What makes a historical novel historical?
Learn how Maggie O'Farrell gets maximum value from historical details in her novel The Marriage Portrait.
How do you use focalization in omniscient narration?
Learn how to use focalization to show the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters in a single scene with examples from Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait.
What can verbs do for you?
See how Maggie O'Farrell uses inventive writing to lure readers into a story whose ending we think we already know.
How do you use time jumps to create suspense?
See how Rebecca Roanhorse uses time jumps to create suspense in Black Sun.
How do you weave world-building details into a scene?
Learn how to seamlessly weave necessary setting information into a scene readers want to experience in this analysis of Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun.
How do you lure readers into an epic fantasy world?
See how Rebecca Roanhorse uses suspense to make readers desperate to know more about the fantasy world she builds in Black Sun.
How do you use subplots to add tension to your novel?
Follow Jesse Q. Sutanto's model in Dial A for Aunties and use multiple plots to keep your readers engaged.
How do you make a dialogue-focused scene feel active?
Need to keep a dialogue-focused scene from feeling slow and boring? Pick up tips from this analysis of a scene from Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Dial A for Aunties.
How do you introduce a complex plot?
Learn how Jesse Q. Sutanto hooks readers while launching a complex plot and large cast of characters in Dial A for Aunties.
How do you read a novel?
Use my method to read and analyze novels in your genre to learn the writing craft secrets used by your favorite authors.
How do you plot a page-turner?
Discover the plot techniques Laura Dave uses to maximize suspense in her novel.
How do you deliver plot surprises?
Learn how to maximize the drama of plot revelations by studying the techniques used by Laura Dave.
How do you maximize dramatic irony in the opening of a novel?
See how Laura Dave uses our knowledge of the novel's hook to delay gratification, increase suspense, and turn readers into sleuths.
How can a single point-of-view novel include multiple voices?
See how Casey McQuiston uses fictionalized primary materials to bring additional voices into I Kissed Shara Wheeler.
What can dialogue do?
Learn the techniques Casey McQuiston uses to maximize the impact of dialogue in I Kissed Shara Wheeler.
How do you hook a reader?
How do you engage and disrupt genre tropes to hook your readers?
How do you make omniscient narration fresh and modern?
Is there a place for omniscient narration, associated closely with nineteenth-century novels, in a twenty-first-century literary landscape dominated by limited narration?
How do you establish setting in historical fiction?
Learn the techniques Lauren Groff uses to introduce readers to a distant historical setting in Matrix.
Does your plot need to follow a set structure?
Learn about plot structure and the interplay between internal and external plots through an analysis of Tana French's The Searcher.
How do you get maximum value from setting and description?
Examples from Tana French's The Searcher show how to give your descriptions additional meaning and resonance.