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Write Right: Novel Writing for Beginners
If you dream of writing a novel but don't know how to get started, let me take you step by step through my novel-writing guide for beginners. Learn how to turn your big ideas into a full-length story, how to outline and structure your novel, how to develop characters so they'll walk off the page, and how to polish, publish, and promote your work—and more. It won't be long until you're ready to share your novel with the world!
159 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 14, 2021
4 people are currently reading
1 person want to read
About the author
Joy Lynn Goddard
17 books80 followersJoy Lynn Goddard and her husband Daniel Pike write adult fiction that crosses mystery, romance, and suspense genres. Their first novel, Moonshadow, won a Book Excellence Award, a Reader Ready Award (Recommended Read), and a Canada Book Award. Their second, The Keepers, also won a Canada Book Award. Besides novels, they wrote Buyers, Liars, Sellers and Yellers, a collection of humorous short stories about the real estate industry.
Joy is well known for her young adult and junior fiction, with her books in schools across Canada; she also wrote Write Right, a step-by-step guide to writing a novel. She and Dan live in Belleville, Ontario, where they are currently adapting A Good Mother into a screenplay. Learn more about them by visiting www.joygoddard.com.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 7, 2022
A Book Packed with Clearly Defined, Easy to Digest Relevancy
A woman with a compelling story, but scant writing experience, recently approached me to help her pen her experiences into an equally compelling manuscript. Although focused on novel writing, I suggested she read Write Right, as so much within its covers is equally relevant to nonfiction writers. And so I now can offer the same advice to writers of all genre. And once you do, first check out the GETTING STARTED section, where, in her chapter, What’s Your Big Idea, Ms. Goddard writes, “Readers are drawn to a book by the way it makes them feel. . . .” Such a simple concept, perhaps easy to overlook, but Ms. Goddard brings it home with her personal reminisence of the day her mother witnessed blatant racial discrimination and took action against it to right the wrong. And this is the mantra of all polished authors, SHOW, DON’T TELL.
Ms. Goddard continues to SHOW her readers by citing excerpts from well proven treasured works, such as those from To Kill a Mockingbird, The Push, and her own Charlie’s Song, along with pithy statements from beloved authors as J.K. Rawling, Stephen King and even Ernest Hemingway, on what makes strong characters.
The final section of Write Right, with its chapters on Perfect Punctuation, Parts of Speech, Effective Editing, might appear a bit simplistic for the seasoned writer, but her final chapter, with techniques from alliteration and allusion to symbolism and understatement, are topics even the most seasoned of authors might incorporate into some of their well crafted works, just to give them a bit of extra punch.
I highly recommend this book to seasoned authors and aspiring newbies alike.
Lois W. Stern
Creator of Tales2Inspire
A woman with a compelling story, but scant writing experience, recently approached me to help her pen her experiences into an equally compelling manuscript. Although focused on novel writing, I suggested she read Write Right, as so much within its covers is equally relevant to nonfiction writers. And so I now can offer the same advice to writers of all genre. And once you do, first check out the GETTING STARTED section, where, in her chapter, What’s Your Big Idea, Ms. Goddard writes, “Readers are drawn to a book by the way it makes them feel. . . .” Such a simple concept, perhaps easy to overlook, but Ms. Goddard brings it home with her personal reminisence of the day her mother witnessed blatant racial discrimination and took action against it to right the wrong. And this is the mantra of all polished authors, SHOW, DON’T TELL.
Ms. Goddard continues to SHOW her readers by citing excerpts from well proven treasured works, such as those from To Kill a Mockingbird, The Push, and her own Charlie’s Song, along with pithy statements from beloved authors as J.K. Rawling, Stephen King and even Ernest Hemingway, on what makes strong characters.
The final section of Write Right, with its chapters on Perfect Punctuation, Parts of Speech, Effective Editing, might appear a bit simplistic for the seasoned writer, but her final chapter, with techniques from alliteration and allusion to symbolism and understatement, are topics even the most seasoned of authors might incorporate into some of their well crafted works, just to give them a bit of extra punch.
I highly recommend this book to seasoned authors and aspiring newbies alike.
Lois W. Stern
Creator of Tales2Inspire
May 4, 2024
This writing guide has an abundance of useful information and tips for anyone starting their writing journey. There is sound advice about all aspects of the writing process, such as choosing POV, strong character creation, suitable settings, the importance of conflict, and realistic dialogue. How to make your story sing, by being aware of your senses, so you can replicate your sight, smell, touch etc for your characters when describing a scene. The author asked her husband to lock her in his car boot to gauge how this affected her, I don’t think I could go to that extreme!
For anyone with writing experience this book is a good refresher. Personally, the chapters on outlining and structuring a novel were the most relevant, as this is my shortcoming, I’m a ‘pantser’ as author Joy Lynn Goddard terms it, tend to fly by the seat of my pants, randomly put pen to paper, see where it leads. From bitter experience, I know it leads to crater-sized plot holes and umpteen re-writes.
I recommend ‘Write Right’ as a concise, point of reference for authors starting on their writing journey, and to seasoned authors who need a reminder of good writing practise, who might tend to get themselves in a plot muddle, like yours truly.
For anyone with writing experience this book is a good refresher. Personally, the chapters on outlining and structuring a novel were the most relevant, as this is my shortcoming, I’m a ‘pantser’ as author Joy Lynn Goddard terms it, tend to fly by the seat of my pants, randomly put pen to paper, see where it leads. From bitter experience, I know it leads to crater-sized plot holes and umpteen re-writes.
I recommend ‘Write Right’ as a concise, point of reference for authors starting on their writing journey, and to seasoned authors who need a reminder of good writing practise, who might tend to get themselves in a plot muddle, like yours truly.
January 17, 2022
This book has sections on how to develop a story and details on good character development. The author gives practical writing tasks to help with the visualization of scenes. She focuses on plot holes and how to avoid them.
Then, toward the end of the book, the author takes on a different approach of looking at how to write well in the English language. She covers things like what are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then the author moves into sentence structure and paragraphs. The punctuation part is important and can be a struggle for a new writer. Plus, this book has so much more to help writers get started.
As a writer who has several books published, I get approached all the time on how to write and publish books. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for helpful information to send to new authors. This is a simple yet comprehensive book to help new authors write their first best book. It is definitely a book I recommend.
Then, toward the end of the book, the author takes on a different approach of looking at how to write well in the English language. She covers things like what are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then the author moves into sentence structure and paragraphs. The punctuation part is important and can be a struggle for a new writer. Plus, this book has so much more to help writers get started.
As a writer who has several books published, I get approached all the time on how to write and publish books. As a result, I’m always on the lookout for helpful information to send to new authors. This is a simple yet comprehensive book to help new authors write their first best book. It is definitely a book I recommend.
February 9, 2024
As always, Joy Goddard hits it out of the park with this book.
Was a huge help.
All of her books are fantastic!
Was a huge help.
All of her books are fantastic!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews