Customer Reviews

Chapter One: Everything You Wanted to Know About Starting Your Novel

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It's certainly a GOOD book to teach you how to write BAD books. The author seems to be a successful one and her books are best sellers in "popular fiction" (whatever this means. Is popular = bad + repetitive ? ). She discovered the formula and intends to share it with her readers. The stories shown lack the truth that a good writer always express even when he or she makes everything up in a story. This book can be recommended for fun, but not to be taken seriously.

There are writers who set out to exploit a genre, develop a formula, and are successful. One such is Janet Evanovich, whose 'Stephanie Plum' mysteries are currently riding high. Before that Ms Evanovich was a successful romance writer. Then there is Ms Bacia, who writes in the over-wrought women-finding-themselves with a background of pop-psychology-feminism genre. How successfully is a moot point. Not very elegantly or with much literary success.

Her books tend to the plot development heights of First X happened, then Y, and exploits the 'now I'm going to over-describe with the use of strings of adjectives and adverbs' style of writing.

In one book by Ms Bacia the heroine attends an 8 week creative writing class and unlocks her pent-up talents (and has an affair which turns to friendship with occasional sexual contact, with the teacher and leaves her boorish husband and two children who take her for granted....you get the idea!)It appears Ms Bacia is the product of the Creative Writing School, and she has seen fit to share her wisdom with the world. I would not recommend any aspiring literary genius, or even half-way decent writer actually take the advice here to heart, but it is worth a look at (borrow it) to gets some tips on what not necessarily to do. Successful writing can't be learned from **a** book in my humble opinion! But reading lots and lots and lots of good writing might help!