Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel Review

Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel Review

The best thing about living in the internet age is that you can learn from people with decades of experience who’ve gone through all the problems you’re going to face and you can stand on the shoulders of giants and learn from them as opposed to recreating the wheel. Lawrence Block is a crime writer who has been publishing for over thirty years, and Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel is a book that gives you insight into those years of experience.

Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel is a re-release and re-write of Block’s 1978 book Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print. It’s updated for the modern era – which is important. AS you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’m a big proponent of the “New World Of Publishing” where you can self-publish and retain the rights to your work and make a ton of money.

However, seeing the book in its 1978 form is useful as well. Instead of rewriting, Block has republished the old text and then added to it. This is pretty cool because it shows you that whilst a lot has changed on the business end of being a writer, writing fiction hasn’t changed all that much. You still have to outline. You still have to create strong characters and you still have to create a plot.

Block takes you through these in comprehensive (if a little dense) chapters. There’s a lot of material in here: It’s taken me nearly a week to read, which is quite a long time. (I read in the evenings for maybe an hour or two.)

Writing The Novel From Plot to Print To Pixel Review: What’s In The Book?

I guess the simplest way to start this section is by giving you a list of the chapters:

1. Why Write a Novel?
2. Deciding Which Novel to Write.
3. Read…Study…Analyze.
4. Developing Plot Ideas.
5. Developing Characters.
6. Outlining.
7. Using What You Know…and What You Don’t Know.
8. Getting Started.
9. Getting It Written.
10. Snag, Dead Ends, and False Trails.
11. Matters of Style.
12. Length.
13. Rewriting.
14. Getting Published.
15. The Case for Self-Publishing.
16. The Case Against Self-publishing.
17. How to Be Your Own Publisher.
18. Doing It Again.
19. Now It’s Up to You!

Like I said above, it’s pretty comprehensive and will take you through getting your first novel idea through to getting it ready. It’ll also give you some tips about what not to do when it comes to writing your novel, and chapter ten is particularly useful because we’ve all gotten stuck with a manuscript at various points.

Now, it’s important to note that there’s stuff I don’t agree with in this book: I don’t think I’ll go with a traditional publisher ever, I certainly won’t get an agent in the near future, and there are stylistic choices I don’t like; like Block referring to page count as opposed to word count.

Also, a final negative is that I got the Kindle version of this book. Now, Block uses different fonts in Writing The Novel to denote different sections… this is all lost due to Kindle’s formatting, so it’s impossible to follow along in the way he intended. I gave up trying.

Now I’ve gotten the irritating stuff out of the way, I’ll talk about three things I learned from reading Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel.

Three Things I’ve Learned From Reading Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel by Lawrence Block

“Write What You Know?”

The Clarification of “Write What You Know” is probably the most valuable lesson for me from this book. I’ve always found it a bit strange that people give the phrase out as advice… I mean, Superman wouldn’t exist if we had to write what we knew. Stephen King’s books would be about alcoholism and the heroes of most romance novels would be the heroine’s cats.

However, Block puts into words a lot of what I’ve thought for a long time about this: To create a realistic character, put yourself into an extraordinary situation. Sure, you might not have superpowers, but you can imagine what you’d do if you had them, right?

Plot Ideas: Conscious Creation or Subconscious Realisation?

Most writers can’t tell you where their ideas come from. It’s very irritating as an introvert, rational systems-builder type to read books where the artist can’t really tell you where their ideas came from. It also tends to mean that the book you’re reading when that’s the case is about to descend into “let your inner spirit guide you” hippy-nonsense.

Luckily, Block manages to avoid this. He’s very much a “let the subconscious give you ideas” kind of writer (whereas I brute-force ideas out of my brain) but he explains it in a way that’s methodical so you can actually follow his method yourself.

A Long Term Reality Check… And a Short Term Incentive

As you’ll know if you browse around my site, I like writing a lot of words. I’ll routinely hit eight-thousand words a day for extended periods.

Block used to write a lot. He’d write 30 pages a day. Assuming that’s 300 words a page, that’s 9000 words.

However, Block has slowed down considerably over his career.

If I assume I’m going to slow down as well, then I can only imagine I’ll need to plan for that in the long term. Until this point, I’ve assumed hitting 50,000 word weeks is something I’ll always be able to do when it probably isn’t.

On the other hand, I’m reconciled to the fact that if I do slow down, then I’ll have to make the most of this period in my life where I can write a ton.

When you think that Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print to Pixel is a culmination of a career spanning multiple decades, it’s easy to take inspiration and knowledge from the more peripheral points within the book. You’ll have different learning points and lessons to the ones I’ve had.

Where Can I Get Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel?

I got mine from Amazon, where it’s available to download for the Kindle. It’s in paperback as well if you prefer that option… I know if I’d had the paperback it’d be a lot easier to go back through the book and write this review. That said, the Kindle book is great and it gets delivered almost immediately. You could be reading it five minutes from now!

Get Your Copy Of Writing The Novel: From Plot To Print To Pixel on Amazon Now!

P.S. Sometimes, less information is better than more information. Once you’ve read this book, you’ll have everything you need to start writing a novel. Finish the book, open up your word processor and go. You don’t need any other information.