Praise for Rewrite Your Life
“My favorite kind of self-help book: irreverent, personal, and superbly useful.”
—JEN MANN, New York Times best-selling author of People I Want to Punch in the Throat
“A lively exploration of writing's therapeutic value and an encouraging invitation to apply it to your life.”
—KENDRA LEVIN, author of The Hero is You
“On occasion a gem of a book comes along. One that sticks with us and helps us to remember, we can rewrite our life. That our journey is filled with plot twists we never expected and that we can gain insights and perspective by exploring those unexpected events, or ‘story food’ through writing. Rewrite Your Life is just such a book. You will walk away with an understanding of how to heal through writing fiction and have the tools you need to make a difference in your own life and everyone your life touches.”
— LYSSA DANEHY DEHART, MSW, LICSW, PCC, author of the blog StoryJacking
“Part how-to, part memoir, part so-funny-that-reading-it-in-public-was-difficult-without-disturbing-others, this is a book to give anyone who wants to be a writer, or a better one, anyone who thinks they have a story to tell. Which is everyone. Buy this book for everyone. Except me, I already have one and no, you can't borrow it.”
— NORA MCINERNY PURMORT, author of It's Okay to Laugh: (Crying Is Cool Too) and host of the “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” APM podcast
This edition first published in 2017 by Conari Press, an imprint of
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
With offices at:
65 Parker Street, Suite 7
Newburyport, MA 01950
www.redwheelweiser.com
Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Lourey
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.
The poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” J 1129/F 1263 from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson is reprinted with the permission of Harvard University Press.
ISBN: 978-1-57324-693-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request
Cover design by Jim Warner
Cover image watercolor © Taira / shutterstock
Setting the Circle diagram concept created by Tony Van Den Einde
Interior by Kate Kaminski, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro and American Typewriter
Printed in the United States of America
M&G
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To Rex Veeder, who encouraged this.
I am forever grateful.
Contents
PART I The Power of Fictionalizing Your Life
Chapter 1. The Science of Writing to Heal
PART II The Tools of Your Transformation
Chapter 5. Choose Your Novel Concept
Chapter 6. Craft Compelling Characters
Chapter 7. Structure Your Story
Chapter 8. Create a Sense of Place
Chapter 9. Pull It All Together
Chapter 10. The Magic of Revision
E The House on Mango Street Scene-by-Scene Outline
Introduction
TRUTH IN FICTION
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —