Book Review: The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers, by Donald Maass

The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers is the fifth Donald Maass book I've reviewed. I wasn't sure I really needed another Maass book. But when I got hold of a copy at a recent writer's conference, I realized it was exactly what I needed.

I already owned Writing the Breakout Novel, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, The Fire in Fiction, and The Career Novelist. The trouble is, I don't always grab the whole stack from my shelf and put them to use. The Breakout Novelist contains the best information from all four books, plus updated content, in a compact, spiral-bound hardcover.

A nice-sized volume to sit next to my computer.

If you have't heard of Donald Maass, he's the founder of his own top-notch literary agency, and a former president of the AAR (Association of Author Representatives, Inc.).

The exercises he includes ask writers to stretch themselves beyond the boundaries of safe, predictable writing. Working through this book will improve your novel by leaps and bounds.

Here's the table of contents to give you an idea of what you're getting:

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: Mastering Breakout Basics

1. Premise
2. Stakes
3. Time and Place
4. Characters
5. Plot
6. Sub-Plots + Pace + Endings
7. Advanced Plot Structures
8. Theme
9. Practical Tools

PART 2: Achieving Breakout Greatness

10. Protagonists vs. Heroes
11. Characters Who Matter
12. Scenes That Can't Be Cut
13. The World of the Novel
14. A Singular Voice
15. Making It Real
16. Hyper-Reality
17. Tension All the Time
18. The Fire in Fiction
19. Practical Tools

PART 3: Building a Breakout Career

20. Status Seekers & Storytellers
21. Publishing Myth vs. Reality
22. Pitching
23. Agents
24. Career Patterns That Work
25. Breaking Out
26. Contracts
27. Numbers, Numbers, Numbers
28. The Future of Publishing
29. Passages

The book comes with an exclusive link so writers can download and print the exercises for their notebooks (without having to write in the book).

Check out an excerpt from the book from Chapter 24: Career Patterns That Work, and an exclusive interview with Maass as he shares his secrets of success. 

What are your favorite writing books?