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vii Preface to the Second Edition rereadINg the author INtervIewS as we revised and updated this new edition of Novel Ideas, we kept getting sidetracked, jotting down bits of practical advice and inspiration that seemed to apply to our own novelsin -progress. The interviews are, without doubt, the most useful part of this book—both for the insights they bring to the writing process and for the way they make you feel that you want to get to work on your novel right now, and that you have some new information that makes this possible. One accomplished novelist who found Novel Ideas helpful in a bad stretch wrote, “Every problem I was facing, and many I didn’t know I faced, had been struggled through by one of the interviewed novelists. I have read passages to my husband, saying, ‘This is it; I don’t believe it.’” Another wrote, “You realize, reading these interviews, that the process of writing a novel is unique and individual, that even celebrated writers throw away many pages and tear their hair out, and that those who succeed are the ones who stay at the desk and keep doing the work.” Aspiring novelists told us again and again that reading the interviews gave them the courage to begin and lots of help along the way. This new edition includes what readers agreed were the best interviews from the first edition, as well as new interviews with Peter Cameron, Michael Cunningham, and S. J. Rozan. We’ve also added exercises to accompany the interviews, based directly upon writers’ observations about the writing process and specific strategies they described for working through a novel. We’ve also redesigned the book to highlight the general exercises suggested throughout the first section, “Writing a Novel,” making them readily accessible to the reader browsing for a way to solve some problem that his or her novel presents. The spectrum of information in Novel Ideas was best described in our interview with Sheri Reynolds, who said, “In my classes, I teach about viii Preface to the SecoNd edItIoN how writers make choices, and I try to get my students to examine why a story starts in one place rather than another, what the writer gains from this point of view rather than that one—why a writer may have chosen to mention Froot Loops rather than Cracklin’ Oat Bran. And I know all these things are important. I know it. But when I’m writing, I am not considering these things—I was never, ever, ever even considering Cracklin’ Oat Bran. Never. I don’t know how to reconcile the part of writing that is technical and craft oriented with the part of writing that feels mystical. The technical part is what I teach, but the mystical part is what I love.” Our hope is that this new edition of Novel Ideas will help you find the balance of craft and magic you need to bring your novel into being. Barbara Shoup Margaret-Love Denman ...

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