First Draft - not even First
July 1st 2008 10:02
Link: flickr.com/photos/nuanc/
I got a book out of the library the other day called, A Novel in a Year, by Louise Doughty. It looked promising, having started life as a weekly column with the Daily Telegraph online, and being very popular in that format.
But it doesn’t do what it says. While I enjoy reading it, and even doing the exercises, there’s no way you’d write a novel (in a year or more) as a result of it. You might be encouraged to start, but the sheer hard work of writing a novel, while mentioned early in the piece, is only touched on in a surface fashion.
The biggest difficulty of writing a novel, as I’ve touched on elsewhere, is the structure. And I already have some books that look at this, but usually in the light of someone else’s structure. And since someone else’s novel won’t necessarily have the same sort of structure as the one yours will take then it’s seldom easy to pick up a book on writing, set up your structure and go for it.
It’s like saying that horse supplements will help you learn to ride like Mark Todd, the Olympic show jumper, or Michael Wilson, the jockey. Nope, they won’t. Equally, exercises that get you writing will help you to write, but not to write a novel. That’s an entirely different kettle of fish, in my opinion.
But it doesn’t do what it says. While I enjoy reading it, and even doing the exercises, there’s no way you’d write a novel (in a year or more) as a result of it. You might be encouraged to start, but the sheer hard work of writing a novel, while mentioned early in the piece, is only touched on in a surface fashion.
Rough First Draft by Nuanc
It’s like saying that horse supplements will help you learn to ride like Mark Todd, the Olympic show jumper, or Michael Wilson, the jockey. Nope, they won’t. Equally, exercises that get you writing will help you to write, but not to write a novel. That’s an entirely different kettle of fish, in my opinion.
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