Becoming a Radical Reviser: The Millions Interviews Matt Bell

Matt Bell’s new craft book, Refuse to Be Done, came into my life when I was struggling to revise a late draft of a novel. Bell’s book, which provides an overview of the novel-writing process, is useful at pretty much any stage of writing and revision, but I found it especially helpful for the final stages of revision, when you know a book so well that it is very difficult to see it with fresh eyes. Using some of Bell’s exercises, I managed to cut 20 pages from my most recent draft, even as I added two new scenes. What I appreciated about Bell’s tips for the final stages is that they are practical and actionable. In the early and middle stages, the best advice might be to take a walk and hope your subconscious picks up the slack, whereas at the end phases, you can experiment with removing section breaks, deleting chapter openings, and cutting filler words and phrases like “there is,” “there were,” “she thought,” “he saw,” etc.

I’ve started with the end of the Bell’s book because in some ways it’s the heart of his craft book and what makes it unique from other guides. Using Bell’s book, you can successfully take your book from the earliest, roughest draft to a final, polished edit that you could submit to an agent or publisher. Bell divides his writing process into three drafting stages. The first stage is generative and exploratory and involves writing a lot of material that