MetaFilter posts tagged with Novel

How To Write Badly Well

filthy light thief — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:27:56 -0800

You have a great idea for a novel and it's almost November, so you think now is the time to get cracking. You've decided that hiring a ghostwriter is too easy, but you don't have 100 days to write your novel and the snowflake method seems too frilly. Snowflakes, those delicate little monsters that papered your car when you were stranded on the road in Minnesota. A single snowflake is beautiful, but millions make an avalanche. You were cold, so cold, yet you survived. You're not sure if you have time to read a book on what not to do (UK edition), and the search results are daunting. Forget all that, because you already know how to write, right? Embrace your awesome, magnificent, spellbinding abilities, go forward but never back, ever spinning, shake the rain off your bedspread, and now that you have brewed a delicious pot of steamy, hot, life-giving coffee, you can learn how to write badly well. [via mefi projects] NaNoWriMo, previously: 2001 (and a follow-up, plus updated East Bay Express link), 2002, 2006, 2007 (twice), 2008 No budding author was harmed in the extraction of samples. The examples are written up by MeFi's own him.

Two Chinese Brothers

escabeche — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:03:57 -0800

"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English. (The quote above comes from the afterword to Brothers, not included in the US edition.) The New York Times didn't care for the translation, by Eileen Chow and Carlos Rojas; Chinese litblog Paper Republic criticized the review, leading to an interesting comment thread in which both Chow and the NYT reviewer participate. Yu got even tougher treatment from local critics, who were baffled by Yu's abandonment of his previous restrained, literary style. Cang Hang (translation via Paper Republic) calls the book "a 500,000 character trash heap." Read an excerpt from Brothers and listen to the relevant podcast at NPR.

Design On Demand

The Whelk — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:28:51 -0800

Douglas Coupland wants you to design your own cover for his new book, Generation A.

The Raw Shark Texts

juv3nal — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:52:49 -0800

The Raw Shark Texts (spoilers if you poke around) is a novel about conceptual fish by Steven Hall that is rife with typographic gimmickry and has an ARG-like element to it. Negative chapters found so far are archived here. Raw Shark Texts ≅ Rorschach Tests. I should note that for some gimmickry is a bad thing, this book is probably not for them. Personally, I love gimmickry.

Marguerite Young

Joe Beese — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:08:19 -0800

Marguerite Young - whom Kurt Vonnegut called "unquestionably a genius" - first achieved success with a study of the utopian commune at New Harmony, Indiana called Angel in the Forest. She then spent 18 years writing Miss Macintosh, My Darling - a 1,198 page novel that William Goyen praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a masterwork". She spent the last 30 years of her life writing an unfinished biography of Eugene V. Debs that was posthumously published, in heavily edited form, as Harp Song for a Radical. Her interview with The Paris Review. A book of tributes and essays.

Fetish of ambition

joseph conrad is fully awesome — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:05:15 -0800

"... many critics and editors, especially male ones, make a fetish of "ambition," by which they mean the contemporary equivalent of novels about men in boats ("Moby-Dick," "Huckleberry Finn") rather than women in houses ("House of Mirth"), and that as a result big novels by male writers get treated as major events while slender but equally accomplished books by women tend to make a smaller splash." A book review of Elaine Showalter's newly published book, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, contains a brief historical overview and discussion of the question, "Why can't a woman write the Great American novel?"

Thomas Pynchon is 71 years old.

Joe Beese — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:43:42 -0800

"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page Inherent Vice, is described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow. related posts here and here

50,000 words of cr - pure awesome

Phire — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:59:09 -0800

It's that time of the year again! NaNoWriMo, previously seen on MeFi here, has kicked off again. If you're stuck, try these tips to lift yourself out of the rut, or feel free to run over to the MeTa thread to grumble about it to fellow NaNo-ers. For the more OCD among us, popular applets to organize your thoughts include bubble.us, seen here previously, to create mindmaps and plot diagrams, or yWriter to organize your prose into chapters and scenes. Other online communities are joining in the fun. Livejournal is donating $1 to the Young Writer's Program for every completed novel. So ignore the deterrents, whip out your thinking hat, and let the logorrhoea start!

Romance Novel Cover Design

meech — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:23:57 -0800

The Best Romance Novel Covers of the year - click on the winner of each category to see the Top Ten and explanations. Also the site doesn't avoid the snark with a worst cover category [The winner is Big Spankable Asses [maybe NSFW]].

The Iron Heel

finite — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:17:03 -0800

The Iron Heel, published a century ago this year, is a novel by Jack London about socialist revolution in the United States. It is set mostly between 1912 and 1932, with a foreword and numerous footnotes written from the point of view of a historian who has just discovered the manuscript some 700 years later. Here is an excerpt (which is printed on the back cover of some editions) from chapter five:

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

RIP Gregory Mcdonald

Confess, Fletch — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:55:21 -0800

The author of the Fletch novels, Gregory Mcdonald, has died. One of his books, Fletch, was made into a movie. Also, a tribute by a writer influenced by him.

Dystopian Evolution: Imagining an Envirogeddon

dead_ — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:18:16 -0800

Dystopian storytelling is pillar of Western narrative tradition, but this decade has seen a significant shift in the way our apocalypse is told. Orthodox tales of government tyranny are giving way to visions of humans running helpless in the wake of environmental meltdown. From the plausible to the fantastic, most of this fiction remains hauntingly real while the non-fiction can get downright scary. In 2008, the 20th anniversary of climatologist James Hansen's landmark speech before Congress, popular art is beginning to reflect an increasingly bleak public sentiment on the future, playing out some of our worst nightmares. It may be that these writers and directors are wishing for the end of the world, but even so, they are certainly giving voice to the creeping feeling that indeed, we might not make it.

Shake Girl

kirkaracha — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:41:20 -0800

Shake Girl, a collaborative project by students in the Stanford Graphic Novel Project. Based on the true story of Tat Marina [caution: disturbing photo], the victim of a December 1999 acid attack in Cambodia. More background.

Now, thanks to the internet, we know this is not true

whir — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:28:56 -0800

A Million Penguins, the wiki novel mentioned previously on MeFi, is complete, and a research paper about it has been released. The analysis is largely concerned with cataloging types of user behavior on the site, although they also throw in some flash about Bakhtin for a page or two. via

Patient Zero

chuckdarwin — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:40:34 -0800

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey is Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel. It takes the form of an oral history of one Buster 'Rant' Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, admirers, detractors and relations have their say on this (in Chuck Palahniuk's words) 'evil, gender-conflicted Forrest Gump character'. His work is controversial, but I imagine a few Palahniuk fans who read The Blue might have missed the fact that he has a new book out. [ Previously ]

Wikinovel

nospecialfx — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:09:35 -0800

After an abysmal, embarrasing attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.

If you'll show me yours.

escabeche — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:27:09 -0800

Nude Marathon! Psychotherapy traveled down a lot of strange paths in the 60s and early 70s, but perhaps none stranger than the naked group therapy sessions, some up to 48 hours long, supervised by Paul Bindrim. Bindrim's sessions were the subject of a documentary film and an unflattering, thinly fictionalized novel by Gwen Davis Mitchell. Bindrim sued Mitchell for libel. Can descriptions of a fictional character be libelous of a real person? Yes.

It was a dark and horny night...

miss lynnster — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:51:14 -0800

His lips brushed her cheek as he let more of the weight of his arm and hand press against her torso. He spoke softly, “And this evening’s lead story, "No bombings, no robberies, no car accidents, no wars. Just {YOUR NAME HERE} and {YOUR S.O.'s NAME HERE} making love in a hammock on the Outer Banks."

Yep, for $50-120, you and the love of your life can have your very own customized romance novel. May the bosom-heaving and bodice ripping ensue.

Deus Ex Machina, an experimental online comic

jbickers — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 10:28:44 -0800

"Deus is an experimental, serialized online comic about myth, consciousness, death, and tomfoolery. Following a set of quasi-mythical gods and a poor fool named Cam, the styles and themes of Deus are constantly evolving." From the utterly talented Gareth Hinds, whose fully painted interpretation of Beowulf is about to be issued in hardcover by Candlewick Press.

Wanna be a writer?

goo — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:07:52 -0800

"A Million Penguins is an experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit. Let’s see if the crowds are not only wise, but creative. Or will too many cooks spoil the broth?"

The Great (Insert Nationality Here) Novel

eurasian — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:05:02 -0800

So this is the year you are going to write that novel eh? You're going to need some tools, and a lot of help. [mi]

Vein Viewer Infrared-absorption interactive "X-ray" gadget.

loquacious — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:59:21 -0800

VeinViewer is an infrared-absorption interactive "X-ray" device using advanced real time signal processing and a projector. Google video. YouTube video with short explanation.

New Pinkwater Novel, Serialized

interrobang — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:16:59 -0800

Daniel Pinkwater's newest novel, "The Neddiad"—serialized weekly for your reading pleasure. (Previous Pinkwater Post)

oh, schader

The Jesse Helms — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 07:26:42 -0800

Bloggers make terrible novelists. Ana Marie Cox's "Dog Days" meets a reader.

Olaf Stapledon: The Star Maker

0bvious — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:51:32 -0800

Olaf Stapledon was a man ahead of his time. His epic 'novel' Star Maker (1937) considered the emergence of genetic engineering, the outcome of the many worlds interpretation and delved deeper than any book before or since into the consequences of evolution on the cosmos. His fans have included the likes of Arthur C Clarke, Jorge Luis Borges and Virginia Woolf. Even his greatest detractor, C.S.Lewis, wrote an entire Cosmic Trilogy in response to his imaginings. Yet despite Stapledon's magnetic prose and extraordinary influence on speculative fiction his name remains largely forgotten by the world. Yet his words still resonate with insight: "Did not our life issue daily as more or less firm threads of active living, and mesh itself into the growing web, the intricate, ever-proliferating pattern of mankind?"