Almost everyone dreams of writing a bestseller at some stage in their life. Many lack the persistence and dedication to attempt to seriously fulfill their dream, however. For those who do or who at least try, Deborah Canon's E-book is an excellent start. She provides many tips, ideas and helpful websites for would-be writers and includes useful websites.
Deborah starts by defining a bestseller. Best sellers include books as diverse as Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, Michael Crichton's thrilling science-fiction novels and Stephen King's horror novels. So what do they have in common? Deborah uses Martin Goodwin's five ingredients: 1) wealth; 2) a villain as the principal character; 3) a chase scene; 4) a strong female character because most readers are female; and 5) the fact that they're always written in the past tense. She states why best sellers have these five ingredients.
The book has sections on all the important aspects of writing a bestseller - choosing a catchy title, writing an outline, characterization and setting. It includes sections on each genre and one on self-publishing. Deborah provides examples from best-selling authors to outline all of her points. Writing a catchy title is noticeably the second part of the book understandably. She illustrates her point by giving examples of catchy titles from many best sellers and examples of titles that would not have caught on. She asks, for example, whether Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind would have been a best seller if it had been called: "Tomorrow is Another Day". The latter also illustrates the theme of the book to some extent, but is probably too trite and clichéd to be popular. She also provides anecdotes from authors showing how they chose their titles.
Some suggestions that Deborah makes aren't always true but usually apply. She stresses the importance of writing the ending first, for example. She states that it is easier to revise an outline than a huge novel. This applies to most novelists but some lucky ones really do make up their stories as they go along. However, it is a good idea to outline the novel and to, at least, visualize the ending first because if you don't know the ending than you don't know the theme.
Other important points that Deborah stresses are: characterization, setting, time and mood. Bestselling characters are very real to us, Deborah points out, almost as real to us as our friends and family. Scarlett in Gone With The Wind, for example, with her unrequited love for Ashley, her feelings for Rhett, and her struggle to save Tara against all odds is larger than life to us all. She is not a nice character but as Deborah points out, bestselling characters are not usually nice or wimps. They are always larger than life and sometimes a little wacky.
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