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Summary: I sent Zuckerman's agency a query letter...
Review: ...for a novel I'm shopping around, and guess what he sent me in my SASE in return? An order form for this book! Kindly eat me, Mr. Zuckerman.
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Summary: a must
Review: Dramatic storytelling: that's the bottom line. And for any writer, writing in any genre, an understanding of that bottom line begins with doing it. Starting somewhere. Panic. Where to start? How to weave the lives of the characters into a plot? Into a story that moves and flows and touches other people? Zuckerman doesn't just tell you how, he shows you how. Through numerous examples, he shows you how to apply a left-brain analysis to a right-brain process. If you want to write fiction and regardless of what you type of fiction you want to write, read this book first. It will change the way you look at fiction and will change the way you write it.
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Summary: Helpful addition to one's collection
Review: From reading the title one might gather that an appropriate subtitle might be "A Hack's Guide" or "Slanting for Success." Reading the book, however, dispels that illusion. I've often wondered why certain excellent books I've read never went to the top of a bestseller list, and now I know. Most of this book covers basic stuff you can find in lots of other books on writing, but the parts that deal specifically with what makes a blockbuster novel are the best parts. You don't even need to have read the books he uses as examples-- I, personally, have read only _The Godfather_, but it was this book that made me want to. And since Ken Follett lets Zuckerman use plenty of his first-draft material to see how a good book can be made better, this book provides invaluable insight into the process of writing a novel itself. You should get this one.
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Summary: For The Serious Writer Of Novels This Is An Excellent Book
Review: I don't know what it is about most of the reviewers here of Zuckerman's book when they pan parts of it. The point for me, as a well-published writer of psychology books, is that I started training myself to write fiction five years ago with on-line classes and buying around 40 how-to-write books from Amazon, if you please. I studied them carefully. Now that I have 110,000 words done of my Jesus novel, for a re-write I needed a pro to give me all the basics again so that in tightening the plot I have the knowledge of a good agent. Ken Follet is a favorite of mine so it was important to me to see how his novels are constructed. Many thanks to Al Zuckerman for doing his very best to describe the elements of a professional novel that sells. Don't let the title distract you as superficial. This is serious crafsmanship to guide the committed writer. If you are not committed and writing you won't understand the guidance in this book. I recommend you take notes to remind yourself. It is not a weighty university writing course book but a hands on practical and inspiring book for those who do want to entertain the reading public and make money writing an exciting novel at the same time. Don't read if you are not serious enough to need help in your writing project. Wait until you are committed. Then go to town with it! --Strephon Kaplan-Williams
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Summary: Great practical advice and a good read in itself
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think I learned a lot too. Zuckerman is an agent with enough experience to deserve the ear of anyone wanting some basic advice and "how-to" on writing a best seller. He give lots of examples and explains clearly some basic rules and then gives some examples of the rules and also some examples of the rules being broken. What really makes this book a winner are the actual examples he gives of a Follet outline.
Zuckerman mentions that reading the outline might get boring at places, but I was never bored. Intrigued to see how the development of a story actually happens including the addition and deletion of characters I was hooked and could barely put the book down.
A time bomb, no a gun, no maybe a fire. A German spy, no a Russian diplomat, no wait a minute......
Seeing how it's really done, how an idea evolves through the outline form to the story and then how rough draft changes to final draft make this book interesting and informative.
I finished this book hoping I could someday befriend the author myself, maybe after writing my own blockbuster, hey, a guy can dream, yes?
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Summary: The Blockbuster Author's Bible--An Absolute MUST HAVE!
Review: If you want to write "serious" literature, look elsewhere. But if you want to write a blockbuster novel, one that will top the bestseller charts and be read for decades to come, then you NEED this book! Not a course in literature or even in novel writing (Zuckerman presumes that you know the basics) this book is a guide to writing the "big book," the book all agents dream of finding, the book that will earn you the million dollar advance, be sold to the movies, etc. While it's not absolutely necessary to read the blockbuster novels Zuckerman cites in this work, it does help, and some familiarity with them is certainly necessary. Knowing example is the best teacher, Zuckerman takes us, step-by-step, through each of the requisite elements of a blockbuster novel--elements that each and every big book share. The book is not for everyone, though. If you aspire to short-story writing or the writing of small, quiet books that may be excellent but will never "take the world by storm" then you'll probably find Zuckerman "too commercial." But if it's commercial you're looking for, this book is truly worth its weight in gold. Thank you Mr. Zuckerman for writing it, and a special thanks to Ken Follett for sharing his early drafts with us. You both did far more than you'll ever know and we appreciate it.
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Summary: a little something extra
Review: This book IS different from most others. First of all, where other authors bob and weave about exactly what you should do, Al hits you in the face with it. If you agree, fine. If you disagree, better get some other book. For instance, he lays out his value criteria: "high stakes; larger-than-life characters; a strong dramatic question; a high concept; a farfetched plot premise; intense emotional involvement between several point-of-view characters; and an exotic and interesting setting."
Really, there's the whole book for you in a nutshell. In separate chapters, he elaborates each of these elements. If you're not sure you want to base your novel on a farfetched premise? Or have larger-than-life characters? Well, you have a problem.
He also devotes about a quarter of this rather short book to discussing in detail the re-writing of one of Ken Follett's novels. If you don't want to write the type of novel Follett writes, better choose some other writing book.
Still, if you can afford one more book on writing, this one might challenge some of your assumptions and provoke you to make your novel just a little more gripping.
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Summary: An Excellent Resource for Mainstream Novelists
Review: This book should prove very helpful to writers of commercial fiction. It's not necessary to read the blockbusters (Man from St. Petersburg, GWTW, Godfather, Thorn Birds) to follow Zuckerman's arguments, though the novels will certainly help any writer learning the craft. The Follett outlines demonstrate how a serious (and ambitious) novelist crafts his work prior to writing. The outlines give a very detailed look at the novel in its various stages of development, and Zuckerman's analyses of them are dead-on. However, Zuckerman pays too little attention to the other novels: he's not nearly as detailed or insightful of their inner workings as he is with Follet's, which he edited. Moreover, the inclusion of "Garden of Lies," a novel written by his wife, seems to be a ploy to squeeze royalties out of an anachronistic book that few nowadays would consider a blockbuster. But Zuckerman is an agent, after all, so such tactics shouldn't scare die-hards off. Zuckerman warns that the first-time novelist attempting a blockbuster might be biting more than he can chew, since he he isn't talking about any ordinary bestseller, but a "blockbuster." However, some of his advice (e.g., not to write a historical work) must be taken with a grain of salt because, even as he points out, most of the works he's dealing with are period pieces. In addition, anyone looking for a "how to write" book will not find much guidance here (Zuckerman assumes we know the basics of conflict, structure, character, etc.). Nor does he delve into the matter of how to sell your work. Overall, an excellent resource to your writer's library, and well worth the price. Writers who aspire to blockbusterdom (or just plain bestseller status) owe Zuckerman a big thanks.
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Summary: I sent Zuckerman's agency a query letter...
Review: This is, once more a book on writing and to tell you the truth, If you've read one, you've read them all. They all get into the same stuff, Point of view, resist the urge to explain, exposition, tell the story in the now, dialogue, and many many more. If you have told yourself you are going to write a book and you wanted to get a book on the craft, then by all means get this one. It is no different than, Self Editing for Fiction Writers, The First Five Pages, How to Write a Damn Good Novel or many others out there.
SUGGESTION: Two books that helped me out, more than any other, On Writing by Stephen King and Elements of Style By Strunk and White. Read those as well as this book, and you should have enough tools in your belt to get the job done.
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Summary: Perfect for First-Time or Published Novelists
Review: Well, it was only logical that someone would come along and write a "How-to" on novel craft that explains what should go into a terrific work of fiction. Zuckerman's success in guiding writers to the top speaks for itself. As the author of five novels and ten nonfiction books, I can appreciate how his instructions might put a novelist in that "stream of success" leading to a Big Book. This one is way ahead of the pack!!
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