Endings
First lines and last lines: how an opening promises what the ending pays
Read a novel's first and last lines side by side and you see the promise and the payment. Five classic pairs, two modern ones and a test for your own draft.
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Chapters
Everything we have written, newest first: endings, reading guides, first novels, drafting and the road to publication.
Endings
Writing the last chapter: practical ways to land an ending
How to write the last chapter of a novel: what it must resolve, three trial endings, last line versus last scene, pacing, planted echoes and cutting the extra page.
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The reading life
How to read a dense literary novel without giving up
Page targets, reading aloud, a character list, fifty pages of patience and an honest way to quit: practical habits for slow, demanding novels, with a weekly plan.
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Writing the draft
MFA or self-study? Weighing a writing degree against the alternatives
What a creative writing MFA gives you, what it costs in time and money, and the alternatives, from workshops and online courses to a year of self-study.
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Reading guides
The Rust Belt in fiction: novels of Ohio's industrial towns
A guided shelf of eleven novels and story cycles set in Ohio's mill towns and the wider Rust Belt, from Winesburg to Detroit, with questions for book groups.
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Writing the draft
Revising a novel in passes: a practical order of work
A practical order for revising a novel: rest, a read-through, then structure, character, scene, line, reading aloud and a final proof, with a worked example.
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Getting published
Query letters for literary fiction: what goes in and what to cut
What a query letter for a literary novel usually contains, what to cut, how it differs from a genre query, and a full sample for an invented novel with notes.
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Endings
Open or closed: what an ambiguous ending owes the reader
An open ending is not an unfinished one. How the best ambiguous novels settle the emotional question and leave the factual one, plus a checklist for writers.
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First novels and prizes
Debut fiction prizes explained: the awards that read first novels
A plain guide to the prizes that look at first novels and young fiction writers: who runs each one, who is eligible, and why publishers usually do the entering.
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Reading guides
Book club questions for literary fiction that start a real conversation
How to write book club questions that open an argument instead of a quiz: five kinds of question, eighteen that fit any literary novel, and a worked example.
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Writing the draft
How to finish the first draft of a novel when the middle sags
Why novel drafts stall in the middle, and the practical fixes that get you to the last page: an early ending, brackets for gaps, targets and a reverse outline.
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The reading life
Reading the last page first: spoilers, suspense and pleasure
Some readers check the ending before they start. What a spoiler really takes from a novel, what it leaves alone, and how book groups can handle endings fairly.
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