The Nighttime Novelist by Joseph Bates
The Nighttime Novelist by Joseph Bates is an excellent resource for aspiring novelists, especially those that have full time jobs and are writing in their spare time. Housed in a hard bound, spiral notebook format, the book makes it easy to find the best advice for the crisis of the moment for beginnings, middles, or ends of novels with its outlined table of contents. Most writers are fond of taking notes or using sticky papers to highlight gems of information . . . what's even better is that we color-code that information to keep it all fresh.
Some of the ideas in the book are those writers have heard a number of times, such as keeping a small notebook handy at all times when dialogue is too juicy to pass up or someone's style catches the eye. Story ideas always come from experiences and what writers see in other art or in other books. What's unique about this reference book is that it counters advice given to many writers that they should write what they know or write about things that have never been done before.
National Novel Writing Month participants would be wise to check out this book, but even those not engaged in the month-long marathon, should take a look at Bates' advice. From creating the three-act structure complete with conflict and resolution to ensuring the larger structure is supported by a smaller structure of action and development, The Nighttime Novelist offers direct advice about plot and point of view choices, differences between POV and voice, settings and description, and much more.
Overall, Bates provides a comprehensive outline for writing a novel and offers a "coffee break" to help writers assess their progress throughout the novel. While the book is written in a linear fashion from beginning to end, writers can plunge into any section of the book and obtain excellent advice. There are additional online and other resources listed in the back of the book, and appendices with empty worksheets, which writers can copy to use multiple times for multiple novels. The Nighttime Novelist is a great addition to any novelist or writer's shelves.
About the Author:
Joseph Bates’ fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Identity Theory, Lunch Hour Stories, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, and Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature and fiction writing from the University of Cincinnati and teaches in the creative writing program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
For more information please visit www.nighttimenovelist.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
Also check out the excerpt from the book posted earlier in November.
***Thanks to Writer's Digest Books, Joseph Bates, and FSB Associates for sending me a copy for review. ***
This is my 59th book for the 2010 New Authors Reading Challenge.