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How Nick Hornby Influenced My Novel
It goes without saying that if weren’t for Nick Hornby I wouldn’t have written my novel Not Famous. Nick Hornby is credited with starting the lad lit genre, and that’s the genre of my novel. Still, writing any sort of fiction, period, may not have been in the cards for me had it not been…
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Writing The Headline for My Novel’s Blurb
[NOTE: Updated to reflect further revisions.] So, while I was focusing on trying to figure out the book description for Not Famous, I’d forgotten something… the headline! It seems like most books now have a headline above the description and it had completely slipped my mind. So, I did some research. I looked up sample headlines…
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Ranking Nick Hornby’s Film Adaptations
This summer, the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel Juliet, Naked is expected to get (limited) American distribution.I’m looking forward to finally having the opportunity to see it, though, in truth, not every adaptation of Hornby’s novels has been a great, but the film was produced by Apatow Productions, and Chris O’Dowd (from The…
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Is The Key To Selling Lad-Lit Marketing To Women?
Wow, I had no idea that the publishing world was writing off “lad lit” fourteen years ago… but it’s true. In 2004, Publisher’s Weekly published an article titled “Lad Lit Hits the Skids”, and it was kind of frightening to read. What if publishers created a subgenre and nobody read it? In the case of “lad…
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Is My Novel Funny Enough To Be Lad-Lit?
This is a question I’ve been asking myself for a while. Now that the first draft of my novel Not Famous is complete, I’m choosing to revisit it. One common description of lad-lit is that is contain a lot of humor. Lots of lad-lit I’ve read is definitely meant to make you laugh-out-loud. If we go…
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On Writing (Strong) Female Characters
Men know jack about women. Women don’t really get me either. But, men and women authors have to write characters of the opposite sex. They do it all the time. Some even write novels/stories with women narrators. Hey, if they can pull it off all the power to them. Nick Hornby did so quite effectively in…
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On The Lad-Lit Genre
If I were asked what genre my novel-in-progress could be described as, my instinct would be to say “lad-lit.” It sort of fits, according to this definition: n. A literary genre that features books written by men and focusing on young, male characters, particularly those who are selfish, insensitive, and afraid of commitment. This may…
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Thoughts on Writing: Movies About Novelists
As an aspiring novelist, I recently couldn’t help thinking about movies about novelists. I’ve picked my favorites of them, and added some thoughts on writing that each movie got me thinking about.
matthewhanover.com 