Creative Manuscript II - Nonfiction

Catalog description

As in Creative Manuscript I, the semester begins with the student and faculty member holding a conference to discuss the manuscript, the faculty member having read the complete current manuscript (up to 300 pages long) beforehand. As in Creative Manuscript I, the student and mentor will then set goals for the coming semester, this time with a greater emphasis on editing and polish, less emphasis on rewriting and experiment. Six weeks later, the student submits the first half of the revised manuscript. In another six weeks, the student submits the second half of the revised manuscript. Six weeks after that, the student submits the complete, final manuscript. The mentor should treat each of the submissions as an exceptional book editor might treat portions of a manuscript (see guidelines for Creative Manuscript I). At the end of the semester, the faculty member and student should have a conference about the manuscript’s prospects for representation and publication, with the faculty member advising a course of action for any student interested in obtaining representation by a literary agent.