NM: The most memorable part of How To Not Write A Novel for me was the “We’re Going To Need a Bigger Closet” excerpt. Most of the work was in making sure the language would be comprehensible to other people. After a very short period of time, the whole world of the book became very real to me, and the character of Ice Cream was very real to me, so writing the language, from my point of view, was just like trying to hear what was already there. All the building blocks were already in my head, and it was a lot of fun to put them together. So that’s a way of saying that, really, once I had the idea for the language, I just sat down and started to write it. Not that I intended to write this book all along, just that since I happened to have studied languages before, it was possible to write this book, which otherwise would have been a non-starter. The particular language of Ice Cream Star also involved years of studying other languages and understanding something about how languages evolve over time.

Sandra Newman: As with most fictional tasks, most of the answer is just in the years and years you spend working on the same problems until you figure them out. How did you begin tackling this obstacle? Many a writer has tried and failed to write, even just dialogue alone, in a slang or patois. Nergal Malham (Oyez Review): Your post-apocalyptic novel, The Country of Ice Cream Star is written in a slang-style sort of speech. Her other novels are The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done and Cake, and she is also the author of a memoir and three books of non-fiction, including How Not to Write a No vel (co-authored by Howard Mittelmark).

And what's more, it's very, very funny.Sandra Newman is the author of seven books, most recently a novel, The Country of Ice Cream Star, which was long-listed for the Folio Prize and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Covering 600 books ranging from The Shock Doctrine to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and exploring all the important issues like how to tell the difference between Naomis Wolf and Klein, whether anyone really likes Emma Bovary, what makes a really good loo book and whether it's really wrong to marry for money, READ THIS NEXT reminds you exactly why you love reading and then makes you want to go out and read lots more. In 2010 it's READ THIS NEXT - Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark have written the perfect book for anyone who has ever struggled to choose what to read next.īut this is far more than a guide for book groups. In 2009 it was How NOT to Write a Novel ('A hilarious, wickedly observed and deeply useful guide' Observer).

Read This Next by Howard Mittelmark