Nail Your Novel

How do you create characters who keep readers hooked? How do you write the opposite sex? Teenagers? Believable relationships? Historical characters? Enigmatic characters? Plausible antagonists and chilling villains? How do you understand a character whose life is totally unlike your own? How do you write characters for dystopias? How do you make dialogue sing? When can you let the reader intuit what the characters are feeling and when should you spell it out?Roz Morris is a bestselling ghostwriter and book doctor, and a literary author in her own right. Her titles have sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. She has mined 20 years' worth of writing, editing and critiquing experience to create this book. It contains all the pitfalls and sticky points for writers, laid out as a set of discussions that are easy to dip into. And it wouldn't be a Nail Your Novel book without a good dose of games, exercises and questionnaires to help you populate a novel from scratch.Whether you write a straightforward story-based genre or literary fiction, this book will show you how to create people who enthrall readers - and make you want to tell stories.

What keeps a reader curious? It's the story. You might have a dazzling prose voice and plausible characters, but if they don't do anything, the reader is likely to lose interest.So where do you find story ideas? How do you make them into a captivating read?Do you know what genre you are best suited to write? What is literary fiction and how do you write that? How will you give your book depth without seeming preachy or bringing the plot to a standstill?What are the hidden patterns that ply the reader's emotions, regardless of your genre or style? How can you use them with originality? If you want to write a story that breaks the usual conventions, how do you do it?Whatever type of novel you want to write, this book will show you, in down-to-earth tutorials, games and exercises.Use it before you write and when revising, to diagnose your story's strengths and weaknesses, to decide how to begin, what to put in the middle, how it should end. If you've had feedback from critique partners and editors, use it to decode what's really wrong - instead of what they think might be.Most of all, use it to find out where you already have spellbinding plot material. Discover where your best ideas are hiding and how to tell stories with drama, depth and heart.By a bestselling ghostwriter, literary author, creative coach and book doctor.