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Writer as Architect
While other little girls were jumping rope or playing with paper dolls, I was drawing house plans. My grandfather was, among other things, a building inspector, and I happily tagged along while he inspected new construction in our small town. If I had been born later in the century, I might have said that I wanted to…
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How Do I Revise?
I’m not sure anymore what revise means, but what I am doing with the novel ms is rewriting. Yes, I am retyping every chapter, sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word. In this time of cut/copy/paste, people often look at me as if I were hopelessly stupid. But this is actually my third pass at the…
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How to Build a Novel
A novel is a house you invite the reader to rent or to buy. How many rooms does it have, and is it welcoming? Are there clear passageways from room to room? How big is the garden? My six-book study shows me drastically different buildings by various contractors/builders/designers. I think of Neverhome as a vast open-air…
Karen Douglass, Author 