Writing the Breakout Novel was written much like a textbook and that format meshed well with my learning style. Most everything covered was general knowledge – for writers who have read other books on their craft – but Maass delivered the information from the “inside” perspective of an agent whose career spans 30 years.

Each chapter focused on a major element of fiction and began with an examination of Maass’s theory on what is necessary to exploit that element to achieve “breakout” success. Oftentimes, an excerpt of published fiction was used to illustrate that “breakout” technique. Lastly, each chapter ended with the “Breakout Checklist,” a must-have bulleted list which summarized the chapter’s key points.

The “Breakout Checklist” was a useful feature, especially for repeat readers. In addition, the index was well-organized and specific which was helpful when I wanted to look up one of the many novels Maass referenced throughout the book.

Overall, I found the excerpts and “insider” viewpoint made the advice practical and relevant for beginners and midlisters. Nothing profound here; but, sage insight nonetheless.

P.S. I purchased the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook at the same time as its predecessor and I plan to complete the workbook before I start revisions on my novel.

WEB RESOURCES

Purchase from Amazon

Donald Maass Literary Agency | “Writing The Breakout Novel” – an article by Donald Maass

Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

“WHO WERE THEY? WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?
WHY DID THEY DO IT? WHO WERE THEIR VICTIMS?

Four drug-crazed young sadists–a world of damage. Driven by random, violent lusts they could barely articulate and understand, they embarked on a cross-country terror spree that left a trail of victims in its wake. The line between mischief and madness is a thin one–a trap that waits for innocent and helpless strangers…”

From the perspective of a reader who loves true crime, crime thrillers, and even a few mysteries, The End of the Night not only satisfied my hunger but whet my appetite for more. The first five pages told me the end of the story but knowing the outcome only made me want the whole story. I had tons of questions so I turned the page to uncover the answers.

What MacDonald did so skillfully with this book was dig deeper than any crime thriller I’ve read to date. He brought up issues and questions and dilemmas I think about all the time. How many have not questioned the seeming randomness of tragic events? Asked why those events happened? Or asked how someone became a “monster” capable of such acts of pure “evil”? I daresay very few because humans by nature want everything to make sense. For there to be an easily explained motive. Eww! Lots to mull over.

Excuse me while I gush a bit and share a few passages that really made my wheels kick into overdrive. The first two are from the defense attorney’s memorandum in reference to Kirby Stassen’s parents who are unable to accept their son’s involvement in the terrible crimes of which he’s accused.

All their lives, they have been conscious of a great gulf between the mass of decent folk and that sick, savage, dangerous minority known as criminals. Thus they cannot comprehend that their son…has leaped the unbridgeable gulf (p. 9).

Their error lies in their inability to see how easy it is to step across that gulf. Perhaps, in maturity, when ethical patterns are firmly established, one cannot cross that gulf. But in youth, in the traditional years of rebellion, it is not a gulf. It is an imperceptible scratch in the dust. To the youth it is arbitrary and meaningless. To society it is a life and death division (p. 9).

How right on are those? I mean, when we’re young, how many of us truly comprehend the big picture? The long arm of consequences? Don’t many teenagers operate within the parameters of a “Nothing’s gonna happen to me!” mentality? Hmm, something to think about.

This next quote is from Kirby Stassen’s diary in which he contemplates his immortality.

Isn’t three hundred years a vast span of time? It is one ten millionth of the estimated life span of the planet to date. Or it is the same ratio as is three seconds to one full year. And on the same scale, my life span has been one quarter of one second (p. 135).

That is one of the best examinations of time I’ve come across in fiction. To me, it really spotlights how little we have on Earth and how much is often spent on menial or trivial tasks. Reading Kirby’s thoughts on time and mortality also reminded me how insignificant our lives can be if we do nothing substantial with our time.

Now, from an ever-evolving and constantly learning writer’s perspective – I wanna do what he did. I loved, loved, loved the way he used multiple points-of-view and even a letter, which is the first five pages of the book, to tell the story in reverse chronological order. However, the last chapter did move forward in time to give me a bit more closure. MacDonald’s descriptions and characters were so vivid…they seduced me into turning the page and the next and the next until I’d finished the book in one sitting. No info dumps in sight, yay! And even knowing how the story ended didn’t keep me from hoping things might turn out differently.

Honestly, I can’t wait to read this book again and dissect it for all its tools of the trade from a master storyteller.

Psst! MacDonald also wrote The Executioners upon which the 1962 and 1991 Cape Fear movies were based.

One of the book’s themes centered around mind-altering drugs. Do you believe criminals who commit felonious acts under the influence are any less responsible for those crimes?

WEB RESOURCES

The John D. MacDonald Homepage | Big Bill’s John D. MacDonald Stuff

Here was my biggest problem with the book, what I read inside the jacket didn’t match the actual story, at least not up to page 161. The book is called Stunts but there was only a paragraph or two about the town’s stunts until around page 125. Up to that point it was about a man named Evan who was from the town where the stunts were a local tradition. The title and jacket insinuated the stunts were the heart of the book and I don’t think it should take 125 pages to deliver the reader to the heart of the book. At least give me some extended glimpses before then.

I’m kicking myself for not writing down the jacket copy when I had the book – I couldn’t find anything online – but my bahookey is getting sore so I’ll stop kicking now. I did write down a passage that really caught my attention. I thought it was an excellent use of imagery.

Naze squinted up the drive. A hawk too old to hunt anymore, but not too old to remember how. He sucked at this teeth.

And please don’t take any of this Note to Self the wrong way; Grant was a good writer, there’s no doubt about it. But something was definitely off with this story or maybe just in the way it was delivered or maybe the jacket is a trickster. I won’t know for sure until I finish the book. Whenever I do get back around to it, I’ll reply to this post with my final thoughts.

Below is a synopsis from one of the book’s publishers that is oodles closer to what I actually read:

An American professor working in England has a bizarre encounter with an acquaintance, who seems to have acquired supernatural powers and an urge to kill. Back in his home town, a traditional day of practical jokes threatens to take on terrible overtones.

Sounds good, right? Yeah, I’ll give it another go the next time I go to the library.

Have you read any of Grant’s work? What’d you think?

WEB RESOURCES

Charles L. Grant official site

Whilst looking for info on Grant and Stunts, I stumbled across Terrifying Tales of Ghosts and Horror, which I had to add to this post since I’m on a never ending quest for dark fiction.

WORLD WAR Z is Max Brooks’s life work. Logging countless hours of travel to capture and preserve first-hand experiences from the Dark Years, Brooks records in great detail the one aspect that has been neglected in all previous retellings of this war: the extraordinary job we did in coming together to thwart our extinction and reign triumphant.

Brooks’ imagination and dedication to zombies is undeniable. The amount of research and planning that he had to do in preparation for writing World War Z is admirable. The book’s format – personal interviews with survivors of the zombie apocalypse – is unique enough to keep most zombie addicts turning the page. Plus, it’s written, quite convincingly, as non-fiction.

However, the 352-page book has its flaws. And those flaws could prove too numerous for picky readers, who might choose to close the book and never pick it up again.

Since the end of official hostilities, numerous attempts have been made to document the Zombie War. WORLD WAR Z is the definitive account of the technological, military, social, economic, and political details as told through survivors’ stories of how civilization went from the brink of extinction to a universal victory against the living dead.

The introduction insists the book was written to share “the human factor” of “The Crisis,” but I found myself buried in a lot of intricate details about weapons and military tactics, most of which I’m fairly certain were unnecessary. Perhaps for certain readers, those details were entertaining. To me, they didn’t move the story forward and acted more like filler than substance.

The dozens of first person accounts of survival featured a majority of flat characters, who never really jumped off the page, and only a couple characters had their own voice. However, a few of them were more developed and I actually cared about those stories, e.g. Jesika Hendricks, Sharon, Tomonaga Ijiro and Kondo Tasumi.

Some readers might get offended by the notion that our government would sacrifice us or attempt to cover its own ass during a time of global crisis. I was not. But I’m a big conspiracy theorist, which means I’m probably biased in that department. America’s lust for capitalism and humanity’s tendency to not be so humane were also explored throughout the book. Again, those themes might offend most people’s pride and belief that humans are the best thing since toilet paper. There were a lot of thought-provoking questions that came to mind while reading, which is always fun, for me anyway.

Overall, World War Z helped me pass the time and explore a different way of telling a story. It gives the reader an idea of what life (and war and death) would be like for the world should the dead ever reanimate. The impossibilities are both frightening and eye-opening.

Brooks’ talent for first person POV is something I hope we get to see more of, just not in the Zombie Survival Guide / World War Z fashion. I’d enjoy seeing what he could do with a straight up horror story about zombies along the lines of The Night of the Living Dead but with his own spin of course.

Psst! The film rights were sold so it looks like World War Z will be coming soon to a theater near you.

WEB RESOURCES

World War Z official site |  Purchase from Amazon

Insert spooky music here.

The jacket’s summary was slightly misleading, though, as it described events out of order, which I assume was in an effort to make the story appear more suspenseful or certain events more critical. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good story. But I think the blurb could’ve been more concise and less scattered.

Don Lark was easy to empathize with, and his grief and anger were justified. I enjoyed Cindy’s character and the almost romance but, if I’m being honest, she seemed unnecessary to the story. In fact, it made me think Don was a man who fell in love easily and I believe Card wanted to prove the opposite. How could a man, who refuses to open his heart, almost fall in love at first sight with one woman, then fall in love with a different woman only a couple of months later? It just didn’t fit the Don I’d built in my mind: a man who refused to let anyone in.

While I was pretty sure about Sylvie from the start, I enjoyed the way Card developed her character and revealed her (and the house’s) secrets minus info dump. He has mastered the use of flashbacks that don’t cause the reader to disconnect from the main plot. And the biggest lure of the book’s summary – the hint of a haunted house – fulfilled and exceeded my expectations.

I liked the world Card created, built on the idea that houses are living things which absorb what is put into them. However, there weren’t any creepy or suspenseful scenes, at least for me. And the conflict never really felt that intense until the end. The pace and obstacles were acceptable, but I didn’t worry about Don until Chapter 21 and there were only 22 chapters. Perhaps, in my imagination, Don was just too strong for me to really believe he might be in danger.

Overall, I thought this was an entertaining story.

Read Homebody if you enjoy a male POV, who has suffered a great loss but hasn’t totally given up on the possibility of opening up his heart again, with a lot of description about home renovations, some magic, a supernatural romance, and wrongs being righted.

WEB RESOURCES

Purchase Homebody on Amazon. (I read the 1998 hardcover version.)

Orson Scott Card official site |  Homebody web page where you can read Chapter One

A huge fan of the 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead, I was fairly certain I’d enjoy this book. And Return of the Living Dead was a fun reading experience, but it was also plagued by grammatical errors and typos, which are a big pet peeve of mine when it comes to a published novel, especially one I know had to have been reprinted at least once since 1970.

Nitpicking aside, the story delivered what I expected: a rural community under attack from zombies. There was ooey gooey graphic consumption of human flesh, emotional turmoil, and humans actin’ a fool.

Mostly, I enjoyed Russo’s ability to go one step further to make the situation that much worse for the characters just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Their desperation and inability to process any of the emotions that would accompany such a situation added to the book’s overall feeling of hopelessness. However, I wonder, did Russo intend to make the looters and rapists come across scarier and more intimidating than the zombies?

Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

AT DAWN THEY WAKE…

They’re back. The terror from beyond the grave returns once more in John Russo’s nightmarish classic Return of the Living Dead. And their taste for blood is as strong as ever.

After a bus turns over in a quiet American town, the entire country is thrown into the grip of the hands of the dead–or undead. No one is safe from the flesh-eating ghouls who have risen from their deathbeds to feed on the living. As the horror spreads, the blood begins to flow. But can their craving for living flesh be stopped?

WEB RESOURCES

John A. Russo on IMDb | Wikipedia

Wanna read more zombie lit? I found two lists that may be of interest:

Zombie Book Database | The Ultimate Zombie Book List