Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts
How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts
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- ¥1,700
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They say writing is rewriting. So why does the second part get such short shrift? Refuse To Be Done will guide you through every step of the novel writing process, from getting started on those first pages to the last tips for making your final draft even tighter and stronger.
From lauded writer and teacher Matt Bell, Refuse to Be Done is encouraging and intensely practical, focusing always on specific rewriting tasks, techniques, and activities for every stage of the process. You won’t find bromides here about the “the writing Muse.” Instead, Bell breaks down the writing process in three sections. In the first, Bell shares a bounty of tactics, all meant to push you through the initial conception and get words on the page. The second focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. The third and final section offers a layered approach to polishing through a checklist of operations, breaking the daunting project of final revisions into many small, achievable tasks.
Whether you are a first time novelist or a veteran writer, you will find an abundance of strategies here to help motivate you and shake up your revision process, allowing you to approach your work, day after day and month after month, with fresh eyes and sharp new tools.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I know this can sound a little magical: start writing, and the draft will come," advises novelist Bell (Appleseed) in this heartening guide to writing a novel. Bell's plan comes in three stages, each pertaining to a different draft. The first involves an "exploratory draft," or discovering one's book by writing it; at this phase, he eschews formal organization and lets it flow. Before starting the second draft, he suggests taking a break and celebrating one's progress before writing a "summary of the book written in an approximation of the novel's voice" and rereading the first draft to create an outline of it, which will guide rewriting; a rewrite, rather than revision, is the goal at this point. The third stage is "refuse to be done," in which writers should revisit scenes and more carefully consider structure, chapter length, and prose style—then cut and cut some more. Bell's cheerleading is bolstered by plenty of interviews and examples—novelist Alexis Smith, for instance, emphasizes the importance of learning what novel one is not writing—and writers intimidated by the process will find solace in the case he makes that while good writing is not easy, putting one's whole self into a novel is an "incredible joy." Budding novelists, take note.
