With a wealth of quotations and advice, know-how and technique,
this is a book which really works – and which can be applied
successfully by anyone with the basic urge to write.
In 1957 John Braine was a Yorkshire librarian with an impressive collection of publishers' rejection slips. But then his first published novel was an instant best seller and Room at the Top launched him on a career as one of Britain's most successful novelists. Experiences like his are what keep Britain's 500,000 spare-time writers plugging away, hoping for publication and perhaps even a moment of fame. Few people understand as well as John Braine the torments of the hopeful unknown. For everyone who, as he did, faces the prospect of spare-time writing and the indifference of publishers, he wrote this book. It is not a treatise on the art of fiction. Braine calls it 'a tour of his workshop' - a practical manual which tells the aspiring writer everything about writing a publishable first novel.
"A splendidly practical and revealing manual for all aspiring
writers in their garretts and bedsits"
Daily Express
About the author:
John Braine was born in 1922. His first published novel, Room at the Top, brought him great fame and wealth and was subsequently made into a classic film starring Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret. He wrote many other novels before his death in 1986.