Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, MyShelf.Com
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Letter to an Accomplished or Unaccomplished Novelist

Dear Fellow Novelist:

My son gave me How to Write A Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey for Christmas. I thought perhaps he was trying to tell me something about my work, but because I am a professional novelist (meaning I have had one published,) I listen to criticism. That is how one gets to be a professional novelist.

I have to admit I wasn't expecting to learn a whole lot from this book. Call it pride or even high falutin' hubris, but I have a shelf of how-to books, have taken classes in novel writing, have attended writers' conferences and generally immersed myself in any of the how-tos ever created for a writer. Still, if someone-especially a handsome, smart someone like my son was trying to tell me something…

Besides, at the moment I have a bad case of novel-block. Not writers' block, mind you, (which I've never had) but an intense, abiding unwillingness, inability and/or general malaise about starting another novel. I can't tell you if Damn Good Novel helped with that (I just finished it) but I can tell you that even if you know your craft reasonably well (or even damn well), I am pretty sure you'll find a new tidbit or new perspective in this book that will make it worthwhile.

Occasionally, Frey uses the same sorts of stale simile against which he vociferously warns his readers, but I'm certain you will find in this book a new term for an old concept. (Like "homo fictus" or "crucible" or "insistence versus resistance." Maybe you haven't even yet run into Artistotle's "peripety" yet.) You may also remember something you've forgotten. I feel absolutely certain that most novelists-new or otherwise--won't be sorry they read Frey's damn good how-to book.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of "This is the Place" and "Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered"