4: Aboutness

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS v
3. Introduction 1
4. Part One What You Need to Know Before You Start Writing
5. 1: Steal, Steal, Steal: Learning to Read like a Writer 19
6. 2: Craft Your “I”: 29
7. 3: Sex, Drugs, and Palestinian Statehood 37
8. AMANDA + JIM 53
9. 4: Aboutness 60
10. ADAM FINDS HIS PIRATES 68
11. 5: The Hole in the Donut 72
12. 6: Tell Us About Your World in Two Hundred Words 80
13. EMMA’S SHORTIES 91
14. Part Two Getting It Down on the Page and Then Cleaning It Up
15. 7: Shitty First Drafts 99
16. 8: Seeing Again 107
17. 9: Don’t Try to Hook the Reader like a Trout 111
18. PEYTON’S ANKLE 117
19. 10: Danger! 120
20. 11: Semicolons Are like Loaded Guns 139
21. 12: My Little Bag of Writing Tricks 148
22. Conclusion 160
23. Acknowledgments 167