, in a hypothetical situation where someone loved us. Those who hate us should seek our help without wasting a second on thought. We know what the nay-sayers will say. They will say nay. But you are a grownup now with a college degree and you can put your fingers in your ears and go “la la la!” until they stop.

Now that you have your MFA, you may think it’s too late for you to write a dreadful novel. Howard! you are thinking, Sandy! How will I ever be able to write the bad novel of my bad dreams??? Quell those fears! Experience teaches us that years of study and training are no obstacle to unreadable, inarticulate prose. For you we have written How Not To Write a Novel II: How Not To Write A Novel Goes to College. The title, not the book. For us to truly exhaust this topic would take months, hundreds of pages, and a substantial advance. But just off the top of our heads, we can offer some tips and techniques to overcome all your time and effort.

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We don’t want you to waste your time with a book that’s not right for you. We want every copy of How Not To Write A Novel to reach only those people who need it most.

To that end, we have designed this simple quiz so that you can find out if your life might be improved by our book.

How Not To Write A Novel: The Quiz

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“This writing how-to should carry a warning: it’s the kind of book one reads at the expense of other responsibilities….a surprisingly distinctive approach within the crowded category of novel-writing guides.”

Click and scroll down for full review. (Actually, that covered most of the good stuff; check out this song by Los Campesinos instead.)

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How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Newman. Collins, $15.95 paper (272p) ISBN 9780061357954

Offering observations rather than rules (“‘No right on red’ is a rule. ‘Driving at high speed toward a brick wall usually ends badly’ is an observation”), authors and editors Mittlemark and Newman identify writing pitfalls in each aspect of novel writing, from plot (“The Benign Tumor, where an apparently meaningful development isn’t”) to character (“The Vegan Viking, wherein the author accessorizes with politics”) to narrative technique (“The Tennis Match, wherein the point of view bounces back and forth”) to dialogue, setting, research and theme. Each mistake is illustrated with an example of unpublishable prose and, typically, a biting but worthwhile lesson: “unpublished authors are far more intrigued by their characters’ backstory than their readers are.” Useful lists and sidebars break up the formula and address more specific problems like cell phones (equal to the fall of Communism in its threat to thriller writers) and irony (“now virtually meaningless, routinely applied to any situation in which one thing bears some relation to another thing”). A great resource, this tongue-in-cheek guide is a fun read with a lot of solid advice for would-be novelists. PW, 5/5/08

More reviews follow.

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They seem to approve, depending on your taste in footwear.

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