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Overdue

Ep 112 - How Not To Write A Novel, by Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Newman

Overdue

Headgum

Craig Getting, Arts, Books, Podcasts, Literature, Comedy, Andrew Cunningham

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2015

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At this point we've read a lot of novels, but we haven't tried to write our own just yet. Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman's 2008 anti-guidebook How Not To Write A Novel has shown us a lot of the stuff we should try to avoid if we ever decide to put pen to paper.

We also devote a substantial chunk of this week's episode to listener mail from our Looking for Alaska episode, specifically responses to our questions about why people read young adult fiction well into regular adulthood.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well-told tale,

0:05.1

they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

0:10.4

Plus, these are books you should have read by now.

0:30.1

What do you make for dinner today, Andrew?

0:40.2

I did not have dinner today.

0:42.5

Wait. Man, I had a whole open about the dinner that I made and you're like

0:47.6

in here not even eating dinner. I had a late lunch and then for dinner, I had

0:54.7

had a couple slices of monster cheese and a handful of M&M's.

1:02.2

What was the lunch you had? A beef stew followed by a beef well-told?

1:06.4

I went to a paneroon and got a pick-to and then I leached off the wifi for two and a half hours.

1:14.0

In other words, the life of the internet writer.

1:16.8

Welcome to Overdo. This is a podcast about the books that you've been meaning to read. My name is

1:20.8

Craig. My name is Andrew. And I can't skip dinner. It's not possible. I don't know how you do that.

1:28.8

You just, I had dinner. I just, I didn't prepare anything. I told you I had some, I had

1:35.1

slices of monster cheese and a handful of M&M's. That's not dinner. That's like, you're like

1:42.4

a stranger. You're like a street fortune outside of a shark-cudary and a candy store.

1:48.3

I'm not like a lad in like a monkey didn't steal me a loaf of bread. I bought this food myself.

1:54.8

I would not eat that bread. That monkey touched that bread. You don't know where that monkey's been

1:58.6

or that bread's been. What I'm actually, I'm eating for dinner, is this this nice beer from

2:04.6

Dogfish Head. It's called Black and Blue. Okay. It's got Blackberry and Blueberry all mixed in it.

2:11.7

Cool. Ask me how it is. How is it? It's very good. Oh my god.

2:23.5

For anyone who is interested, I was going to talk about how I made a recipe this evening

...

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