How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely Read Free Book Online Page A

becoming a professor called for a particular kind of book, a “literary” book. These books can be identified in two ways. One: at the end of a work of literary fiction, you’re supposed to feel weirdly sad, and perhaps cry, but not for any clear reason.
    Rule 6: Evoke confusing sadness at the end.
    Two: the word “lyrical” appears on the back cover of literary fiction.
    Rule 7: Prose should be lyrical.
    Since the definition of “lyrical” is “resembling bad poetry,” I could crank it out. Just for practice, in my head I tried describing what the Muffin Ripper was doing, right then. “Back arching like a perched swallowtail, her hand hovered with quivering gentility as she picked up a dropped raisin off the sheet-white floor. She raised it to her lips slowly, like a sacrament, as the dust of wheat flour drifted down her chin.” Good enough.
    Now that I’d started cracking the Code of the Novel, insights seemed to burst out at me off the shelves like firecrackers. Walking through the audiobooks, I realized that here was an entire market ordinary novelists didn’t plan for. There was a whole bunch of people who listened to books in their cars.
    Rule 8: Novel must have scenes on highways, making driving seem poetic and magical.
    Next, I bumped into the cookbooks, an overwhelming wall where in one eyeful were pictures of pastas and steaming meat stewsand mac and cheese next to piles of gravy-smothered biscuits. I decided to get some lunch. The human brain is easily lured by food. And people are fat these days and think about food all the time.
    Rule 9: At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals.
    Rounding the corner, I knocked some oversized volumes on The Art of Pork to the floor. Nearby a bookstore employee looked up from his reshelving with a flat expression. Bookstores are filled, customers and employees alike, with people who hate their jobs.
    Rule 10: Main character is miraculously liberated from a lousy job.
    I walked away as he picked up the books.
    Rule 11: Include scenes in as many reader-filled towns as possible.
    On my way out I passed “Local Interest,” right by the register. Here were books of old photographs of Boston, a collection of poetry by and about the Red Sox, a history of Newbury Street, and a few Boston-related novels, like Murdah by Chowdah and Bud Light, Freckles and Hair Gel: A Southie Love Story.
    I realized this was shelf space rife for exploiting. My novel should be “Local Interest” across the nation. I’d inject the names of popular bars in Ann Arbor and Austin and Portland and have our hero stop in for a beer or some chili fries. Impressed by my authenticity, locals would write up my novel for their local independent press. And I’d get free meals from grateful owners while on my book tour.
    Time for a Chacarero! These tasty Chilean sandwiches are served from a stand near Filene’s, and at lunchtime the line stretches around a corner, following the track of the wafting smoke from the grilled steak and spiced chicken. It was one of those creepily warm winter days, and though this was a Saturday, the line was still full of discharged office dwellers with crossed arms and dangling ID badges.
    I gave my protagonist a job. He should be like these harried types who eat lunch on the fly. Corporate, but in some vague capacity since I don’t know how real businesses work. “Human Relations” seemed safe. But he should also be totally awesome. A dexterous athlete and a soulful lover, with the wisdom of a mystic and the abs of a rock climber. He should have a set of unusual skills, like underwater caving. The schoolchildren who made J. K. Rowling a billionaire were the ultimate proof of.
    Rule 12: Give readers versions of themselves, infused with extra awesomeness.
    Awesome heroes stuck in mediocre lives are compelling, because they suggest that having a mediocre life may not be your fault.
    In a way this was all just a subset of a rule all authors should memorize.
    Rule