101 Tips on Writing and Selling Your First Novel

By Prudy Taylor Board

"101 Tips on Writing and Selling Your First Novel takes you from the baby steps of getting organized to full-blown marketing with well-written, well-organized, information-packed pages that have even the 'greenest' of writers submitting a professional and polished manuscript for publication. Ms. Taylor's readers will be empowered with confidence, having the knowledge that all their bases are covered when submitting their first, and subsequent, novels for publication."
--Ingrid Taylor, Small Press Review

"As a novice writer, you must have a good grasp of the basics, and now it's here Not only will 101 TIPS show you how to write, but once your book is ready, how to sell. Allow yourself to be one of the very small percentage of writers who approach agents, editors, and publishers, in a professional manner, with your work ready to be seen "
--Babs Lakey, Publisher, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, www.fmam.biz

"For years I have been struggling with a novel in progress. Prudy Taylor Board's worksheet pages, calendars, making the characters alive and functioning, have all helped me see my novel as a living, moving, productive vehicle. Every writer should have this book and every workshop facilitator should use it as a textbook. It is the most complete "trip ticket" for writers I have come across in 40 years of writing."
--Virginia B. Elliott, Naples, Florida

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595293131
• ISBN13: 9780595293131
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

wonderful tool for first-time novelists

This book will help the clueless get savvy on how to go about writing a decent novel, beginning with the preparation. Before diving headlong into an idea for a novel using a plot with no substance and finding your manuscript dries up after the first twenty pages, 101 Tips will help you develop your characters to give them depth and a reason to be in the pages of your book - by doing this I found my story started to grow automatically and some characters "appeared" unexpectedly, as the author suggests they might. 101 Tips is packed with pages of excellent hints.

The Write Stuff

Unlike many of the literary how-tos on the market, Prudy Taylor Board makes writing so easy and enjoyable. When I first sat down to write my novel I thought I knew everything, the locations, the scene breakdowns, and the characters. But as soon as I started blazing through the pages of Prudy's book I realized I was more clueless than clued-in about these important issues. Take her fill in the blank "Employment Application for a Villain", for example. She has you asking yourself all kinds of interesting questions about your villain's background. Such as: What is his/her favorite movie? Was he/she a member of a fraternity/sorority? And my all time favorite, what was the name of the doctor who delivered him/her? Now all these questions might seem like a lot of work to answer as well as a hopeless waste of time. Why fill out a fictional job application when you could be hacking away at your novel, right? But the problem I ran into -- though I didn't know it until I read this insightful book -- was that I didn't know my characters as intimately as I should have. And if you aren't sure about them how can you ever presume to know how they will react to a situation? By the time you're done you could be looking at a 20-page bio on each of your main characters. (That's exactly what happened to me.) Same goes for mapping out your book. It seems like an exhausting exercise at first but once you start writing that all-important outline you will find yourself in the writing express lane in no time. So if you're looking for an invaluable guide to assist you in writing the Great American novel make sure you get your hands on a copy of Prudy Taylor Board's 101 Tips on Writing and Selling Your First Novel. You'll be glad you did.