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Great Novels that Double as Writing Classes
Think of National Novel Writing Month as the Author Olympics: a crazy event that comes around every year and offers up a challenge that goes beyond sales numbers, advances, or any other data point used to measure success. NaNoWriMo asks a simple question: can you write a novel-length story in just one month? For years now, thousands of people have answered “yes.” True, not everyone succeeds (or likes what they wind up with), which can lead to frustration. The good news? You don’t have to take an expensive course or spend ten years in the desert eating mushrooms to become a better writer. All you have to do is read. For your NaNoWriMo training, here are five books that will teach you incredible lessons you can apply directly to your next work.
Wool, by Hugh Howey
Lesson: You can do it
Howey is the patron saint of both NaNoWriMo and self-publishing. Wool proves to any aspiring author that not only can a great book be written in a month, but that just because a book was written over a short period of time, doesn’t mean it can’t be wildly successful. Howey’s not the only writer with a celebrated novel written in a month or less—Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in a month, as did Anthony Burgess with A Clockwork Orange—but Howey’s all-in-one DIY aesthetic is the perfect modern-day proof that proves you can write that book this year, in 30 days or less, and publish it, too.
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Get Shorty, by Elmore Leonard
Lesson: How to write believable dialogue
To be fair, you could peruse any of Leonard’s books for an example of sparkling dialogue. He was a fount of writing wisdom, famously suggesting the best way to write an exciting plot is to “skip the boring parts,” but anyone tackling NaNoWriMo should take his dialogue lessons to heart because they’re so easy to implement. First, keep your speech tags simple—Leonard hardly ever deviated from a simple “he said/she said” pattern. Second, remember that great dialogue is more about rhythm than grammar. And finally, every word spoken should advance the plot or explain a character’s motivations. Every line should perform some useful work in your story.
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Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Lesson: Complex plots don’t have to be confusing
Again, we could choose any Dickens book for this lesson. While a 30-day limit likely means your novel will be fairly short, one mistake a lot of new writers make is assuming that complicated, character-packed plots either have to reach epic fantasy length, or must be incredibly difficult to interpret. (We can blame the postmodernist aesthetic for that.) While there’s nothing wrong with crafting a puzzle-box of a book, Dickens shows us you can have a plot that explores people’s lives and desires deeply and in intricate ways while remaining perfectly clear to the reader. No one ever had to create a complex infographic to explain a Dickens plot, yet his books remain challenging, satisfying reads.
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To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee
Lesson: The power of feedback and revision
Go Set a Watchman is basically a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird; Lee’s editor rejected the book and advised her that the sequences where Jean Louise flashed back to her childhood were the strongest, and Lee’s rewrite became the Pulitzer-winning classic we know and love. While Watchman has great moments, if you read both books back to back, it’s obvious how great that advice was: Mockingbird is light years better. It’s a good reminder that just because you type THE END on your manuscript, it doesn’t mean your book couldn’t need some polish, and probably a thorough beta-read by several trusted (and honest) friends. Most importantly, seriously consider the feedback you get, even if it boils down to “only 5 percent of this book is worth saving.”
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The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Lesson: If at first it ain’t a novel…keep writing
On the other hand, sometimes a story needs to go through several stages before it attains its final form. Sometimes the things we write (especially the NaNoWriMo things) get away from us. Sometimes we can’t finish them, and sometimes we wind up with something that isn’t exactly a novel. As Adams proved with his hilarious sci-fi classic The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, what you start off with doesn’t have to be a story’s final form. Ideas can be revised, reused, and reinvented endlessly. Adams’ book started off as a series of radio scripts, and the basic story and characters were subsequently revised in many different forms before the novel appeared. If your NaNoWriMo book isn’t very good, or isn’t even a novel, don’t despair. Pick up the ideas you like and start again.
NaNoWriMo is great fun, great practice, and can even result in a great book. Whatever you seek to learn from it, look to these books for the fundamental lessons that will get you over the hump.