MAY 2026 GROUP READ: Writing the Breakout Novel > Likes and Comments
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Last day for nominations! Poll will go up tomorrow.
Okay, we have a clear winner:Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level
This really is a favorite of mine--I promise you will get a lot out of it!
Here's my Books for Fantasy Authors post from way back in 2011:
https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com...
…and that urban fantasy novel was accepted by a small press that then went out of business before it was published and has sat in a drawer ever since. Who knows… maybe I'll dust it off and see if it can't be resurrected.
Reading time has just been at a premium. I promise to dive into it this week!
Okay… anyone reading this…? I hope so--it really is one of the best books on the craft of fiction.
Yes. I'm reading it. I'm also trying to finish a graduation quilt for my granddaughter. I'm reading chapter 3 on stakes
Ooh--yes. The heart of this book is the matter of "stakes." Vital advice!
Philip wrote: "Okay, we have a clear winner:Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level
This really is a favorite of mine--I promise you will get a lot ou..."
I read it--exactly when, Goodreads won't tell me--but it's logged as read and given 3 stars (which used to be my standard "good book I'd recommend" rating with 4 for "great" and 5 for "absolute phenomenon of a read".
Now, given how many folks seem to demand 5 stars for just finishing a damned manuscript, the reviews seemed to have skewed my baseline to 4 stars as so many folks perceive a 3 star review as a negative when it's median/exactly in the middle.
Shrug.
I'll see if I can find my own copy or get a library copy to quick reread. Then I'll be able to find out if Chapter 3 is about hunting and disposing of vampires or more metaphorical stakes.
Steven wrote: "Philip wrote: "Okay, we have a clear winner:Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level
This really is a favorite of mine--I promise you wi..."
I'll refer you to…
https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com...
In Chapter 2: Premise, Maass wrote:"Are there novels that have changed your life? novels that altered your way of seeing the world?"
In the margins there I wrote:
"for me: Dune --junior high me understood it was "really" about oil and that's tempered my outlook on the Middle East ever since.
Maass has represented his share of SF/F authors, so it's good to see his respect for the genres come through…"As our colleagues in science fiction and fantasy have shown us, building breakout time and place starts with the principle that the world of the novel is composed of much more than description of landscape and rooms. It is milieu, period, fashion, ideas, human outlook, historical moment, spiritual mood and more. It is capturing not only place but people in an environment; not only history but humans changing in their era. Description is the least of it. Bringing people alive in a place and time that are alive is the essence of it."
And this one quote really challenges us all to step up our character game:"A great character is one that not only deepens our understanding of ourselves but that opens to us ranges of potential, a riot of passionate response to the problems of existence."
This is great…"By far the most useful technique for character development is a simple principle that Anne Perry, among others, keeps in mind when building characters: “Like them.” It is hard to write someone you don't know, harder still if you do not care for them. Eliminate characters whom you do not regard with warmth, to whom you are not drawn. The coldness you feel toward them will show in your writing.
"By the way, the same mandate to like your characters may also go for your villain. Don’t you find the most interesting villains are the ones whose motives we can understand? The ones who are made evil by circumstances, rather than the ones who simply are born bad? Depth of character in your opposition will make your writing more richly textured."
Who doesn't love a good villain?
I share Maass's suspicion (though for me it's growing into a form of hatred) of the very concept of "plot structure," especially in the form of these "universal" outlines like the Hero's Journey and its most awful incarnation: Save the Cat. Robert McKee's Story is another book that has done enormous damage to a couple generations of would-be screenwriters. On page 160 Maass says: "I have come to feel that the hero's journey is not a universal plot cure."#MeToo
Maass says: "To set your voice free, set your words free. Set your characters free. Most important, set your heart free. It is from the unknowable shadows of your subconscious that your stories will find their drive and from which they will draw their meaning. No one can loan you that or teach you that. Your voice is your self in the story."These are your darlings--don't kill them!
"Most readers say what carries them along is a good story. But what does that mean? Most novelists would acknowledge, I think, that a “good” story is one that is unpredictable. It is tough to build surprises and hold readers in thrall when following a strict formula. Great mystery writers can do it, needless to say, but for most authors, the way to surprise readers, and themselves, is to embark on a plot that is expandable, possibly long and certainly complex. That leaves a story room to go in unexpected directions, take detours, add layers, surprise us."I really like this idea of a good story = an unpredictable story. How often do you read a review that says something like, "I loved how I knew exactly how it was going to turn out"?
Just read two reviews in a row about Murderbot Diary series that they love the craft and the world but it’s gotten formulaic. Main complaint—a novel a few years back showed the author could push the character & world further but the series has gone back to novellas retreading the same tropes and ground so that’s definitely an argument for switching things up. Granted, that’s a tough argument to make depending upon the form & media you’re writing for—soap operas and long running serial fiction demands illusion of change but conformity to expectations—so surprises need to be planned and measured without being disruptive to the demands of one’s medium or platform
I've seen the TV version but haven't read Murderbot. This: "they love the craft and the world but it’s gotten formulaic" …might just mean there's only so far she can go with this thing. Not everything can sustain a long series. Has Murderbot simply over-stayed its welcome?
This: "soap operas and long running serial fiction demands illusion of change but conformity to expectations" might be a perfect expression of the reason to avoid soap operas and series so seemingly endless they get into, say, Shannara territory.How many books is one too many?
I've always said that every story, at its heart, has to be about something. That "something" is its theme.Maass said:
"If a powerful problem is a novel’s spine, then a powerful theme is its animating spirit."
It's why there's a novel in the first place.
Please nominate a book on the art and/or craft of writing fiction, the writing life, and/or the fantasy, science fiction, or horror genres that you have already read and liked.
I'll get the ball rolling with another big favorite of mine, and one I'll be happy to re-read:
Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level