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| Introduction | p. 1 |
| The Craft | |
| The Philosophy of Plot | p. 4 |
| The Plot Thickens | p. 13 |
| What I Stole From the Movies | p. 22 |
| The Fifty-Page Dash | p. 32 |
| Find Your Novel's Missing Links | p. 40 |
| Don't Just Conclude the Plot ... Nail the Landing | p. 52 |
| Who's Afraid of Point of View? | p. 66 |
| Creating Four-Dimensional Characters | p. 80 |
| Seven Tools for Talk | p. 91 |
| The Art | |
| Mastering Fiction's First Rule | p. 101 |
| What Your Story Says | p. 114 |
| Killer-Diller Details Bring Fiction to Life | p. 121 |
| Sense and Sensuality | p. 130 |
| Why True-Life Stories Often Don't Make Good Fiction | p. 139 |
| Fiction's Connecting Link: Emotion | p. 149 |
| Location, Location, Location: Depicting Character Through Place | p. 160 |
| The More and Less of Writing Humorous Fiction | p. 177 |
| The Process | |
| How to Start | p. 184 |
| The Use of the Journal in Writing a Novel | p. 193 |
| Pump Up Your Creativity | p. 204 |
| Breaking Through Writer's Block | p. 209 |
| "Murder Your Darlings" | p. 215 |
| A Four-Step Plan for Revision | p. 220 |
| Twenty-One Tweaks to a Better Tale | p. 228 |
| What to Do About Criticism | p. 235 |
| The Genres | |
| Literary or Commercial? | p. 249 |
| Writing the World of Fantasy | p. 255 |
| Once Upon a Character | p. 259 |
| Innovation in Horror | p. 270 |
| The Who in Whodunits | p. 279 |
| Writing Suspense That'll "Kill" Your Readers | p. 286 |
| Keeping Them in Suspense | p. 293 |
| Inside Christian Fiction | p. 303 |
| The Basics of Romance | p. 310 |
| The Marketplace | |
| The Search Begins: Finding Agents and Editors | p. 326 |
| To Fee or Not to Fee | p. 338 |
| "Study the Market!" | p. 345 |
| Commanding Book Proposals: The Rejection Slip's Greatest Enemy | p. 351 |
| Producing a Knockout Novel Synopsis | p. 358 |
| Marketing Your Novel: The Ten Commandments | p. 366 |
| Understanding the Digital Revolution in Five Easy Steps | p. 376 |
| The Interviews | |
| Margaret Atwood: "As a Writer, You Must Do What Beckons to You" | p. 383 |
| Seven Questions with Maeve Binchy | p. 388 |
| A Conversation With Tom Clancy | p. 391 |
| Interview With Elizabeth George | p. 394 |
| Eight Questions With David Guterson | p. 398 |
| Gish Jen: "You Never Get Bored" | p. 402 |
| Jerry B. Jenkins: Left Behind Series | p. 409 |
| A Conversation With Tony Hillerman | p. 413 |
| Terry McMillan: "Everything I Write Is About Empowerment" | p. 416 |
| Find Identity With Joyce Carol Oates | p. 424 |
| Finding Creativity With James Patterson | p. 428 |
| A Journey With Anne Rivers Siddons | p. 431 |
| Updike: Still More to Say | p. 434 |
| "Whatever Works, Works": Kurt Vonnegut on Flouting the Rules of Fiction | p. 439 |
| Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved. |
