I have a novelist friend who will not move on to the next sentence until he has the sentence he's working on right. He's a much more successful novelist than I. Maybe I could learn something on my next novel by trying out the technique. My argument against his method is that sentence 2's design will be determined by sentence 1 and 3. Every sentence is surrounded on both sides, except the first and last sentence of each chapter. My friend however needs to do only a couple of revisions, where I find myself doing ten or twelve. Any thoughts about the making of sentences in a novel, or in prose? I think if I were to dawdle in the first draft over each sentence, I'd lose emotional flow, and perhaps forget what the next sentence, in rough draft, is supposed to be.

Using a New Form

I wrote my first novel, Drifter's Story, as a taped interview between two people. I got the idea from Samuel Becket's play, Krapp's Last Tape. Many people are fooled by the form and believe it is a 100% nonfiction. It's an autobiographical novel and about 70% nonfiction. It deals with the issue of what Robert Bly called "sperm stealing". The character meets an artist woman who takes photos of pregnant women. She is a mistress of a developer. She picked him up as a beach drifter, and has a child with him, but kicks him out because she wants to raise the child by herself. This book can be ordered for $7.95 including shipping from Slough Press, 3009 Normand, College Station, Tx. 77845