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Randy Ingermanson

Writing Fiction For Dummies Paperback – Illustrated, December 2, 2009

by Randy Ingermanson (Author), Peter Economy (Author)

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A complete guide to writing and selling your novel

So you want to write a novel? Great! That’s a worthy goal, no matter what your reason. But don’t settle for just writing a novel. Aim high. Write a novel that you intend to sell to a publisher. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a complete guide designed to coach you every step along the path from beginning writer to royalty-earning author. Here are some things you’ll learn in Writing Fiction for Dummies:

Strategic Planning: Pinpoint where you are on the roadmap to publication; discover what every reader desperately wants from a story; home in on a marketable category; choose from among the four most common creative styles; and learn the self-management methods of professional writers.
Writing Powerful Fiction: Construct a story world that rings true; create believable, unpredictable characters; build a strong plot with all six layers of complexity of a modern novel; and infuse it all with a strong theme.
Self-Editing Your Novel: Psychoanalyze your characters to bring them fully to life; edit your story structure from the top down; fix broken scenes; and polish your action and dialogue.
Finding An Agent and Getting Published: Write a query letter, a synopsis, and a proposal; pitch your work to agents and editors without fear.

Writing Fiction For Dummies takes you from being a writer to being an author. It can happen―if you have the talent and persistence to do what you need to do.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

For Dummies
Publication date

December 2, 2009
Dimensions

7.4 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

0470530707
ISBN-13

978-0470530702
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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Writing a novel can be a daunting process — it will challenge you, stretch you, and change you. Whether you've never written fiction before or are looking to brush up your skills and learn new techniques for crafting your words, Writing Fiction For Dummies gives you savvy advice on navigating the entire writing process and turning your ideas into a well-written, marketable book.

Establishing an ideal writing environment — discover how to set aside enough time and an ideal location for your writing
Getting ready to write fiction — pinpoint your location on the road to publication, and set your strategic and tactical goals to get your novel published
Discovering the principles of writing powerful fiction — build a realistic story world, envision unique and exciting characters, craft the layers of your plot, and grow a theme organically
Editing and polishing your story and characters — put on your editing hat and analyze your characters, scrutinize your story structure, and edit your scenes to get your novel in tip-top shape
Getting published — learn how to write query letters and book proposals that will ignite an agent's or editor's enthusiasm and help sell your novel to the right publisher

Open the book and find:

Your strategic roadmap to getting published
Help in choosing your category
Tips for building a believable plot
Guidelines for creating three-dimensional characters
Examples of storylines that spotlight a novel's high concept
Pros and cons of various publishing methods
Advice on finding the right agent and publisher

From the Back Cover

Writing a novel can be a daunting process it will challenge you, stretch you, and change you. Whether you've never written fiction before or are looking to brush up your skills and learn new techniques for crafting your words, Writing Fiction For Dummies gives you savvy advice on navigating the entire writing process and turning your ideas into a well-written, marketable book.

Establishing an ideal writing environment discover how to set aside enough time and an ideal location for your writing
Getting ready to write fiction pinpoint your location on the road to publication, and set your strategic and tactical goals to get your novel published
Discovering the principles of writing powerful fiction build a realistic story world, envision unique and exciting characters, craft the layers of your plot, and grow a theme organically
Editing and polishing your story and characters put on your editing hat and analyze your characters, scrutinize your story structure, and edit your scenes to get your novel in tip-top shape
Getting published learn how to write query letters and book proposals that will ignite an agent's or editor's enthusiasm and help sell your novel to the right publisher

Open the book and find:

Your strategic roadmap to getting published
Help in choosing your category
Tips for building a believable plot
Guidelines for creating three-dimensional characters
Examples of storylines that spotlight a novel's high concept
Pros and cons of various publishing methods
Advice on finding the right agent and publisher

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ For Dummies; 1st edition (December 2, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0470530707
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470530702
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.58 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.4 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #55,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #107 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
- #188 in Reading & Phonics Teaching Materials
- #191 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,059 ratings

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About the authors

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Peter Economy
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Peter Economy is a Wall Street Journal best-selling business author, ghostwriter, developmental editor, and publishing consultant with more than 125 books to his credit (and more than 3 million copies sold).
Peter’s latest book is Wait, I’m Working With Who?!? published by Career Press. He also helped create Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results; Everything I Learned About Life I Learned in Dance Class; The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness (a Wall Street Journal bestseller); Managing For Dummies; User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product; The Management Bible; Peter Isler’s Little Blue Book of Sailing Secrets; and many more.
He is the Leadership Guy on Inc.com and for more than a decade served as Associate Editor for Leader to Leader magazine—published by the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum in New York City. Peter taught MGT 453: Creativity and Innovation as a lecturer at San Diego State University, is on the National Advisory Council of The Art of Science Learning, and is a founding member of the board of SPORTS for Exceptional Athletes.
A graduate of Stanford University (with majors in Economics and Human Biology), Peter has worked closely with some of the nation’s top business, leadership, and technology thinkers, including Jim Collins, Frances Hesselbein, Barry O’Reilly, Peter Senge, Kellie McElhaney, Jeff Patton, Marshall Goldsmith, Marty Cagan, Lolly Daskal, Guy Kawasaki, Emma Seppala, William Taylor, Jim Kilts, Jean Lipman-Blumen, Stephen Orban, Ken Blanchard, and many others.
See more on the author's page
Randy Ingermanson
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Randy Ingermanson wants to teach you how to write excellent fiction.
He’s been teaching for nearly twenty years, and he’s known around the world as "the Snowflake Guy" in honor of his wildly popular Snowflake Method of writing a novel.
Randy is an award-winning novelist and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine. He says that "Fiction Writing = Organization + Craft + Marketing," so he focuses on those three topics in his e-zine.
He also blogs when the spirit moves him. He is trying to get the spirit to move him weekly, but the spirit gets touchy about schedules.
Randy lives in the Pacific Northwest and works as a manservant to two surly and demanding cats. Visit Randy at AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

1,059 global ratings

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Dean Calabrese

Really good, helpful, and interesting. An excellent reference!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 1, 2022

Verified Purchase

This is an excellent resource for aspiring writers. It does not give writing basics such as grammar or punctuation, but it has a ton of useful information on plot and character structure/development.

In addition, the latter portion of the book gives a lot of tips on how to get published, including a strengths and weaknesses analysis of when to self-publish and why many vanity presses should be treated with extreme caution.

Recommended.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Cliff

Excellent condition for a used book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

Excellent source of material for the subject of writing fiction.

Helpful

mswans

Before you read anything else...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

This basically sums it up--literally. It's relatable, no BS, no egos trying to pretend like they're giving you crackerjack advice but leaving key information out (on purpose? who knows).

There were a couple of questions I had. Like really, no theme at the beginning? Just winging it and letting the story tell you the theme? Not sure that would work for everyone.

Also no discussion of subplots.

BUT it's there to give you the essential basics and it does. I believe someone could write a first book from the advice in this one. I've read a ton of books over the last year about story craft and this may be the best.

I so wish it had another title other than "...for dummies" lol, b/c it's so good. And I'm sure it turns away tons of people. It was my luck to have a friend who read another "dummies" book about business who shared with me how good it was. Otherwise I wouldn't have given this one a try.

Anyway, it's going to be a major reference for me as I move forward.

6 people found this helpful

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C. Fouts

A Must Have

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

I have read a stack of writing and storytelling books a mile high, and this one is a standout.

Truby does an excellent job delving into the nuances of story, Vogler's 'The Writer's Journey is also a great help, and Larry Brooks' book, Story Engineering, explains story structure clearly and is indispensable imo, but this book lays it out plain how to write marketable fiction.

The only downside to this book is that, like many 'Dummies' books, it's not really for a complete dummy. I have helped out new writers with this book, and some of the subtleties go over their heads. It is most useful in the hands of someone who already has a rudimentary understanding of the concepts he explains. Being a Dummies book, he hits all the steps and 'how-tos' but doesn't dive too deeply explaining them. This is not a criticism. That is what I expect when I pick up a Dummies book.

If you are an experienced writer or someone who has learned all the basics but need to brush up, (you know what POV is, you understand the difference between a scene and a sequence) or if you want to have a quick reference in one book at your fingertips, this is it.

I don't want to scare away those just learning. Buy this book! Even the brand new writer can benefit greatly from it, since it gathers many concepts in one package that I had to learn by reading many books.

What I do suggest for the newer writer, is to buy the following companion books:

Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain
Self-Editing for Fiction Wrighters, Renni Brown

I say this because Ingermanson bases his books on the teachings of Swain and Brown, or at least what he says accords with what they teach, Swain especially. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a wonderful, fairly-detailed outline on how to puke out a novel and form it into something others will want to read, but as I said, he will state a step and move on without bogging you down in theory, which is what I like about this book.

Swain's book could be thought of as the deep reference for this Dummies book. If you want to delve deeper into what Ingermanson is teaching you, Swain's book will fit the bill perfectly, which is why I recommend it as a companion.

Writing Fiction for Dummies is all about helping you get your words down on the page and organizing them in a way that will make them marketable. I wish I had picked this book up first.

18 people found this helpful

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Mark Hill

Impressive & Well Organized Book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 2, 2022

Verified Purchase

I was super surprised how much content, advice, and honesty there is in this book. It was exactly what I was looking for and a whole lot more. Reading so far has been a blessing of knowledge I need plus it also states that others will try to drag you down and just do your thing with this book I will finish my novel with confidence and new knowledge.

2 people found this helpful

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Karl J. Hanson

One of my favorite resources on writing novels

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

I began writing novels, just a few years ago, somewhat late in life. After my novel was accepted by a publisher, I began working with editors, who marked-up my manuscript with comments like "Show, Don't Tell". I came to realize there must be rules and a disciplined approach for writing novels. Since the last creative writing class I took was in high school, I decided to learn some of these rules fast, so I ordered this "For Dummies" book.

Writing fiction is different than other types of writing. At its simplist level, a novel is about CONFLICT: A hero(PROTAGONIST), has a goal (OBJECTIVE), but he/she is being prevented from achieving that goal by a villian (ANTAGONIST). This is what keeps readers reading: Readers "don't like happy", they want to read about conflict. As authors, we must create a fictional world with conflict and sub-conflicts,, until we give the reader RESOLUTION. We must create conflicts on many levels, even at the most basic level of dialogue conflicts. It's a back-and-forth game, somewhat like fishing, reeling-in the reader with conflict, then letting them out with resolution.

This "For Dummies" book describes how novels/stories are organized, points of view, narration, foreshadowing..etc.. It also explains how to analyze your novel for good story structure. It describes well the challenges you will face keeping your readers engaged in the story; modern readers, especially, can be turned-off by things such as too much omniscient narration or too many adverbs and adjectives. As readers, we are typically not aware of these rules - there many authors who don't understand these rules - but there are, nevertheless, rules you can follow for writing novels, using a structured approach.

This book will provide you with a concise, structured approach for writing novels. Lots of good information.

55 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Pete Dennett

Budding writers should read this.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is absolutely perfect reading for a student of writing. If you plan to write stories, particularly, or even how-to books, this book will show you how to create believable characters and situations. It will teach you the don'ts too. If you plan on writing then buy this book. If you want to know the do's and don'ts then buy this book. If you think that writing is the purvue of only those people talented enough, read this book. You be surprised!

9 people found this helpful

Ms Renko

In depth and simple

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

Had this book a couple of years for a on and off again interest in writing. Is a really good resource and gave me some great tips, which lead me onto some greats books that I really enjoy reading.

Takes you from the very start of what to do before you even start writing

6 people found this helpful

Michael A. Sweeney

brilliant.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 25, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you could only read one book about the 'how' of writing fiction, make it this one. You will not be disappointed.

8 people found this helpful

Velo Mitrovich

Better than you'd think

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 30, 2013

Verified Purchase

Despite this being one of the 'Dummies' books, 'Writing for Fiction' is for anyone but dummies. I found Ingermanson's advice to be extremely good. The book makes you think about your work and how to make it better. The only problem I've had with it is that I read a passage, get excited, go to my work-in-progress, and then days later return to 'Writing Fiction'. I really should read it in one go and then start using it as a guide. Again, forget about the title, just get it, especially if don't know how to move your story forward.

16 people found this helpful

Atia Shah

Very good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

I haven't read the entire book yet but have read about a quarter of it. It is very good and very detailed. It is a must by for anyone wanting to write a novel.

3 people found this helpful

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Writing Fiction For Dummies Paperback – Illustrated, December 2, 2009

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