Comments on: The Last Draft (Again)

By: puzo forgetten n found

puzo forgetten n found — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 20:18:06 +0000

mario puzo’s The Godfather is the greatest selling US novel of all time. He is probably one of the greatest contemporary novelists within the last half of a century because of his innate ability to tell an extraordinary story. But, because he was a guinea daggo whop he will get no laud from the literary world. He made several great fuctional novels outside of the gf, but because his concentration was on story telling and not pretentious literary drivel he will be a forgotten writer. His stories will live but the man’s talents will be put in the ash heap because he didnt hit the right thematic chords with the protestant pofessorial elites of the typical college campus.

With no more complaints about puzo’s lack of play within professorial circles i come to a point: puzo never felt satisfied with The Godfather. He felt that it needed more rewrites. If you read the book you would no that it trumps the movie…and thst movie was fucking excellent.

If you have done your rewrite and your agents love it and your friends love it and you are disatisfied, turn the fuckin thing in and dont think about it or read it for a spell. When u come back to it you may find that you created a very god novel and story.

By: scotch

scotch — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:59:23 +0000

I think Oscar Wilde answered it: you’re never *really* done. It’s more a question of, when are you done *enough*? And the answer to that is multipartite: When you read the book do you find it to be error-free? Have you had it read by a professional editor (either your publisher’s or one for hire)? Have you read it through line by line? Does the text flow gracefully without awkward constructions? Do any unnecessary words remain? Does your sixth sense tell you there are logic or timeline errors (I say sixth sense because I usually feel these intuitively before I can consciously detect them)? Have you set the book down for a month (or months), then returned to it so you can see the text more objectively? And what about your readers? Does any passage or dialogue raise questions, seem to drag, or give them pause? For me, the editing process is iterative; I have to read the text over and over, asking all of the questions above, and with each pass, the red flags flap a little less (I hope).

At some point, the critical errors fall away, and you’re left with just subjective text twiddling; a given word or passage might seem to merit a change, depending on your mood that day; when you reach that point, where you’re making changes you feel could also just be left as-is, then you’re probably nearing “close enough.”

When you hit that point, it’s critical to let readers make another pass, just to be sure. And you may hit that point several times. Which may drive your regular readers crazy. But ask them for another go anyway. And then ask a professional editor to make another pass. And then, after layout’s complete, another pass, since punctuation and page breaks can easily mess things up. And then, while waiting for your galleys to come back, make another pass. And while you’re waiting for reviews, another pass.

At some point, the book will be selling. And any errors will be found and reported by nitpickers on Amazon and elsewhere. Which of course, is too, too late for changes. Which means, congratulations, you’re done.

By: Jenner P.

Jenner P. — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:03:10 +0000

How do you know when you’re “done”? I’m starting to write a novel now. How will I know?