Tag Archives: REFUSE TO BE DONE

Matt Bell’s March craft book, REFUSE TO BE DONE: an accessible, practical guide to writing and revising a novel—for writers of any genre and level

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“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
 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 editor, Catherine Balavage.
Acclaimed author Matt Bell draws from years of writing and teaching experience to deliver an accessible, direct, and concise guide to novel-writing full of concrete tips meant to guide writers of any genre, at any stage of their career, from first to final draft.
Matt Bell | Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts | Trade Paperback Original | $15.95 US/$21.95 CAN |
ISBN: 9781641293419 | ON SALE: March 8, 2022 | Soho Press
Refuse to Be Done is intensely practical, focusing always on specific tasks, techniques, and activities for writing a novel, from the first draft all the way through final revisions. Divided into three main sections—each containing numerous subheadings and detailed items—the book is easy to use at any and every stage of the writing process, whether one is starting from scratch or already has a full draft to revise. Concrete examples from published fiction and media, as well as Matt Bell’s personal experiences, bring further meaning to the tips included, showing how they were developed and how they come to fruition in existing works.

In the first section, Bell shares a bounty of tactics to get through perhaps the most daunting stage of novel-writing: actually writing the book. Intended to push writers through the initial conception and get words on the page, this section includes strategies for process (such as how to regiment one’s writing and track progress), the writing itself (e.g. how to develop characters and determine which scenes to write next), and overcoming writer’s block.

Next, with a complete draft in hand, the second section focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. This includes such tasks as fleshing out characters, scrutinizing the plot, and reshaping a manuscript into a more polished form.

The final stage captures Bell’s philosophy to “refuse to be done,” encouraging writers to stay in their novel for as long as they’re able by working through a checklist of revisions. In this layered approach, writers fully work through the text multiple times, focusing on a specific, achievable task through each pass. Whether it’s revising the prose or scrutinizing the structure of each scene, every pass brings the manuscript closer to accomplishing the writer’s ambitions and becoming the greatest it can possibly be.

Written for novices and veteran writers alike, Matt Bell’s accessible, practical guide to novel-writing offers an abundance of strategies to motivate writers and invigorate the revision process, empowering novelists of all genres to approach their work with fresh eyes and sharp new tools to produce their best work yet.