With rousing enthusiasm, David Michael Kaplan introduces you to his unique brand of revision: a process of discovery in which your story's words, structure, even its very meaning may change as it grows stronger. He takes you through every stage of the writing process, providing strategies and criteria to help pinpoint the problems in your work and fix them. In addition to illustrating his points with examples from contemporary writers, Kaplan traces the evolution of three of his own stories from journal entries to first (and subsequent) drafts to finished pieces. He shows the changes he made - from single words to entire characters and story lines - and explains why he made them.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
This review is from: Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction (Hardcover)
I've read a lot of creative writing books and this is the best so far. David Michael Kaplan is an excellent teacher. He explains things well with humour and clarity. Every point is illustrated with examples and comments from both himself and other writers. I especially liked the way he uses his own stories as examples so he can show us the subsequent drafts as the story grows towards completion. This method perfectly illustrates the points he makes and I have never seen it used so well before. If you have ideas for short stories but never seem to get round to writing them, or when you try - you end up disappointed with the results, this is the perfect book for you. As a bonus it also helps you find ideas for stories because in David Michael Kaplan's book the 'revising' starts even before the first draft. In short if you want to write fiction and you only buy one how-to book make it this one.
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than its title,
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This review is from: Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction (Hardcover)
This book is better than its title. The premise is that writing is re-vision and revision. The distinction is more than just spelling. Much of this book discusses the process, and how you view your work from its early stages as the glimmer of an idea to looking at it again as finished draft ready for revisiting. He also demystifies the all-too-common result of having a first draft that bears little resemblance to your initial concept or early outline.
In the early section of the book - the part I found most valuable - David Michael Kaplan offers a lot of advice for just getting that first draft *done*. He offers practical suggestions to help you keep going forward, rather than endlessly revising Chapter 2 and never finishing a complete draft. He offers several examples of his own work (in the interest of copyright, no doubt, as many authors do), but they're mostly limited to a few paragraphs at a time. This book is not about revising a novel per se, but rather about how the view of your work changes throughout the entire process and how to deal with that. The title was very misleading, though. I let this book sit on my shelf till I had finished a project. Now I wish I'd read it sooner.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Margaret - writer,
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This review is from: Revision: A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction (Hardcover)
Using David Kaplan's technique for revising each sentence enabled me to edit my book for publishing. He explains how to look at each word and sentence for clarity and succinctness, eliminating repetitiveness and wordiness. Although I didn't read all the chapters, this one was worth the price of the entire book.
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