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Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts

Author Matt Bell
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Paperback
$16.95 US
5.51"W x 8.24"H x 0.45"D   | 6 oz | 60 per carton
On sale Mar 08, 2022 | 168 Pages | 9781641293419
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.
Praise for Refuse to Be Done

A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2022

“If your graduate is working on the great American novel, get them a copy of Matt Bell’s Refuse to Be Done. This trim guide about ‘how to write and rewrite a novel in three drafts’ contains practical advice for staying inspired while revising intelligently.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“A generously packed guide . . . that effectively balances literary thinking with actionable advice, drawn from [Bell's] own experiences and those of luminaries from Francine Prose to Samuel Delany.”
The New York Times Book Review

“[An] accessible, encouraging craft book offering helpful techniques for every step of the process.”
—USA Today

“A concise, keep-on-your-desk guide to writing and revising a manuscript . . . I was well into the team portion of editing when I read Refuse To Be Done for the first time—I had gone through revisions for years on my own, and then with my agents, and then, after the book sold, with my editors—and it was still useful!”
—Vanity Fair

“A gift bag of tactical tips that even seasoned pros will find useful . . . this is the rare writing handbook that never feels chore-like or airily aspirational . . . Using crisp, relatable prose that nimbly balances positivity with a realistic awareness of the grueling commitment novel-writing entails, Bell teaches by example.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[An] inspiring yet pragmatic guide to writing a novel . . . Along the way Bell avoids a one-size-fits-all approach and encourages writers to either dismiss or, better yet, subvert any of his strategies.”
—Poets & Writers Magazine

“Bell’s sage advice holds for a range of writers, not just novelists. Writers of short stories, essays or long-form nonfiction, memoirs, or even hybrid or non-traditional forms will gain the hands-on skills to push both the work and its creator beyond what was initially believed possible.”
—New York Journal of Books

“[Bell] aims to reinvigorate the writing process with his concrete advice and workable action items.”
Alta Journal

“Engrossing . . . Bell really knows what it looks like to build a novel from scratch and then do the work of molding into something tight, paced well and engaging.”
—LitReactor Magazine

Refuse to Be Done is destined to join the upper echelons of the pantheon of craft books . . . All writers, whether first-time or experienced, will benefit from allowing Matt Bell to serve as their novel-writing guide.”
Rain Taxi

“Brilliant . . . I absolutely love this book. I read a lot of books on writing, how to write, and storytelling, and this is one of my favorites.”
—Emma Gannon, Ctrl Alt Delete

“Excellent . . . [Bell’s] perspective made me think differently about approaching the art and craft of storytelling.”
—Manhattan Book Review

“[Refuse to Be Done] is not a prescriptive how-to, because for this work, there is no such thing. Instead, it’s a small but highly-concentrated and conversational craft book that offers a real framework for approaching the enormity of novel-writing, replete with antidotes for the creative inertia sometimes wrought by indecision.”
Anomaly

“[Refuse to Be Done] is incredibly readable and useful. It focuses on the art of revision, where most of the magic happens. But it also has plenty in it about how to get started. Nothing snobbish about it, just super-smart and practical.”
—Buzzfeed

“The craft book to end all other craft books . . . What has always been remarkable about Bell as a member of the literary community, which is demonstrated so clearly here, is that he believes in the individuality of the writer. There is no one way to write your novel and this book is not prescriptive or totalitarian in its advice, as craft books and talks so often have been in the past. . . . For writers, teachers, and students alike, Refuse to Be Done will be a permanent addition to your bedside table.”
Heavy Feather Review

“Matt Bell reminds us that beyond inspiration lies attentiveness, craft, and revision, revision, revision. Refuse to Be Done is a guide to fiction writing so full of beautifully expressed practical advice, touching on everything from what to write, to how and when to write, that it's, truly, viscerally exciting to read. Perhaps improbably, Bell is as masterly a writer about fiction as he is a writer of fiction. I can't imagine anyone setting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, who won't want to keep this book permanently close at hand.”
—Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English

"Drawing on the wisdom of everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to The Pixies, plus his own successes and struggles, Matt Bell has given the world a tremendously clear (but never over-prescriptive) guide to the wonderful mess of writing a novel. I want this book in my students' hands yesterday; I'm grateful to hold it in mine today."
—Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Finalist for The Great Believers

“[U]nique from other guides. Using Bell’s book, you can successfully take your book from the earliest, roughest draft to a final, polished edit that you could submit to an agent or publisher.”
—The Millions

“If you are working on a novel and only have time to read one help and improvement ‘how to’ title on writing, make it Refuse to Be Done.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Matt Bell is a fine writer and a sharp observer of the craft of writing — all of which makes this book, focusing on both writing and revision — an especially intriguing proposition. It’s an exciting addition to a growing group of books about the unexpected aspects of the craft of writing.”
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“Perfect for writers of all skill sets, this book will be invaluable for anyone setting out to write a novel.”
—The Young Folks

“We all need help to be the best writer we can be. This brilliant book from Matt Bell not only does that, but it also teaches you have to be efficient, something that is a must as writing becomes a career. I loved this book and I cannot recommend it enough. I will definitely keep it close to hand.”
Frost Magazine

“Fantastic . . . An indispensable reference and guide . . . Yes, Bell packs his book with practicable tips and tricks, but it is the manner in which he does this that is so truly remarkable. With an authentic tone of encouragement and a rampantly infectious enthusiasm, the book highlights Bell’s passion for teaching and his genuine respect for all writers.”
phoebe Journal

“A compact and invaluable resource for anyone looking to knock ‘writing a novel’ off their bucket list.”
Phoenix New Times

“The strength of the book, however, is not just in its schematization of the writing process but also in the wealth of immediately applicable techniques Bell offers.”
Choice

"Matt Bell has written an essential, passionate guide to the art of the novel. What makes this such an excellent primer is how Bell anchors everything in writing as an act of discovery. He ties that discovery to the practice of revising and listening to your work. And he gives concrete, technical suggestions on how to do that without sacrificing sophistication and without resorting to formulas. A gift to writers at any level."
—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward

“Matt Bell’s brilliant Refuse to Be Done offers writers and writing teachers everywhere a clear guide to a process that seems daunting to me still: how to organize the writing and revision of a novel? How to avoid having 740 drafts labeled ‘final’? How to make a best effort and let it fly? There’s so much art in this, and so much art will come of it. Essential for newbies and old hands alike.”
—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

“This is the CrossFit of craft books, a literary piece of gym equipment that will help you progress dynamically through your creative projects with agency, clear-sightedness, and a new appreciation for the often overlooked, but utterly essential act—and art—of revision. Refuse to Be Done is a must-have for the writer who is ready to up their writing game.”
—Courtney Maum, author of
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting and Surviving Your First Book


Refuse to Be Done isn't merely a book on how to write a novel, it's also a book on how to be a writer, how to think like a person whose book will be on a shelf. We used to be told to kill our darlings, but I don't think that's true anymore, not after reading Matt's excellent advice. If we do as he tells us, our darlings might just grow up and move out on their own, never to bother us again . . . until the next time we find ourselves staring at that blank page. A book perfect for the newcomer or the seasoned author who needs a fresh way to look at the novel.”
—Tod Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of Gangsterland

“[Refuse to Be Done] deserves a spot on every writer's desk.”
BookPage, Starred Review

“Many bookshelves sag under the weight of creative writing instruction manuals, but few are as engaging—in little more than 150 pages—as Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done . . . [A] myriad of sound and ingenious tips . . . to help improve any writer's finished product.”
—Shelf Awareness

“[A] heartening guide to writing a novel . . . Bell’s cheerleading is bolstered by plenty of interviews and examples . . . 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.”
Publishers Weekly
Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novels Scrapper (a Michigan Notable Book) and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods (a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award and an Indies Choice Adult Debut Book of the Year Honor Recipient, as well as the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.
Introduction: The Three Drafts

You are writing a novel. You are writing a book.
     Go ahead and tell yourself. And then tell yourself again.
     Maybe say it a few more times, for luck.
     No matter what phase in the process you’re in when you read this page—whether you’re already laboring on your novel, whether you’ve not yet written a word—I implore you to continually affirm that you are writing a novel, that you are writing a book. Don’t diminish, don’t equivocate, don’t find some way to keep from claiming the work.
     If only to yourself, if only in the tiniest whisper, say it: I am writing a novel.
     If it’s the first time you’ve ever said this to yourself, I hope it feels good. If you’ve been saying it for years already, I hope it’s a rededication of your commitment to a pursuit to which you’ve likely already dedicated many long hours. But what is it that you’re doing, exactly, when you’re writing a novel, filling the hours spent at your desk? Maybe your focus is on telling a gripping story, or bringing great characters to life, or plotting intricate mysteries, or inventing new worlds, or exploring family dramas, or capturing the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of one particular person as precisely as possible. Whatever your primary aim is for your novel, it doesn’t on its own tell you what the task of going from the empty page to a finished manuscript will look like, in practical terms.
     This book is one attempt to fill in that blank, by offering actionable steps for every phase of the process as it applies to many of the kinds of novels being written and published today.
     Samuel R. Delany once said that “eighty-five to ninety-five percent of my work is rewriting and revision.” That’s been my experience, too, although I didn’t always recognize it. As a student, I took years of creative writing workshops, and in most of those workshops, I was required to turn in an end-of-the-semester revision, demonstrating how I’d worked with the feedback I’d received from my classmates and my teachers. But requiring students to revise isn’t the same as teaching students how to do it. In the absence of strategy, I relied on brute repetition to improve my stories: I wrote draft after draft, covering printed pages in red ink before returning to the computer to input countless changes I was never sure were necessarily improvements.
     Given sufficient time and a lot of effort, I was able to bully many of my rough drafts into respectable submissions and,  then, with the help of kind editors, into readable stories capable of being printed in magazines and books. But when I started writing novels, I realized that as hard as short stories had been to revise, rewriting a novel draft of three hundred pages or so was far more daunting—and that would’ve been the case even if my first novel draft hadn’t come out more broken than my average short story.
     Over the years, I’ve come to believe that revision and rewriting are most of what good writing entails: writing a successful book isn’t only making the most of the first burst of inspiration, as pleasurable as that is. It’s also the sustained and often small-scale work of making a promising manuscript better hour by hour, day by day, slowly but steadily moving it closer to your imagined ideal. So, while this is theoretically a book about revision, it’s also a step-by-step guide to writing a novel—and because I believe rewriting and revision necessarily occur at every stage of the process, I’ve organized this guide into three large chapters, each devoted to one of what I think of as the “three drafts.”
     You might be reading this book with a blank page in front of you, or with a partial draft already under way. In either case, you can employ the tactics in the “First Draft” chapter to practice generative revision, the kind of rewriting that will help you continue drafting and eventually finish the first version of your novel. This is where you’ll find tactics for sustaining and extending your story and for overcoming common roadblocks and frustrations. At this stage, I advocate an exploratory, organic, and above all playful approach, not because it’s the only way to draft a novel, but because it’s the most enjoyable way I know how.
     When I finished the earliest draft of what would become my first published novel, I realized I didn’t know how to approach improving so much material at once. The strategies in the “Second Draft” chapter emerged from my need to shape the rough, unwieldy material of a first draft toward a better-made, better-plotted second, which I did by a process I’ll call narrative revision, because the big decisions you’ll make during this draft will be about how to restructure and rewrite the dramatic material of the story to maximal effect. In many ways, this is the hardest turn to make, but it’s also one of the more fulfilling parts of the process, as it’s the stage where you’ll make the most significant improvements to your plot, transforming your novel from draft to book.
     In the “Third Draft” chapter, you’ll find a layered approach to “final” edits, where you’ll ensure, by a series of smaller and more workable tasks, that your now well-structured, well-plotted book is as enjoyable as possible. You can think of this stage as polishing revision, but you might plan to make dramatic changes here, too.

     You may already have noticed that this first-draft, second-draft, third-draft structure is rather tidy. These “drafts” might be easier to think of as “stages,” with the understanding that you might linger in one stage for a long time and then breeze through another; you might also return to a previous stage’s strategies at any time or repeat a stage more than once, if necessary. More than likely, at certain points in the work, you’ll find yourself employing strategies from all three stages at once. Because of this, there’s no one right way to read this book: if you’re starting from scratch, you might move through this book in a linear fashion, but I hope you’ll also feel free to try the revision tactics ahead in whatever order you wish, adapting my process to yours.


Take Only What’s Useful
The novel-writing process described in this book is a version of my own, and therefore it necessarily proceeds from my personal preferences regarding craft, audience, and story. (It also most likely re-creates my blind spots, although I’ve done my best to address those where I can; one goal of all good teachers has to be not to pass on their own lacks to their students.) While my own novels have been promoted as literary fiction of the speculative, genre-hopping variety, my interests as a reader and a student of craft are more varied and wide-ranging and, I hope, are getting more so every year. I worked at a small publishing house for several years, where I edited novels by writers working in a variety of styles, and for the past decade I’ve been teaching novel writing to students with unique goals, aesthetics, and intended audiences, all of which I try my best to honor and encourage in our working together.
     All this is only to say that while I believe much of what I suggest ahead will work for many different kinds of fiction writers, it’s more than okay if certain tactics or techniques don’t work for you or feel at cross-purposes with the kind of novel you want to write. The aim of this book isn’t to make anyone into the kind of novelist I am—anything but that!—but to help you become more yourself, on the page and throughout your process. So, if some of the forthcoming advice doesn’t feel like it applies to your novel, go ahead and discard what doesn’t help or, better yet, subvert it: there’s as much to be gained by actively opposing a craft lesson as there is in following it.
     This book is here to serve you and your book. Only what’s useful to you applies.

About

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.

Praise

Praise for Refuse to Be Done

A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2022

“If your graduate is working on the great American novel, get them a copy of Matt Bell’s Refuse to Be Done. This trim guide about ‘how to write and rewrite a novel in three drafts’ contains practical advice for staying inspired while revising intelligently.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“A generously packed guide . . . that effectively balances literary thinking with actionable advice, drawn from [Bell's] own experiences and those of luminaries from Francine Prose to Samuel Delany.”
The New York Times Book Review

“[An] accessible, encouraging craft book offering helpful techniques for every step of the process.”
—USA Today

“A concise, keep-on-your-desk guide to writing and revising a manuscript . . . I was well into the team portion of editing when I read Refuse To Be Done for the first time—I had gone through revisions for years on my own, and then with my agents, and then, after the book sold, with my editors—and it was still useful!”
—Vanity Fair

“A gift bag of tactical tips that even seasoned pros will find useful . . . this is the rare writing handbook that never feels chore-like or airily aspirational . . . Using crisp, relatable prose that nimbly balances positivity with a realistic awareness of the grueling commitment novel-writing entails, Bell teaches by example.”
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[An] inspiring yet pragmatic guide to writing a novel . . . Along the way Bell avoids a one-size-fits-all approach and encourages writers to either dismiss or, better yet, subvert any of his strategies.”
—Poets & Writers Magazine

“Bell’s sage advice holds for a range of writers, not just novelists. Writers of short stories, essays or long-form nonfiction, memoirs, or even hybrid or non-traditional forms will gain the hands-on skills to push both the work and its creator beyond what was initially believed possible.”
—New York Journal of Books

“[Bell] aims to reinvigorate the writing process with his concrete advice and workable action items.”
Alta Journal

“Engrossing . . . Bell really knows what it looks like to build a novel from scratch and then do the work of molding into something tight, paced well and engaging.”
—LitReactor Magazine

Refuse to Be Done is destined to join the upper echelons of the pantheon of craft books . . . All writers, whether first-time or experienced, will benefit from allowing Matt Bell to serve as their novel-writing guide.”
Rain Taxi

“Brilliant . . . I absolutely love this book. I read a lot of books on writing, how to write, and storytelling, and this is one of my favorites.”
—Emma Gannon, Ctrl Alt Delete

“Excellent . . . [Bell’s] perspective made me think differently about approaching the art and craft of storytelling.”
—Manhattan Book Review

“[Refuse to Be Done] is not a prescriptive how-to, because for this work, there is no such thing. Instead, it’s a small but highly-concentrated and conversational craft book that offers a real framework for approaching the enormity of novel-writing, replete with antidotes for the creative inertia sometimes wrought by indecision.”
Anomaly

“[Refuse to Be Done] is incredibly readable and useful. It focuses on the art of revision, where most of the magic happens. But it also has plenty in it about how to get started. Nothing snobbish about it, just super-smart and practical.”
—Buzzfeed

“The craft book to end all other craft books . . . What has always been remarkable about Bell as a member of the literary community, which is demonstrated so clearly here, is that he believes in the individuality of the writer. There is no one way to write your novel and this book is not prescriptive or totalitarian in its advice, as craft books and talks so often have been in the past. . . . For writers, teachers, and students alike, Refuse to Be Done will be a permanent addition to your bedside table.”
Heavy Feather Review

“Matt Bell reminds us that beyond inspiration lies attentiveness, craft, and revision, revision, revision. Refuse to Be Done is a guide to fiction writing so full of beautifully expressed practical advice, touching on everything from what to write, to how and when to write, that it's, truly, viscerally exciting to read. Perhaps improbably, Bell is as masterly a writer about fiction as he is a writer of fiction. I can't imagine anyone setting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, who won't want to keep this book permanently close at hand.”
—Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English

"Drawing on the wisdom of everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to The Pixies, plus his own successes and struggles, Matt Bell has given the world a tremendously clear (but never over-prescriptive) guide to the wonderful mess of writing a novel. I want this book in my students' hands yesterday; I'm grateful to hold it in mine today."
—Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Finalist for The Great Believers

“[U]nique from other guides. Using Bell’s book, you can successfully take your book from the earliest, roughest draft to a final, polished edit that you could submit to an agent or publisher.”
—The Millions

“If you are working on a novel and only have time to read one help and improvement ‘how to’ title on writing, make it Refuse to Be Done.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Matt Bell is a fine writer and a sharp observer of the craft of writing — all of which makes this book, focusing on both writing and revision — an especially intriguing proposition. It’s an exciting addition to a growing group of books about the unexpected aspects of the craft of writing.”
—Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“Perfect for writers of all skill sets, this book will be invaluable for anyone setting out to write a novel.”
—The Young Folks

“We all need help to be the best writer we can be. This brilliant book from Matt Bell not only does that, but it also teaches you have to be efficient, something that is a must as writing becomes a career. I loved this book and I cannot recommend it enough. I will definitely keep it close to hand.”
Frost Magazine

“Fantastic . . . An indispensable reference and guide . . . Yes, Bell packs his book with practicable tips and tricks, but it is the manner in which he does this that is so truly remarkable. With an authentic tone of encouragement and a rampantly infectious enthusiasm, the book highlights Bell’s passion for teaching and his genuine respect for all writers.”
phoebe Journal

“A compact and invaluable resource for anyone looking to knock ‘writing a novel’ off their bucket list.”
Phoenix New Times

“The strength of the book, however, is not just in its schematization of the writing process but also in the wealth of immediately applicable techniques Bell offers.”
Choice

"Matt Bell has written an essential, passionate guide to the art of the novel. What makes this such an excellent primer is how Bell anchors everything in writing as an act of discovery. He ties that discovery to the practice of revising and listening to your work. And he gives concrete, technical suggestions on how to do that without sacrificing sophistication and without resorting to formulas. A gift to writers at any level."
—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward

“Matt Bell’s brilliant Refuse to Be Done offers writers and writing teachers everywhere a clear guide to a process that seems daunting to me still: how to organize the writing and revision of a novel? How to avoid having 740 drafts labeled ‘final’? How to make a best effort and let it fly? There’s so much art in this, and so much art will come of it. Essential for newbies and old hands alike.”
—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

“This is the CrossFit of craft books, a literary piece of gym equipment that will help you progress dynamically through your creative projects with agency, clear-sightedness, and a new appreciation for the often overlooked, but utterly essential act—and art—of revision. Refuse to Be Done is a must-have for the writer who is ready to up their writing game.”
—Courtney Maum, author of
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting and Surviving Your First Book


Refuse to Be Done isn't merely a book on how to write a novel, it's also a book on how to be a writer, how to think like a person whose book will be on a shelf. We used to be told to kill our darlings, but I don't think that's true anymore, not after reading Matt's excellent advice. If we do as he tells us, our darlings might just grow up and move out on their own, never to bother us again . . . until the next time we find ourselves staring at that blank page. A book perfect for the newcomer or the seasoned author who needs a fresh way to look at the novel.”
—Tod Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of Gangsterland

“[Refuse to Be Done] deserves a spot on every writer's desk.”
BookPage, Starred Review

“Many bookshelves sag under the weight of creative writing instruction manuals, but few are as engaging—in little more than 150 pages—as Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done . . . [A] myriad of sound and ingenious tips . . . to help improve any writer's finished product.”
—Shelf Awareness

“[A] heartening guide to writing a novel . . . Bell’s cheerleading is bolstered by plenty of interviews and examples . . . 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.”
Publishers Weekly

Author

Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novels Scrapper (a Michigan Notable Book) and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods (a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award and an Indies Choice Adult Debut Book of the Year Honor Recipient, as well as the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

Excerpt

Introduction: The Three Drafts

You are writing a novel. You are writing a book.
     Go ahead and tell yourself. And then tell yourself again.
     Maybe say it a few more times, for luck.
     No matter what phase in the process you’re in when you read this page—whether you’re already laboring on your novel, whether you’ve not yet written a word—I implore you to continually affirm that you are writing a novel, that you are writing a book. Don’t diminish, don’t equivocate, don’t find some way to keep from claiming the work.
     If only to yourself, if only in the tiniest whisper, say it: I am writing a novel.
     If it’s the first time you’ve ever said this to yourself, I hope it feels good. If you’ve been saying it for years already, I hope it’s a rededication of your commitment to a pursuit to which you’ve likely already dedicated many long hours. But what is it that you’re doing, exactly, when you’re writing a novel, filling the hours spent at your desk? Maybe your focus is on telling a gripping story, or bringing great characters to life, or plotting intricate mysteries, or inventing new worlds, or exploring family dramas, or capturing the stream-of-consciousness thoughts of one particular person as precisely as possible. Whatever your primary aim is for your novel, it doesn’t on its own tell you what the task of going from the empty page to a finished manuscript will look like, in practical terms.
     This book is one attempt to fill in that blank, by offering actionable steps for every phase of the process as it applies to many of the kinds of novels being written and published today.
     Samuel R. Delany once said that “eighty-five to ninety-five percent of my work is rewriting and revision.” That’s been my experience, too, although I didn’t always recognize it. As a student, I took years of creative writing workshops, and in most of those workshops, I was required to turn in an end-of-the-semester revision, demonstrating how I’d worked with the feedback I’d received from my classmates and my teachers. But requiring students to revise isn’t the same as teaching students how to do it. In the absence of strategy, I relied on brute repetition to improve my stories: I wrote draft after draft, covering printed pages in red ink before returning to the computer to input countless changes I was never sure were necessarily improvements.
     Given sufficient time and a lot of effort, I was able to bully many of my rough drafts into respectable submissions and,  then, with the help of kind editors, into readable stories capable of being printed in magazines and books. But when I started writing novels, I realized that as hard as short stories had been to revise, rewriting a novel draft of three hundred pages or so was far more daunting—and that would’ve been the case even if my first novel draft hadn’t come out more broken than my average short story.
     Over the years, I’ve come to believe that revision and rewriting are most of what good writing entails: writing a successful book isn’t only making the most of the first burst of inspiration, as pleasurable as that is. It’s also the sustained and often small-scale work of making a promising manuscript better hour by hour, day by day, slowly but steadily moving it closer to your imagined ideal. So, while this is theoretically a book about revision, it’s also a step-by-step guide to writing a novel—and because I believe rewriting and revision necessarily occur at every stage of the process, I’ve organized this guide into three large chapters, each devoted to one of what I think of as the “three drafts.”
     You might be reading this book with a blank page in front of you, or with a partial draft already under way. In either case, you can employ the tactics in the “First Draft” chapter to practice generative revision, the kind of rewriting that will help you continue drafting and eventually finish the first version of your novel. This is where you’ll find tactics for sustaining and extending your story and for overcoming common roadblocks and frustrations. At this stage, I advocate an exploratory, organic, and above all playful approach, not because it’s the only way to draft a novel, but because it’s the most enjoyable way I know how.
     When I finished the earliest draft of what would become my first published novel, I realized I didn’t know how to approach improving so much material at once. The strategies in the “Second Draft” chapter emerged from my need to shape the rough, unwieldy material of a first draft toward a better-made, better-plotted second, which I did by a process I’ll call narrative revision, because the big decisions you’ll make during this draft will be about how to restructure and rewrite the dramatic material of the story to maximal effect. In many ways, this is the hardest turn to make, but it’s also one of the more fulfilling parts of the process, as it’s the stage where you’ll make the most significant improvements to your plot, transforming your novel from draft to book.
     In the “Third Draft” chapter, you’ll find a layered approach to “final” edits, where you’ll ensure, by a series of smaller and more workable tasks, that your now well-structured, well-plotted book is as enjoyable as possible. You can think of this stage as polishing revision, but you might plan to make dramatic changes here, too.

     You may already have noticed that this first-draft, second-draft, third-draft structure is rather tidy. These “drafts” might be easier to think of as “stages,” with the understanding that you might linger in one stage for a long time and then breeze through another; you might also return to a previous stage’s strategies at any time or repeat a stage more than once, if necessary. More than likely, at certain points in the work, you’ll find yourself employing strategies from all three stages at once. Because of this, there’s no one right way to read this book: if you’re starting from scratch, you might move through this book in a linear fashion, but I hope you’ll also feel free to try the revision tactics ahead in whatever order you wish, adapting my process to yours.


Take Only What’s Useful
The novel-writing process described in this book is a version of my own, and therefore it necessarily proceeds from my personal preferences regarding craft, audience, and story. (It also most likely re-creates my blind spots, although I’ve done my best to address those where I can; one goal of all good teachers has to be not to pass on their own lacks to their students.) While my own novels have been promoted as literary fiction of the speculative, genre-hopping variety, my interests as a reader and a student of craft are more varied and wide-ranging and, I hope, are getting more so every year. I worked at a small publishing house for several years, where I edited novels by writers working in a variety of styles, and for the past decade I’ve been teaching novel writing to students with unique goals, aesthetics, and intended audiences, all of which I try my best to honor and encourage in our working together.
     All this is only to say that while I believe much of what I suggest ahead will work for many different kinds of fiction writers, it’s more than okay if certain tactics or techniques don’t work for you or feel at cross-purposes with the kind of novel you want to write. The aim of this book isn’t to make anyone into the kind of novelist I am—anything but that!—but to help you become more yourself, on the page and throughout your process. So, if some of the forthcoming advice doesn’t feel like it applies to your novel, go ahead and discard what doesn’t help or, better yet, subvert it: there’s as much to be gained by actively opposing a craft lesson as there is in following it.
     This book is here to serve you and your book. Only what’s useful to you applies.