Writing the draft
Writing a novel in a month: what a November sprint is good for
Fifty thousand words in thirty days: what a November novel sprint does well, what it cannot do, how to plan for it and what to do with the draft in December.
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Chapters
Everything we have written, newest first: endings, reading guides, first novels, drafting and the road to publication.
Endings
Do novels still need epilogues?
Epilogues jump ahead in time, settle accounts and console the reader. What the famous ones do, when they weaken a book, and a checklist for your own draft.
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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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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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