Essential Guide to Writing a Novel

The shark.  Dracula.  Draco Malfoy. Cathy Ames. Annie Wilkes, Hannibal Lecter. Jadis the White Witch. Aren't these villains masterful creations, and don't they keep readers glued to the story? Here are ideas on how we can create wonderful--is that the right word?--villains. Also, we can keep our first-person narrator from being off-puttingly self-referential.

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Every element of our story should add interest, including the settings.  What if--because of the plot or characters--we must place a scene in an otherwise dull place?  We can juice it up. We can make it lively and fascinating. Here is how the masters do it.

Every element in our story should contribute to entertaining the reader including our settings.  We can replace our dull settings with fascinating locations, and here's how to do it.  Also: what's wrong with this sentence? Running along the street, the purse bounced against her leg. It's a funny dangling modifier. Funny if it doesn't appear in our story. Here are thoughts...

Almost all successful fiction writers are close observers.  We can teach ourselves to be close observers, and use those observations in our characters and settings.  And here are examples of close observations from the masters, those small details that bring their stories to vivid life.

Novels that endure not only have bold plots but are also beautifully written.  Here are techniques on how to make our sentences shine.  Also: should we write our first chapter first and our last chapter last (as does John Grisham) or should we write the chapters and scenes out of order (as did Margaret Mitchell)?

Here is a 20-episode master class on fiction writing—a st...