To Be Read

Right now I'm reading a book on how to develop characters by Orson Scott Card. It's pretty thick and it's taking me quite a bit of time to chew through it, when I do I think I'll move on to this one (here).



The article states:

"Hit Lit" focuses on a murderer's row of commercial best sellers from the past couple of decades: Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" (1984), John Grisham's "The Firm" (1991), Robert James Waller's "The Bridges of Madison County" (1992) and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" (2003). It looks back at earlier sensations, too: Stephen King's "The Dead Zone" (1979), Peter Benchley's "Jaws" (1974), William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" (1971), Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" (1969), Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls" (1966), Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960), Grace Metalious's "Peyton Place" (1956) and Martha Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" (1936). These literary cash cows may tell us something about prevailing tastes, and they certainly share many features that wannabe blockbuster writers might keep in mind while going for the gold.

This article by Dave Shiflett on Hit Lit by James W. Hall seems like it would be just up my alley, no . . . not because I'm looking for all the right boxes to check in order to write a well-rounded and best selling novel, but because it seems like it would be a terrific sequel to Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel (here) which is my favorite book on writing.

Each book on writing that I read is more dry than the last and none of them as the excitement (what excitement that there can be in a book on writing) of Writing the Breakout Novel. Hit Lit just might be the one. It's on the "To Be Read List!"