Dean Koontz: How to Write a Bestselling Novel

Seven Tips

As my publisher gets ready to release my new book, Odd Apocalypse, I've been asked by Rob Kerby at Beliefnet to give seven tips about writing a best-selling novel. Considering that I am perpetually amazed my books have sold so well, that various people in my professional life for some years predicted my writing in different genres and my combining two or three genres in one book would destroy my career, and considering that at the keyboard I suffer from self-doubt that makes me want to slap myself upside the head several dozen times a day, I'm not sure what value these tips will have. But here they are:

Editor’s Note: Koontz is one of America’s most beloved authors with 14 hardcover titles and 14 paperbacks on the New York Times bestseller list. Recently, he tied with John Gresham as one of the world’s top-earning authors – with his publishers reporting annual sales of $24 million.

Tip 4

Minimalist writing, in the tradition of Hemingway, has been taught for so many decades that much of what is published these days lacks character and color. Metaphor, simile, all kinds of figures of speech have evaporated from much modern fiction, and many new writers have no interest in using the language in vivid and inventive ways. Hemingway was a stylistic genius, and his approach worked for him, in part because there were layers of meaning under the apparently simple words. Geniuses are rare; therefore, most minimalist writers end up with brisk and simple language that is barely a first layer and that has nothing under it. Dare to love the language, if minimum prose feels flat to you. Some readers won't get it; many will not only get it but delight in it.