Is Life Like This?: A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months - Hardcover

Dufresne, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393065413 ISBN 13: 9780393065411

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010

Synopsis

“[Dufresne’s] generous, wise, cajoling, stern, and compassionate voice will get you working right away.”―Brad Watson

“Writing a novel,” says John Dufresne, “is not as easy as you may have thought before you tried. But it’s also not as difficult as you imagined.” Dufresne’s smart, practical, hard-nosed guide is for the person who has always wanted to write a novel but has been daunted by the sometimes chaotic, always challenging writing process. A patient teacher and experienced writer, Dufresne focuses his expertise and good humor on helping aspiring novelists take their first tentative steps. His six-month program variously calls attention to the key elements of good fiction writing and offers exercises that are designed to sharpen writers’ command of novel-length storytelling. After six months of guided writing, the users of this book will finish what might have once seemed impossible―a rich and compelling first draft of a novel.

Is Life Like This? may well be the most important addition to the aspiring writer’s library.

About this title

About the Author

John Dufresne is the author of 25 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Louisiana Power and Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little. He lives in Florida, where he teaches writing at Florida International University.

Reviews

There seems to be a trend lately for authors of how-to-be-a-writer books to supply the reader with a time frame: six months, a year, whatever. Most novelists would probably tell you that writing a book takes as long as it takes, but you can’t deny that having a schedule forces you to buckle down and actually write, as opposed to thinking about writing. And that’s Dufresne’s goal: to get you writing. He covers the usual ground—character, plot, dialogue, etc.—but what makes this guide especially interesting is the way the author takes you through his own story-development process, beginning with a simple character observation and building it, detail by detail, motivation by motivation, into a fully fledged plot. Watching how it’s done, and not merely reading about the process, could be a definite boon to some would-be novelists. Recommended highly for its hands-on, user-friendly approach. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393065413
• ISBN 13: 9780393065411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 314