Writing The Breakout Novel

Take your fiction to the next level! Maybe you're a first-time novelist looking for practical guidance. Maybe you've already been published, but your latest effort is stuck in mid-list hell. Whatever the case may be, author and literary agent Donald Maass can show you how to take your prose to the next level and write a breakout novel—one that rises out of obscurity and hits the best-seller lists. Maass details the elements that all breakout novels share—regardless of genre—then shows you how to use them to write books that can stand out and succeed in a crowded marketplace.

You'll learn to:

• develop an inspired premise that sets your novel apart from the competition
• establish a powerful and sweeping sense of time and place
• create larger-than-life characters that step right off the page
• sustain a high degree of narrative tension from start to finish
• weave sub-plots into the main action for a complex, engrossing story
• explore universal themes that will interest a broad audience of readers.

Then, using examples from the recent works of several best-selling authors—including novelist Anne Perry—Maass illustrates methods for upping the ante in every aspect of your novel writing. You'll capture the eye of an agent, generate publisher interest, and lay the foundation for a promising career.

"Word of mouth is the secret grease of publishing. It is the engine that drives breakouts."--Donald Maass, from the Introduction

The key to writing a "breakout" novel has nothing to do with million-dollar publicity budgets, huge advances or name recognition. It comes from writing the kind of novel that gets people talking and creates a growing wave of excitement and support that carries your work along for the ride.

Calling upon over two decades of experience in the publishing industry, as both an author and literary agent, Donald Maass explains how to imbue your novel with the qualities that inspire just such a reaction. He'll show you how to:

• find—then push beyond—a category niche
• master the mechanics of the breakout novel and apply them to your own work
• interest agents and publishers with a compelling, original story
• create work that generates extraordinary word of mouth You'll learn to take your fiction to the next level of storytelling, while establishing the career—and recognition—you've always dreamed of.

As recommended on NPR's All Things Considered