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P.S. How to Write a Novel: Tips from Stoker's Dracula Notes

P.S. How to Write a Novel: Tips from Stoker's Dracula Notes

"I write in an extremely bad hand."

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Jillian Hess
Oct 30, 2024
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P.S. How to Write a Novel: Tips from Stoker's Dracula Notes
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In honor of Halloween and the start of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), I thought it would be useful to break down Bram Stoker’s writing process, based on his notes.

As we do, let us not forget that Stoker was first and foremost a business manager for the Lyceum Theater. He brought his organizational rigor to his writing projects. Stoker’s notes reveal that Dracula was a thoroughly planned out novel—down to the actual train schedules.

So, join me in exploring Stoker’s process. Perhaps it will help some of you as you embark on your own novel-writing adventure in November!

A quick reminder:

I’m joining

Katherine May
to discuss Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost today, Wednesday 30th October at 6pm UK / 2pm NY time (find your local time here). Check out Katherine’s wonderful reading guide here and join our mini-CBC chat to share your favorite quotes from the memoir. Zoom details are at the end of this post!


Post-scripts offer paid subscribers a deeper dive into the note-takers covered in Noted’s regular posts. You can read my full post on Stoker’s notes for free here. If you enjoy Noted, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll get additional weekly content, access to our commonplace book club, and you’ll help keep this newsletter going!


If you’d like to try out Stoker’s working methods here are six steps to get you started:

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