For writers, what is the hardest part of a novel? Maybe it’s page 1 and page 400–and many big chunks in between. Some books go like that....

Call it a light bulb moment. The moment when I put together two subsets of character and plot, to realize why most novels fail. First...

How do stories come to a writer? Usually they don’t arrive whole cloth, with clarity and stunning originality. Sometimes stories don’t...

People shake their heads in bemused wonder. How do you get a novel written? How can it possibly be done, given how–well, long it is?...

Is your story riding a powerful concept, occupied by empathetic characters, solidly written–and falling a bit flat? One aspect of the...